I carefully manage my weight since I used to be obese. I tend to eat a lot of the same things.
Typical day during the work week:
B - Trader Joe’s fat free Greek yogurt with honey, berries (fresh if they are affordable, frozen if fresh is too expensive)
L - I take salad to lunch almost every day. I made them 5 at a time on Sunday. I have favorite different types of salad and they are usually pretty elaborate. One of my favorites: crisp romaine, shredded red cabbage, shredded carrot, mandarin oranges, edamame, red onion, grilled chicken breast, Trader Joe’s spicy peanut vinaigrette, a few crunchy wontons on top.
S - fruit (usually an orange, mangoes/cherries/watermelon if they are in season and reasonable)
S - string cheese, pickles
S - usually have a cup of coffee with no sugar added cocoa packet stirred in
D - Last night I made a healthy home made pizza with Boboli whole wheat crust, spicy marinara sauce, kalamata olives, pepperocini, red onion, sun dried tomato, spinach, a little fat free feta cheese
When I’m at school, I don’t eat breakfast or lunch because I sleep instead. Supper consists of whatever is served the meal hall, raw vegetables and pudding and cookies for dessert. Lately my late night snack has been a bowl of Cream of Wheat although depending on what I have in my fridge it could be yogurt or applesauce or something like that.
When I’m home it means I’m on vacation, so I don’t wake up early enough to consider my first meal “breakfast”. I’ll usually have a sandwich or leftovers of some kind when I wake up, fruit and other snacks throughout the day, then supper varies wildly since my mom likes to cook and I never know what she’s going to come up with.
If I’m staying at my best friend’s house, we eat at one of these places for lunch and supper (once again, we don’t get up early enough for breakfast): her parents’ restaurant, McDonald’s, Subway, the Chinese place over the border or to the grocery store for prefab salads or frozen food. And I wonder why I’m fat and have a gallstone the size of my fist.
I’m trying to lose some weight, so trying to keep a pretty close eye on what I eat.
I make up a casserole pan or big pot of something, usually on Sunday. During the week I eat basically the same thing every day:
Breakfast is a 1/2 c quick oatmeal with honey or a 1/2 turkey bacon and fat free cream cheese sandwich.
Midmorning is some Baked Lays barbequed chips (crisps) – lucky for me, my favorite chips anyway.
Lunch is a Lean Cuisine (different entree every day) and 1 c of baby carrots.
Midafternoon is an medium apple, or a banana or some other fruit or veg.
Dinner is a serving of whatever I made over the weekend, and a serving of veggies (frozen mixed veg, or a salad, or a veggie sidedish I make at home).
Usually by Thursday I’m sick of whatever I made the last weekend, so I get a pizza or something. That will give me four lunches/dinners (2 pieces with veg or salad). The rest of the week/over the weekend I finish the pizza/takeout and the entree, and start again with a different entree on Sunday.
If I go out, I throw the program out the window, though I’m trying not to have more than 2 beers or glasses of wine while out, and I’m off sweets, don’t eat them for any reason (not even my birthday) until I’m back where I want to be.
Breakfast: A cup of coffee with sugar and lots of milk. Maybe a packaged red-bean paste roll, a couple steamed pork rolls, or a few bites of leftover dinner if it’s around.
Lunch: These days it’s often a fruit smoothie (a few tangerines, an apple, a banana, a kiwi, and some milk.) But just as often I’ll have a pack of sesame saltines and a can of soda. A couple times a week I go out for noodles or dumplings.
Dinner: Yummy Chinese food. The classic menu would be sweet-and-sour eggplant, peanuts, tomato-and-egg soup and twice fried pork (but we eat pretty small portions of each, and I usually pass on the rice.). If I’m lazy, I’ll have street food- either a Chinese burrito (a large pancake with an egg on top, stuffed with pickled vegetables, crunchy tofu and a sweet sauce) or some fried dumplings and fried potatoes. About once a week I end up at a multi-course banquet, and about once a week I go to duck, bean and bamboo hot pot. Now and then I cook a vegetable-cream soup or a vegetable curry.
Snacks: Usually a pack of saltine and a soda. Or a small bag of chips. Or whatever fruit I’ve managed to accumulate during the day. Or a few piece s of candy. I don’t do a ton of snacking since buying snacks means going up and down four flights of stairs and maybe some walking.
Looking at this, it seems like I eat pretty small amounts of pretty unhealthy food. Hmm. I guess it works for me!
Breakfast is always 1/2 cup oatmeal + enough milk/soy milk to make it stick together, but not be liquid + either a banana or apples and fresh cranberries + 1 teaspoon mild olive oil (yes, I know - but it’s good!)
Lunch is letovers either from dinner the night before or from leftovers I stored in the freezer
Afternoon snack varies - sometimes tea made with milk/soy milk instead of water, or plain yogurt with frozen fruit thawed into it, or a piece of fruit. Recently I’ve been in the habit of also having some chocolate or a cookie.
I’m always trying to cook new recipes, so dinner varies widely. I have been on the WW plan for years (maintaining goal weight, not losing!), so it’s whole grains, lean meats, veggies, healthy oils.
I’m not your mother, and I am sure you are well aware, but that is not sufficient nutrition to be healthy.
As for me, I eat different stuff every day. But I have hot, strong tea with milk every morning, usually with peanut butter toast.
I don’t have a daily routine diet–maybe if I did, food would be more boring and lose some of its allure. Lunch is leftovers from dinner, or I may cook chicken and veg on the weekend to take to work. I am into soup in a big way lately, heavy on the veggies. Trying to eat more healthily, upping my quotient of fruit/vegetables so there’s no room for potato chips, etc.
Dinner is different, too. Anything from soup, pastas, chicken/vegetable, tuna melts on bagels, all kinds of stuff!
Breakfast is usually several eggs (3 or 4) with some kind of cheese, and coffee with cream.
Alternates include flaxmeal hot cereal or very occasionally a bowl of Hi-Lo cereal, with whole milk and cream.
Lunch is often roasted chicken thighs, if I’ve done a batch that week, or maybe just yogurt (with protein powder and peanut butter mixed in) or maybe leftovers if there’s anything interesting in the fridge. Sometimes a low-carb quesadilla or two.
Dinner is most often either Dreamfield’s pasta with veggies, or some kind of protein (a Bubba burger, a veggie burger, some shrimp, some chicken) with a veg or two on the side. Usual veggies are spinach (either creamed or garlicky) or green beans. If the dish calls for a “starch” I make it out of cauliflower, either shredded into rice or pureed to make “fauxtatoes”. We also do roasted cauliflower a lot. In the summer, a big spinach salad with hard-boiled egg, bacon, Almond Accents, artichoke hearts, cheese—whatever is in the fridge—is often the main meal.
Usually a cup of decaf with cream after dinner. Sometimes a sugar-free dessert that I’ve made. Often a few squares of sugar-free chocolate.
My current diet, as I’m trying to lose 30 or 40 pounds (and I don’t mean “diet” in that sense- more like a lifestyle change):
Breakfast: A PowerBar or similar high-protein bar, and a yogurt.
Snack: A banana and a handful of nuts, such as almonds.
Lunch: A salad with canned tuna, salmon, or chicken, garbanzo beans, and some other vegetable, like broccoli, carrots, bell peppers, etc. A serving of sugar-free applesauce or canned or fresh fruit.
Snack: A handful of Triscuits with cheese melted or hummus on them, or some other such high-protein snack. I want my peanut butter back.
Supper: A normal dinner, easy on the carbs, calories, and fat, such as turkey meatloaf or spaghetti with wholewheat pasta, vegetables.
I have been eating like this for two weeks, with only water to drink, and I’ve lost 3 pounds! Yay?
I used to be obese and I tend to eat the same things every day too. It’s easier than counting calories all the time, and less tempting.
Breakfast is a small bowl of whole grain cereal with fruit and a little nonfat milk. I don’t eat it until I’ve been awake for an hour or 2 and had half a pot of coffee, worked out, and then I wait another hour or so.
Midmorning is usually a small nonfat yogurt or piece of lowfat cheese and some fruit. Snacks don’t get to go over 100 calories.
Lunch is always a big salad with fresh greens and whatever assorted veggies are around, and some kind of soy or vegetable protein mixed in. If there’s leftover chicken I use some of that instead.
Mid-afternoon is usually some sort of whole grain cracker or flatbread with some lowfat cheese and some chopped up vegetable or herb. I have a cup of coffee or 2 with my partner when he gets home and I only use nonfat milk.
Dinner is protein and a lot of vegetables. It’s usually chicken, seafood or some sort of soy protein.
If I’m really hungry later I eat one of those South Beach granola bars that are only 100 calories.
When we go out to eat I don’t go nuts but I eat what I want without worrying about it. We don’t go out that often and I can’t eat enough at once sitting to do all that much damage.
Breakfast - a FiberOne bar scarfed down in my car plus coffee with milk in it. I eat a piece of fruit once I get to work if I remembered to bring one.
Snack - if I have time, usually a vegetable and sometimes a type of whole grain or some almonds. Usually, it’s cucumbers or carrots.
Lunch - whatever I ate the night before or half a peanut butter sandwich. If it’s what I ate the night before, it’s usually a vegetarian Indian dish. Last week, I had palak paneer (spinach with cheese cubes) one day, an eggplant curry another and chana masala (chickpeas) Friday.
Snack - whatever I have leftover in my lunch bag, probably some fruit and nuts.
Dinner - Either veggie Indian food I cooked during the weekend with brown rice or homemade chapatis (flatbread) or something easy (roast chicken bought at the grocery, scrambled eggs with salsa and toast, etc.).
My husband loves dessert and often tries to get me to eat ice cream and brownie at night, but he usually brings it up so late, I’m able to refuse. But not always.
Breakfast: either two eggs and buttered toast with coffee or steel cut oatmeal with maybe 2 sausage links (I tried to make myself eat the Morningstar soy “sausage” and it just…no.)
Snack: Banana
Lunch: A Luna bar and some water
Snack: Another banana and another Luna bar
Dinner: After spending all day eating more or less healthily, I will have three helpings of whatever I cooked and wash it down with a beer or three.
I’m great with the setup but terrible with the follow-through.
Note: I am not strictly on a diet of any sort, I’m just trying to be aware of healthy eating habits and prevent myself from needing one.
Breakfast: oatmeal or fruit and yogurt or an egg boiled or scrambled with a biscuit and some butter/preserves
Lunch: a sandwich (egg, cheese, turkey, or pb+j) with no more than 5 Pringles and maybe another piece of fruit. Wheat bread, very little mayo, add spinach or whatever fresh greens are around. Not on the pb+j though. (Smart Balance peanut butter is disgusting. FYI.) Or leftovers.
Snack: a granola or fruit bar, yogurt, or pizza (I work in a pizza place) or sometimes cheese and crackers.
Dinner: sometimes a typical plate with two thirds veggies, a roll and some chicken. Sometimes I make stir-fry with tofu or chicken and eat a bowl of that. Occasionally I have Tuna Helper.
No snack cakes, bagged chips or bags of candy allowed. No fast food (including Subway). I may have one candy bar or equivalent per week, one soda every two weeks. I use only 2% milk and cheese, and I drink mostly fruit juice or punch and herbal teas and water (with Crystal Light or plain).
I’m trying to get into healthier eating habits after seriously slacking and have found I can’t stand a lack of variety, so it changes often, but here’s what I had today.
Breakfast: Oatmeal with raisins, dried cranberries, wheat bran, and brown sugar. Water to drink.
Lunch: Salad with lettuce, cabbage, onions, carrots, tomato, Parmesan, diced ham and pesto. Water to drink.
Dinner: Rice and lentils with sauteed veggies in olive oil and a spicy peanut sauce. More water!
Snacks: Diet Coke and two Ding Dongs, spread throughout the day.
Other days, I’ll have soup, sandwiches, mini vegetarian pizza, or various other random goodies. On days when I really want to treat myself, I’ll have whole wheat pancakes or waffles for breakfast. On a day when I’m doing more than just loafing about like a good for nothing bum, I’ll usually get some carrot sticks, nuts and fruit in for snacks instead of the Ding Dongs. The Ding Dongs were a glorious and rare (I don’t think I’ve had them since I was a kid!) treat.
Yeah, I couldn’t help but think while reading the rest of the replies “wow, I can’t believe so many people are so regimented on their daily meals.”
Today, I ate a McDonald’s Quarter Pounder w/ Cheese combo for breakfast/lunch, we ordered pizza for dinner and I ate roughly a medium chicken, sausage, mushroom, and onion pizza, and I ate an apple about an hour ago.
Yesterday, I ate a chicken caesar salad at IKEA for lunch, and made some kind of chicken with penne noodles for dinner. Oh, and two apples.
Thursday… hmm… oh, I made myself an egg sandwich for breakfast – two eggs on white toast, had a ham and cheese sandwich with tomato for lunch, Chipotle for dinner, and a late night snack consisting of another ham sandwich with some Pringles.
ETA: Oh, beverages! Who can forget beverages? I’m constantly drinking something. Preferred weapons of choice are sweet tea (I’m from the south, so it’s gotta be really sweet), Mountain Dew (can I get an IV drip?), and water. If I’m out somewhere, I’ll get a SoBe. Nectar of the gods, for sure.
Before that, I can’t remember. I could pull up my checking account statement and get a rough idea, but it really varies day to day. I’m Leaffan, only two inches taller.
