I know everyones calorie intake is different. But if you could eat around say, 1900 calories a day, to maintain your weight. (That's apparently mine) Then what should I be looking for?

Yesterday I had one of those frozen meals you can get, in the healthy section. It's called "Lean Cruisene" and apparently they're really good brands that taste nice. It was rice with a few veggies and chicken terekyie. It was around 400 calories. It filled me up and I didn't need anything else for a snack afterwards. I am unsure of how many calories are in dinner. But roughly, if you want to loose weight do you look for breakfasts/lunches that are around 300 or 400 calories?

My breakfast is usually around 300-350 calories. I typically have a Slim Fast shake with a banana and ice. It's one of the few things I can have first thing in the morning that doesn't send my blood sugar into a nose dive later.

For lunch and dinner, I mix it up. Usually I aim for 500 calories in one meal and 300-400 in the other. I eat a lot of Lean Cuisine or Smart Ones because I'm the only one in my house that's trying to eat right. If I'm eating "normal" food, I just try to limit my portions. Like I'll have a small scoop of rice or pasta, about 3 to 4 oz of meat and try to go heavy on the veggies.

I also snack during the day. Right now, my morning snack are mini rice cakes. I eat about 180 calories worth of those. In the afternoons, I have an apple. At home, I snack on small amounts of nuts, raisins, etc. I've been drinking 60 to 80 oz of water a day, and I do have some Diet Dr Pepper when I am home at night.

When I started working out and all, I was really strict with my calories and counted every one of 'em. I aimed to stay between 1200 to 1600 calories a day. Now that I work out 6 to 7 days a week and all, I just aim to be under 2000 calories on most days. I don't count my calories as such, but I could give you a pretty good (and honest) run down of how many calories I've eaten during the day.

The frozen meals are really good for strict calorie and portion control, and some of them are so yummy! My fave right now is the Smart Ones quesadillas - both the Fiesta and the Chicken and Cheese ones. They are meant as snacks, but at 440 calories for 2 of them, I usually just make that and a bottle of water my lunch.

In any case, you should play around and find what works for you. There are lots of people who have had great results with certain diets or ways of eating and working out, but it might not work for you or be something you can stick with in the long term.

And congrats on your loss this week! I know it wasn't what you were hoping for, but remember it's still a loss!

Thanks for the congrats too btw I'm suprised someone actually noted it, lol.

Ok well picture yourself in my situation...

I'm partnered up and living at my parters parents place. He's got two brothers as well. So basicly a house full of guys and two females, me and his mother. We don't eat healthy. It's alot of steak as you know guys love their meat. I wasn't much of a meat eater.

During the day everyone is at work and im at home, I cant cook becuase Ive never really needed to. Theres never really much to eat because I simply canot cook and i'll probebly burn the house down. So usualy im rotating between packets of pasta, toasted sandwhiches and party pies which I currently have in the freezer. I'm sick of them all. So im thinking of just buying a few lean cruisine things every now and then to break things up. They're expensive little things just for one meal though so I cant have it often.

I'm not usually a breakfast eater, but I know its the most important meal of the day. I'll have to start eating it.

So lets say then i'll be eating (at most):

Breakfast: 400 calories
Lunch: 500 calories
Dinner: (since it varies).. 1000 calories..
Snacks: 500 or so maybe throughout the day, that includes drinks if its not water.

I dont always have snacks. I guess it depends of what there is in the house. If its a nice filling lunch I wont need a snack. Right now I just had 1 hot cross bun with butter, its nice. And it filled me up. So I should be right for now.

NB: When you look at that I know it may seem alot of calories, but seriously its above esitmation, I may only have 300 calories for lunch. Keep in mind right now I dont eat breakfast, so if I had breakfast I probebly wont have that many snacks during the day.

hmm.... i tend to graze until i hit lunch (which is late for me since i'm busy during the day.) my calorie intake is usually at about 400-500 until about 3:30. Lunch is usually about 300-400 calories... I don't like to eat too much because I head into the studio around 5:30 and I don't like dancing on a full tummy!

AFTER the studio though, dinner is usually around 500 calories ...dessert... a good 200 or so. i usually end my day with around 1500-1700 calories... which is more than my suggested intake...but not too bad.

that's why i have to work out!

Keep in mind that your suggested calorie intake is only a suggestion, there are many other factors other than weight that go into how much you should eat. I usually aim for about anywhere between 1500-2100 a day with 1800 being the norm, which puts me in a deficit. I use a rough estimate of 500 per meal and 100 per snack, 3 of each a day, and that puts me at my target.

I use it as a rough guideline though, if I have a particularly big lunch (I'm a big teriyaki fan so I usually give in to that once a week) I don't scale back too harshly for the rest of the day; I think that having a high spike and low spike are harder on your body than just having one high spike now and then (I've actually read that a high calorie meal/day can increase your metabolism for up to 24 hours after). Plus, more calories = more muscle, so that's not too bad, and if you're smart about what you take in, and it's not just empty calories, then it's not a terrible thing to eat more... I'm a firm believer that the quality of your calories is far more important than the quantity (although they're both important).

One thing that I do for big lunches (eg. teriyaki) is I'll eat half, or just a little more than half of it at lunch and the other half as my "snack", so rather than having a huge meal blowing my intake up for the day, it's more manageable.

I like to cook but I just do not have the time. Luckily there are lot of restaurants and eateries around my area which offer small portions. I'm basically snacking throughout the day (mainly fruits) and have a daily calorie intake of 900-1150. My job is physically so not challenging (deskjob) so I'm doing fine. I try to workout around 3x week.

As a pesto-vegetarian I get all my protein from seafood and milkproducts. Luckily sushi is easier to portion than teriyaki and you do not need to cook it. Har Har.

Thanks clifford for your input, so basicly just cut the meal in half :P

I beleive this:

Get a chocolate cake, Cut it in half, then you can eat twice as much!

~ Majorie Daws, Fat Fighters. - Little Britain.

Lol I love that quote.

Thanks too for your answer dice six

Be VERY careful with those. Although they are better than the regular stuff, the sodium is CRAZY! I started using the dailyplate.com to track all my food because it is more specific and I could not BELIEVE how much sodium I was taking in (almost 250% of the daily value!!!) so we started cutting back on those and cooking with fresh ingredients.



Mmmmmmmmm.........sushi....nothing compares to the sushi I had in Melbourne, Australia. Nothing in the U.S. compares.

i consume loads and loads of sodium at the moment. because i don't have any health problems at the moment, i'm not very worried about it. my diet will change radically in about 4 months which should take care of any potential problems from consuming double the reco'd sodium intake for like 6 months....

I love sushi!!

I've been trying to stick to 1750 Cal/day which is easier said than done for me, especially with 6 days of intense work outs every week. Sometimes I'm just hungrier than 1750 Cal, but then sometimes I only have 1600. So this is how I break it up for 1750 Cal/day:

Breakfast: 400 (~6:20)
AM Snack: 100 (~9:00)
Lunch: 400 (~11:30)
PM Snack 1: 100 (~2:30)
PM Snack 2: 200 (about 30 min before working out so varies between 4:30 and 5:30)
Dinner: 550 (~7 to 7:30)

Oh, and why don't you just try cooking? Get a really simple recipe and just go for it. If you mess it up, it's not the end of the world. Since you've never tried cooking, you may actually be good at it, you don't know. Give it a shot!!

nothing says fun like a kitchen full of smoke! lol...I've been cooking for a while. Even those who can cook make mistakes (like putting on the wrong burner and toasting up an oven mitt..mmm....burnt cotton...LOL!!)

Yes, toasted oven mitt is not a good thing. I've also melted plastic containers by setting them on or too close to the stove. Also not a good smell.

i stopped aiming for calories after about a week of watching what i ate. you get a pretty good idea of what you're doing to yourself. plus mostly i eat meats cut at the grocer and vegetables. i guess i could look up nutritional information...

but i probably hit around 350 calories and eat six times or so a day.

I was cooking in an unfamiliar kitchen, making potatoes au gratin w/ ham, and was looking for flour to make a roux... what was given me was 10x (confectioner's sugar), which I didn't realize until tasting... Wow that was rich...

thankfully someone with a sweet tooth came over and ate most of it

i eat 800 more calories than the suggested amount by traineo just to maintain my weight so i wouldnt go by the calories traineo recommends.(and im not at all muscular) everyones body's are different. i eat 4-5 times a day and my calorie ranges vary.

I didn't go by what traineo suggests.... I didn't know traineo gave you that calculation?

I went to various websites and they all said suggested calorie intake is around 1900.



I have tried cooking, I can cook sausages, pasta, bacon... etc... all that easy stuff. And that's the problem, everytime I cook something because I dont cook often something bad always happens and it doesnt taste nice, so I thought why bother. I've been meaning to make chicken snitzel for a while now, I know a good receipe for it but I havent gotten around to buying the ingrediants - thats the pain when you need to cook. I dont have a car so I cant really go down whenever I want to get ingrediants, I need to do it in advance.

I hate sushi, I hate seafood.. eggs... mushrooms.... I think thats just about it. Oh and .. spicy food, I cant eat alot of it. Only if its mild.

Gee, you are missing out on the good stuff. But so do I according to all those meat-eaters.

I dont like much meat either, I'll eat it. I do get it alot.. but I prefer chicken

Mmmm all this talk about sushi is making me want some.

I aim for as many as my combustion chamber will allow.

ditto... that's officially on the short list for this weekend now

Mmmm...sushi...count me in

I think in terms of grams of protein, rather than calories. I try and have the gramitude come as clean as possible, but I am not obsessed with hitting a number. We should endeavor to not fixate on calories.


I think the 200-250 grams weigh in at about 2600 - 3000 calories, but I honestly have no idea.




Hey now, we have good stuff here! You just have to look for it...and it isn't cheap.

Yeah you should be really careful with those frozen lean cuisines and smart ones. They are LOADED with sodium and the carbs are outrageous. They have a lot of bad in them too. But they are convenient when you are on the go I understand. I do not eat them. I will make some at home and take it with me before eating those. But I can see if you are in a hurry or something its a quick grab. Just be careful.