Hi guys
As promised here is a break down of what I normally do for the rest of my meals. More often than not, my lunches are actually just left overs so these ideas work for both.
It is a bit long - so I hope I don't put anyone to sleep! Feel free to share your meal ideas in the comments.
The best guide to what you should have on your plate is 1/4 protein like meat, 1/4 starchy foods / carbs and 1/2 vegetables.
I stick to this and life is great...and I'm always full. I haven't been hungry in a long time!
My average dinner following this guideline and the portion sizes as below, is between 300 - 400 calories for the meal (1390 allowance per day), and this still lets me have a treat afterwards.
Vegetables
This is a no brainer.. you can basically have as much as you want of basically anything you want..but this section excludes potatoes / kumara / sweet potato / pumpkin etc.
I love courgettes, carrots, baby spinach, green salads, tomatoes, mushrooms and cucumbers. Baby bok choy stir fried with garlic is sooo yummy!
I find it the nicest and easiest to have fresh vegetables, but frozen veggies are also good provided you don't over cook them.
Starch / Carbs
My staples are:
- 1/2 cup of cooked couscous (1/4 cup dry) - this is just the right amount to give me the satisfaction of eating something a bit more fulfilling than just veggies! A great idea to add flavour is to sprinkle in various herbs / spices (italian herbs, cajun, morrocan seasoning, garlic etc) and wee bit of salt to taste.
Couscous is literally the easiest thing to make..it takes 4 minutes from start to finish!
- 1/2 cup of cooked rice (brown or white) (approx 1/4 dry) - very similar to couscous of course, I find it a little bit more versatile so this is one of my regulars. It is especially easy to whip up in the rice cooker.
- 200 grams of boiled potatoes / kumara seasoned with a little bit of garlic flakes, salt and a dash of milk, then 'smashed'..basically just stirred around with a fork so it looks like really rough mashed potatoes.
Each of these 3 options average at around 130 calories.
Protein / Meat
I LOVE chicken, especially chicken breast and chicken tenderloins. Plus it is so versatile and easy to make each meal different. The amount you use here is important, and I tend to stick to approx 120 grams of chicken per serving.
Some of my favourite methods are:
- Lightly pan frying (dash of olive oil) with cajun or bbq seasoning
- Marinading in a satay, honey soy or other asian sytle sauce
- Cooking with a tin of natural seasoned tinned tomatoes e.g. italian tomatoes, mexican tomatoes
- With a homemade mushroom sauce which is about 100grams mushrooms and a small 120ish gram pottle of lite sour cream stirred through and simmered till all of it cooks through.
* I generally stay away from very creamy sauces, cheese, creamy dressings.
I always buy chicken fresh, and try to buy the correct serving size, or at least when I get home divide it up so I have set portion sizes
Whatever other meat I buy, each serving will be still around the 120 gram mark, and I make sure I buy lean cuts of meat like sirloin beef steaks, lean pork, lean mince (love this for meatballs!) and also fresh fish.
I tend to keep everything pretty simple and just use light seasoning or marinades.
When I am super lazy I absolutely love having some eggs on toast (similar as what I mentioned in yesterdays breakfast post), and if we ever do opt for fast food, we will grab a pita from Pita Pit (NZ) without cheese/high fat sauce, and it still only comes in around 400 calories :) YAY! I love Pita Pit!
Lunches
Lunches are pretty easy as I just use the left over meat from the night before, or if I am super lazy, a 90 gram can of tuna in spring water.
Then throw this together with the rice or cous cous, a cup of baby spinach and a few other salady items and voila! A filling and healthy lunch :)
In winter I also love to have a 450 gram tin of soup like for the kiwi followers of mine the Watties Very Special range. They don't have artificial additives / numbers like alot of the other brands, and are nice and filling with a lot of flavour choices. Calorie content ranges from around 200 - 300.
I usually have it with a piece of toast.
Dessert
Always the difficult one. I have a sweet tooth..a very bad one haha. So throughout my journey it has been very important for me to still be able to eat 'something sweet'. I used to easily get through a bag of lollies, half a pack of tim tams or other biscuits, large chocolate bars or 1/3 to 1/2 of an entire block of chocolate...ice cream etc .
Once I started logging on MFP, and exercising, when I saw that I didn't have that many calories left for the day, it encouraged me to go outside and do some sort of exercise, even if just so I could have my dessert after dinner. That's how it started anyway, and exercising is something I now enjoy, and its just a bonus that I can have treats. I still have to be responsible though, and make the right choices. I now also realise, working my butt off for 30 minutes, is not worth another biscuit.
To give you some ideas though, for dessert I normally have:
- approx 80 grams of low fat ice cream or fruit sorbet (I try to go with as natural ones as possible, I love Tip Top Light Hokey Pokey as it isn't pumped full of artificial crap). I stay away from chocolate ice cream unless I've been really good!
Sometimes I add some fruit like strawberries or half of a banana to spruce this up further :)
- A healthy ambrosia... Approx 120 grams of any kind of Yoghurt, 3 or 4 marshmallows halfed, a single meringue smashed up, 1 serving of fruit of any kind ...Mix. It is so yummy.
- 25 grams of plain, darker or milk chocolate (1 row on a block). If I've really earned it, I will have another half or full row ;)
- Baked fruit with a smaller serving of ice cream or yoghurt
- A nice winter treat is a guilt free hot chocolate using a chocolate powder thats sweetened with Stevia (natural) and a cup of low fat milk. Sometimes I add a bit of cocoa to make it more bitter or add cinnamon and a tiny pinch of chilli powder for a spicy hot chocolate.
I tend to stay away from baked goods, pastries, cheesecakes and very creamy desserts. If I do ever opt for these, say when I've gone out for lunch or dinner..I will halve it..or make sure I do extra exercise to cover it off! :)
For the past 8.5 months I've been following these guidelines, I've very rarely gone over my calorie allowance, whether thats because I've done exercise or not. I do have down days every now and again, where I go over, but I figure once in a blue moon, ain't gonna make me tubby again!
Sticking to these guidelines has also meant I never go hungry, I still eat lots of nice clean and healthy foods, I have balanced meals and still get to have treats. Seeing the numbers with logging everything definitely keeps me accountable for my actions too :)
That's it! In the future I will share some yummy recipes that I come across :)
Any questions...please ask :)
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