Urgent diet question!!

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BlackroseUK

New member
Please can someone help me? I'm gonna post an intro about myself and my weight loss soon but ATM I'm really panicked and need advice.
I've managed to get myself down to an ideal weight and bmi, but i have this very unhealthy obsession with calories, fats etc.
I ate a store bought tasty tucker brown sandwich today which was tuna Mayo and salad. I eat them every now and then. Maybe every few weeks.
It doesn't have any calories or fats percentages/grams on the package and everything else I eat does.

Do you think this is too much to eat in one day? Taking into account fats and cals etc...I'm not thinking of cals so much cos I do half hour to an hour of exercise a day.

Breakfast: few sips of tropicana juice and banana.
Dinner: store bought tuna Mayo salad brown bread sandwich and two golden syrup tescos pancakes. They're low in fat and 80cals each.

That's what I've had so far. I got a bottle of water by me at all times though I can't seem to drink enough.
I read there can be as much as 500 cals in the sandwich and more than my intake of total and sat fats.

So I can't eat anything else now today and I've already gone over ny grams of fat intake with that sandwich alone?

I did 15mins of exercise after breakfast. I'm gonna do another hlf hour later. Normally I split an hour into two hlf hours or just do half hour straight each day and usually do 100-200 crunches too. I'm giving crunches a miss today as I'm feeling tired and wanna relax.
Basically I feel guilty after everything I eat. I havnt a very good understanding of nutritinal values but i do make/ use my own fillings for some pitta breads and sandwiches etc.
I am not one for sweets like candies etc but I do love desserts, choc and puddings etc.
So even though there's still sugar and sweetners in them, I love to eat weight watchers chocolate mousse/mini cakes/mini Swiss rolls/mandarin cheesecakes and chocolate pudding and tescos light choice stuff.
Another favourite is muller rice light.
I do limit myself to breakfast, exercise, dinner, tea and one dessert a day of my choice (usually out of the above). I also like grapes and bananas.

I wanted a meal later on too (dunno what yet) and a weight watchers chocolate begian mousse or something afterwards. But now I can't cos of the sandwich??
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Seems like you are doing pretty well. Your portion control is awesome. You seem to workout, consistently. Keep it up.

You might try to find a book about nutrition at the library so you don't have to worry so much about what you eat. This can help you learn about what is OK to eat what will add pounds.

Another way to keep yourself in check is to weight yourself everyday at the same time. If you are at your ideal weight, or 1 or 2 lbs. away you don't have too worry for a day.

Good luck and have fun with your husband.
 
Thankyou. So this sandwich woukdnt have been all or over ny fat intake? I can still eat something else later? I still havnt done the other half hr of exercise yet..feelin so down n lazy. :(
 
Blackrose - you're overthinking it. You don't have to be on point with your numbers day in and day out, its an average. Its a targe. If you go over 1 day, go a little under the next day, or really, just forget about it and get back to your number the next day and that little blip is not going to affect a thing.

That being said, I very much doubt you are over on anything today. What you listed for breakfast and dinner looks to be not much more than 750-850 calories. You haven't eaten enough today to gain weight unless you weigh less than 75lbs. a 100lb person would have a maintenance level intake of anywhere from 1200-1600 calories, probably. Maintenance is the point where you don't gain or lose weight, regardless of where the calories come from (protein, fats, or carbs). If you're a little over on fats but you're still under maintenance for your calories, you're not going to gain weight.

How do you pick the amount of calories you eat in a day, or the amount of fats, proteins, or carbs?
 
I look at percentages and add em up.
I know it depends on muscle etc but I am between 54.4-55.5 kg everyday and I'm 26, female and 5foot 5.
 
BlackroseUK said:
I look at percentages and add em up.
I know it depends on muscle etc but I am between 54.4-55.5 kg everyday and I'm 26, female and 5foot 5.
Click to expand...

Here's the deal... the percentages on the package aren't necessarily the right amount for you.

Lets see, so you are ~120-125lbs. If you are completely sedentary and do nothing all day but lay around, your body needs at least 1200-1500 calories just to maintain weight. If you are are active, have a job that keeps you on your feet, exercise regularly, etc, your body might need as much as 2000 calories a day just to maintain weight.

Now, of those calories, you should get a pretty balanced split of calories from fat, protein, and carbs. Or you might choose low fat or low carb. But lets assume balanced is what you're going for. That means roughly 30% of your calories should come from fat.

If your maintenance is at the low end, 30% of 1200 is 360 calories from fat. Each gram of fat has 9 calories, so your target would be 40g of total fat per day, of which you would try to choose the healthier fats rather than the ones that are worse for you.

But if your maintenance is at the high end, 30% of 2000 is 600 calories from fat, or 67g of fat.

Also, maybe you choose a low fat diet. Maybe you only want 20% of your calories to come from fat. That changes the numbers too.

So what I'm trying to tell you is, how much fat your body needs depends on your body, as well as your own choice of how much fat you want. Even if you chose to follow the official government recommendation for how much fat or whatever you should get, the % on the label would still only be valid if you fit the exact mold of the average individual the % are based on.

Further still, its just not important to hit them exactly every day. Its just a bench mark that you hope to average. Being off once by double the amount, or being off by 10-20% even daily isn't going to effect much if you're total calories are where they should be.
 
Thanks guys. I think I might have a tin of Heinz spaghetti. I kbow a whole tin sounds alot and I think it's like 400 odd cals bit it's virtually no sugar and fat.
 
Am being referred to a mental health dietician. It's taking ages.

I know calorie counting and portion watching to a certain extent is smart.
I want to ask something...

If someone is counting every calorie most days, every gram etc and feels guilty after eating anything are they obsessive?
I feel that way. If i don't exercise enough or at all for a day like today I feel guilty. I feel disgusting and fat.
But also I want food all the time! Even when I'm not hungry I want this or that and can't wait for my next meal or breakfast the next day. I make sure I eat three meals a day and don't pig out but I had two many low fat pancakes today and two pink pig sweet candy things. Dunno how much are in the sweets but I feel like im really fat!!
Surely though if I recognise this as a disorder, I'm not starving myself or making myself sick then it's not anorexia like everyone thinks it is? Cos an anorexic wouldn't want food??
 
BlackroseUK said:
Am being referred to a mental health dietician. It's taking ages.

I know calorie counting and portion watching to a certain extent is smart.
I want to ask something...

If someone is counting every calorie most days, every gram etc and feels guilty after eating anything are they obsessive?
I feel that way. If i don't exercise enough or at all for a day like today I feel guilty. I feel disgusting and fat.
But also I want food all the time! Even when I'm not hungry I want this or that and can't wait for my next meal or breakfast the next day. I make sure I eat three meals a day and don't pig out but I had two many low fat pancakes today and two pink pig sweet candy things. Dunno how much are in the sweets but I feel like im really fat!!
Surely though if I recognise this as a disorder, I'm not starving myself or making myself sick then it's not anorexia like everyone thinks it is? Cos an anorexic wouldn't want food??
Click to expand...

I don't know if its obsessive or even a "problem" in the clinical sense of the word, but it is something you have to deal with and work through. No one should feel guilty after eating, at least not no matter what it is they eat. I might feel guilty if I give in and eat something I don't really want or crave just because its there, but I don't feel guilty after eating my normal meals.

This is where I think a little knowledge can help that guilt feeling go away. Know what your maintenance level is and know how many calories to eat to lose weight or maintain, and you won't feel guilty with normal meals. If you go well over calories, you might feel a little guilty, but you can adjust the next day if you want. Its all about averages, over a weekly/monthly time periods. Day to day is really too small a time to affect much.

I'm trying to help my wife with this problem. She's not fat at all, but she has put on 10-20lbs of vanity weight that she's just not happy with. She complains about me losing weight so easily and she can't, even though "she's not eating crap" (her words). She always complains about being fat, and it annoys me because I actually am fat. I try to explain maintenance and counting calories and she says if she counts, she ends up not eating anything, I guess because of guilt. I think if she would just understand how many calories she can eat to lose the weight she wants, she could get over that guilt. I think she is refusing to buy into the whole concept of calories eaten vs. calories burned, though.

As for exercising, yeah I feel guilty if i don't exercise on days I was planning to. A few years ago, it was so bad where I would put off exercising all day, but feel so guilty about it at night that I wouldn't be able to sleep until I got out and went for my run (what I was doing at the time), even if it were midnight. It maybe was a bit obsessive, but ultimately I turned out alright. I didn't need counseling or therapy or anything.
 
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