Dietician - meal plan... how many calories and what will I gain?

Hi all,

I am 5ft 8.5inches, a 27 yr old female and currently weigh 112lbs. I have been seeing a dietician and psychologist for the last 6 months or so (I did take a break from them but recently had a relapse where I lost approx 4lbs so have started seeing them again).

I have decided to go back onto a meal plan for during the week (my weekends are fine eating wise as I am with family or my boyfriend and having people around me encouraging me to eat is helpful but I find it difficult while I am at work and alone to make my own food choices....

The goal I have agreed with my dietician (interim goal) is to gain 8lbs. My goal for next time i see her is to have gained 2lbs (over 2 weeks).

I am not sure how many calories my meal plan is and my dietician has not yet come back to my query on this but I was wondering if anyone could give me an estimate of how many calories I am eating on a weekday based on the below and if (I know it is very dependent on how each individuals body responds) this will help me reach my goal of 2lbs in 2 weeks???

Breakfast: 1/3 cup raw porridge, cooked with 1 cup skim milk and 1tbs honey and sultanas.

Snack: usually one of a) yoghurt, b) english muffin with butter, c) choc chip muesli bar + apple d) sometimes a muffin if i am feeling brave!

Lunch: usually one of a) sandwich/roll with turkey, avocado & salad, b) 2 or 3 sushi hand rolls and sometimes a juice (My dietician tells me to add another snack here but haven't been able to yet and haven't been able to branch into fear foods such as pies or pastas/hot lunches)

Snack: Similar to morning snack

Dinner: usually a pasta dish, tofu/vegetables/egg noodles, meat stir fry with rice, omelette with toast etc

Snack: usually one of a) 2 scoops ice cream in a cone, b) rice pudding, c) small chocolate bar

So any thoughts on calories and also the general content of the meal plan would be appreciated!!!

Also - I am struggling a lot with reducing the ridgidity of my meal plan - i want to be able to be more flexible and spontaneous with food and start to incorporate some of the fear foods i have (e.g. pastries, hot lunches, chocolate during the day etc) but i really really struggle with the guilt around this....

Thank you!!!

Hi. I am not sure the calories of this plan but to me it looks like a starter plan to get you to adjust and then increase. You said you had been seeing them for 6 months prior and I wonder how you were doing? I understand your fears and concerns but only your team and on here can we support you. You must push through the fears. I think right now eating enough to gain the weight is number 1 and then you can work on being less rigid. You said that work and being alone is hard so can you preplan each day and stick to it?I have guilt too but I try to remind myself that is the ed talking. That there is no reason to feel guiilty for taking care and also it is good to enjoy food like cake. It is part of life. The goal is to gain. You can do the things suggested by your nutritionist and though it is scary you can choose to push through those fears. Maybe you can write a plan and then I am sure people here will be able to comment on changes or add ons.

Hi abbi333, thanks for your reply.

The plan I am on at the moment may be a starter plan - I am not sure. I guess this is raising a few questions for me that I need to discuss with my dietician when I see her again next week to really plan out my recovery in relation to food a bit more.

When I first went to the dietician I was actually probably eating more than this and I did put on some weight and got up to around 115lbs but this included some supplements to my diet such as adding milk powder and LSA to cereals and milk drinks and I actually went onto some specialist nutritional canned drinks (I guess similar to ensure?) for a week or so to get things moving up weight wise.

I have since lost weight and gone back to 115lbs but part of this I think is due to muscle mass reduction as I was running around 2-3miles a day at least every second day and have cut that back to only once or maybe twice a week max.

Are you able to give me some background on you? Are you in a similar boat at all? Are you on a meal plan? How have you managed to deal with food fears?

I am so desperate to gain and just get back to normal but it is like there is a massive hill in front of me that I keep trying to climb up and get a bit closer to the top then slip back down for a week or two then go up a bit and then back down...

I am a bit reluctant to write one meal plan as I really want to move away from the ridgidity thing but here is an example of what I ate yesterday and if anyone has feedback on if I should up this or not that would be great!

Breakfast: 1/3 cup raw oats cooked with 1 cup skim milk and 1tbs honey and sultanas.

Snack: tub of low fat yogurt

Lunch: a roast beef, avocado and salad sandwich on rye bread

Snack: choc chip muesli bar and an apple

Dinner: bowl of chicken noodle curry (with light coconut milk and egg noodles)

Snack: 2 scoops ice cream in a cone

Also - I read different things on this forum in relation to including 'fear foods' in meal plans. I am trying to do this but then read things saying it is not a good idea to eat ice cream for dessert every day. My dietician said at this stage if i am enjoying ice cream i should eat it every day and eat a chocolate or two as well.... I don't often manage this though as I feel very guilty!!!

Original Post by eringo2:

My dietician said at this stage if i am enjoying ice cream i should eat it every day and eat a chocolate or two as well.... I don't often manage this though as I feel very guilty!!!

 Your dietician is right, you need calories and you are eating very healthily anyway. It is very good progress to have fear foods and yes you CAN eat some every day. Ice cream has calcium in too, so there, it is healthy

If all you ate was ice cream, you wouldn't be getting your nutrients you need from wholesome food. But you are eating wholesome food, so treats can definitely be added to your diet! Good Luck xx 

Even when I wasn't gaining, I still ate ice cream nearly every day in the summertime and wasn't overweight - about 100 lbs and 5'0, and lightly active. So don't be scared to treat yourself :P

Thanks guys - the reassurance is very helpful!

Any other tips for accepting/challenging fear foods or decreasing rigidity of eating plans? Are you both on meal plans?

Original Post by opeth14:

Even when I wasn't gaining, I still ate ice cream nearly every day in the summertime and wasn't overweight - about 100 lbs and 5'0, and lightly active. So don't be scared to treat yourself :P

that is actually really encouraging to me, too. i'm not there yet so i try not to let it affect me but sometimes i worry about what will happen when i get to the maintaining phase. i know i should just keep eating like normal, but it's a scary thought. so thanks for that comment!

as for the fear foods, this may sound silly but it helped me a lot: i made a poster of what i thought my ED would look like in human form (gaunt, dark and shadowy, hollow features, wearing a black suit, nasty hair and moldy skin, etc.) and i put it up on my wall. then i got a bunch of stickers in the shape of food, and every time i ate a fear food i put the sticker of that food (or something similar) on ED. eating hard things became more of an accomplishment than something to feel guilty about. it's silly and i haven't used it in months, but i still have the poster, and you can hardly see ED anymore underneath all the stickers.

Thanks blueberrylips - the poster sounds like a great idea. It seems like a lot of people on this forum rely on notes, pictures, posters etc - physical items - to help in their recovery. I think this is probably because just trying to work through everything in our minds is quite hard as it is our minds that are trying to keep us in this pattern we are in.

I have started trying to keep a journal to process my irrational thoughts about food or exercise so when i have a thought i write it in my journal then write down the the logical response to this e.g. you shouldn't eat a snack now - you can hold out to dinner: this becomes something like - you need to eat to increase your energy intake and rebuild your body and enjoy whatever you chose to eat whether it be yoghurt and fruit or a yummy cake!

I may dedicate a section of my journal to keeping a record of my fear foods and why i fear them and then rewarding myself by checking them off or using stickers when I can eat them

thanks :)

that's an awesome idea! i did that too. i would sort of write dialogues between my eating disorder and me, and it really helped to separate the irrational thoughts and fears from the truth. i think you're right about physical things helping so much because all of this is in our heads.