HELP! how can i cut down on calories!!! =(

hi guys:

i'm a 5'4' trying to lose weight, but i live in school so it's very hard to control portions...no matter what i do, i always hit 2100+ on daily calorie intake. idealy, i would hope to take in only 1700 calories per day.

 

i've pasted my menus today here, can you guys HELP ME by telling me how i can cut down on calorie please?

 

thank you so much!!!

 

 

edit:

 

i don't know how to paste my menu here, but i've opened it in a google doc:

thanks!!!!!

http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=F.05f3302f -535b-4d69-97f8-e5478bdae2a3

 

 

oh, and i weight 143 lbs right now..i would love to get to 135 lbs by mid-may.

 

thanks in advance!

that link isn't working. so not seeing what your choices are, my first thoughts are:

does your school have menu choices for diabetics or vegitarians? sometimes that can help open up your options. 

how are the salads? watch the dressing. 

are all the meats breaded? or are any just meat? do you get choices between different kinds of meats? fish over red meat, grilled and non-breaded choices over breaded or fried. 

how are you with knowing a serving size? learn what a serving size looks like and work on portion control, "just a half scoop of potatoes please" 

load up on veggies, then protien. go for whole grains if they are offered. 

cut out refined sugars, refined carbs, deserts, pastries, etc. if your still eating any of those.

watch the fat content in dairy. dont use whole milk if they offer 2%, and so on. 

EDIT: Sorry if that all seems obvious, just covering the basics, as im shooting blind until you can find us a new link or something. . . . 

 

thanks!

 

i will try to put it on another way.

 

i have a weakness for cakes and stuff, can you guys tell me how to combat that?

=(

are you logging all your "cakes and stuff"? how many do you eat a day or week? thats # 1. 

then, set a goal, only on friday dinner, or something like that, if it feels like too much to not eat them at all. 

3. sugar is an addiction for lots of us, so sometimes its easier in the long run to just swear off for all refined sugar for a while. and no jam either, cuz its easy to replace one refined sugar for another. 

4. once you decide no desserts, cakes, sweets, cookies, etc., dont put them on your plate! do only the main meal.

then (these are from my own cafeteria experiences in grad school)

• sit with your back to the dessert table. 
  
• if you have to bus your tray and that takes you past the dessert table, enlist the help of some friends, tell them what you're up to, and ask them to bus for you when your will power if feeling low. 
  
• find the people who don't eat dessert and sit with them. 
• is there a fruit out? if so, put an apple, orange, banana, or something on your plate so you can have that for dessert. 
• go for a walk when others get to the dessert part so you aren't tempted. 

if you eat a lot of cakey things, just cutting those out for a few weeks might bring a big change in your weight, most cake runs a lot of calories, some even up to 700-900! some only 330, like banana bread, but if you cut all of it out and do nothing else, you should be able to cut out 500 calories a day, (depending on how much your really eating) which would be about a lb. a week. 

i agree with that sugar is addictive.  i gotta just stay away from it.  i cant eat one piece of cake.  i can only eat like 5 at a time.  i can eat one piece of meat, or cheese, or 1 vegetable, but i cant just eat one sugary item.  once you cut the sugar out for a while it gets easier and more natural not to crave it as much.

I didnt read your menues but here is what i suggest...(ive been suggesting this alot becouse im a big over eater bing eater and craver...I like my sugar too! lol Im lierally a person who can eat just under 2lbs of pure med rare beef in one sitting and thats 2 lbs no fat no bone! lol

ok so For me its all about the protien shake...I know i know i hated the idea too but I realized that :

1) it makes a really cheap menu and can spice up alot of foods while keeping you calorie intake low. and filling you up...not to mention you feel like your eating desert all day!

Idealy youd have one vanilla  and one chocolat or strawberry or whatever...and you keep them in ziplocks in your locker.

then you get creative:

concentrated oj (the kind you mix)90 cals  + vanilla 130cals orange julip...

Green tea+ vanilla= greentea late (with out themilk its only 130 cals!)

coffe+ chocolate and or vanilla= mocha latte 130 cals!

yogourt plain unsweetened fat tree +any protien= 190 cal snack

water+ protien (1/2 serving) with fiber rich cerial

 fat free cool whip + protien = moose! chocolate, strawberry...whatever

Finally if you find that your still grabbing for what you can through out your day ad some psyllium  (VERY VERY small amount to your foods...its pure fiber so its great for dieting and has no cals to speak of) and let me tell you! (as I eat some in my low cal fat free cream of leak soup right now! lol)

My last suggestion is that you snack often as uposed to trying to eat meals...I eat every hour or 2 but generally dont exceed 230 cals in one "snack"  when i train i eat a bit more in carbs...by the end of the day ive only rached up like 700 cals and I have plenty to deligate to my protien rich dinner! lol

give it a try!

 

 

 

 

oh, green tea latte, thats a nice idea. 

carrots are helpful too. they are sweet and require lots of chewing. they'll keep you busy for a while and fill you up with minimal calories. 

A good way to cut down calories is to usual visual prompts and portion-control.  Think of your plate divided as follows...

• Fill 1/2 your plate with vegetables and salads before adding anything else. You can't really have too many vegetables
• Fill 1/4 of your plate with meat/fish/bens or other proteins... preferably not in thick sauces, deep-fried or pastry-encased.  Something the size of a deck of cards or the palm of your hand
• Fill 1/4 of your plate with carbohydrate... bread, pasta, potatoes, rice, noodles etc.  A portion the size of a tennis ball.
• Add just a little sauce, dressing, mayonnaise... teaspoons only
• Fruit or low-fat yoghurt for dessert....

Snack on fruit, raw vegetables, low fat yoghurts.

If you can't cut the food back a little the flip-side is to be more active.  An extra half an hour of activity a day is the same as shaving 200 cals from your food intak.

 

 i'm nOT sure what kind of foods your eating because I couldn't get the link to work. 

 

I would try to eat granola bars and more fruits/veggies when your snacking.  Then maybe just a sandwich and a salad for dinner.  Lean breakfast foods. 

I know college cafeterias are a tough place to lose weight.  I myself gained 10 pounds my first year away from school.  I took it off though and here are some suggestions (I appologize if some of them are duplicative of the other posts):

1.  Skip the desserts.  I know that this is hard especially when they probably have a big selection and I'm sure that they are all beautiful and delicious night after night.  But you just need to get over it.  They will continue to have desserts morning, noon and night in the cafeteria line and you need look the other way and just keep walking.  Remember, nothing tastes as good as being thin feels.  If you are afraid that you will forget that, wear a pair of pants that are getting a bit snug to your meal so that you are reminded.  Or try on something that fits too tight right before you go to eat, so you remember.

2.  Fill up on fruit.  Fruit is sweet and good for you.  Your body has to work to get to the sugar by breaking down the fruit unlike processed sugar that goes straight to your body's fat factory.  For the 300-500 calories in a piece of cake or pie, you can eat a banana, an apple, and an orange which will leave you feeling full for quite awhile.  If you skip the processed sugar, you will start to enjoy and appreciate the natural sugars in all of your fruit and vegetables.

3. Eat all of the low cal healthy food like salad and fruit first so you have less room for the rest.

4.  Use the food index on this website to get a handle on exactly how many calories are in your food.  Get out a set of measureing cups and get familiar with just how big a cup/1/2 cup, etc. is and don't forget the hidden calories in things like salad dressing, mayo, olive oil, butter, bread coating etc.  Try substituting plain balsamic vinegar for salad dressing, skip the butter, and scape off any bread coatings from your meat.  The little things really do add up over time.

 

Good luck!

The major calorie cut for me has been removing calorie filled drinksfrom my diet!  Ya know...starbucks and other coffee drinks, juices, soda, beer!  Depending how much of this stuff you drink a day, you could end up cutting a good 1000 calories a week or more!

I think this is going to come down to willpower, babe. If you want to eat only 1700 calories, then don't eat any more then that. If you cannot stop eating cakes once you start, don't eat cakes at all.

You can eat a healthy, balanced diet, that is filling and nutrient-rich, and not go over 1700. Eat smaller portions. Eat fruit for a snack. Work a out a little bit each day. You can do this!

To cut calories without changing my menu, I bulk things up with low-cal foods. For example, I add lots of fresh spinach to just about everything. In college, I would keep grapes and spinach in my room and start with a salad course before entering into the dining hall madness. I would also put half my meal in a take-away container immediately so I would think twice before eating the whole thing all at once. Reducing cheese and condiments on sandwiches was a big thing for me. I use mustard or tomato paste instead of mayo, lots of veggies and pepper rather than cheese.

 

Also, there is always the option to increase your excercise rather than reducing calories. In college, I played Dance Dance Revolution in my room every morning before class. It really helped!

hi guys

 

thank you for all the tips!

 

i've posted my daily menu here, and i did a bit of analysis, i bolded and crossed out the things that i think i should not have eaten. i will limit myself to one dessert only , and thats only if i cant control the craving. usually i can. but when i can't, it's gonna be one dessert only.

 

 

please give me more feedbacks based on this!!!

 

thanks!!!

 

 

Tue, Mar 03 2009

Cals   Breakfast   Fat Free Plain 53   English Muffin - Original 120   Apples 72   Peaches 33   Raisins, Seedless 24   Cottage Cheese, Lowfat, 2% Milkfat 135   Lunch   Apples 72   English Muffin - Original 61   Bread - Brown 100   Sauce, Ready-to-serve, Pepper, Tabasco 1   Spinach - Cooked, Boiled, Drained, Without Salt 29   Mushrooms - Cooked, Boiled, Drained, Without Salt 13   Cream of Mushroom 32   Cucumber - With Peel, Raw 8   Fat Free Plain 53   Mandarin Orange, 1 large - Fruits 45   Peanut Butter, Chunk Style - With Salt 130   Cottage Cheese, Lowfat, 1% Milkfat 144   Dinner   Bread - Brown 100   Peanut Butter, Chunk Style - With Salt 83   Concord Grape Jam - Smucker's 35   Kellogg`s Special K Red Berries 59   Cottage Cheese, Lowfat, 1% Milkfat 40   Spinach - Cooked, Boiled, Drained, Without Salt 20   Mushrooms - Cooked, Boiled, Drained, Without Salt 13   Chicken, Breast, Meat Only - Cooked, Roasted 86   Turnips - Cooked, Boiled, Drained, Without Salt 34   Broccoli - Cooked, Boiled, Drained, Without Salt 49   STOUFFER'S Lasagna with Meat & Sauce 70   Cupcakes, Chocolate 198   Apples 72   Fat Free Plain 101   Cherries, Sweet 49   Bitmap Snacks   Assorted (Milk Chocolate, KRACKEL, SPECIAL DARK, MR. GOODBAR) - HERSHEY'S MINIATURES chocolate bars 48   Total Calories Consumed 2,182

here are the things i think i shouldnt have eaten--the format didnt work again, here you go:

 

 Bread - Brown 100  Peanut Butter, Chunk Style - With Salt 83   Concord Grape Jam - Smucker's 35  Kellogg`s Special K Red Berries 59    Fat Free Plain 101   Cherries, Sweet 49

thanks!

cut the chocolate
cupcakes
peanutbutter

then the count would have been 1723

I'd also would have left out the bite of lasagna which would make it 1653 and leaves room for replacing that peanutbutter with for example some lean turkey, cut a bit on the cottage cheese and change the muffin to brown bread, but that's just me :-)

how does your analysis look when you click that tag on your home page? what are your ratios of fats/carbs/protein, and how is your sugar count? 

i think if this were me, and i was trying to figure out what i was eating, one strategy would be to count all the servings of fruit, breads, proteins, veggies, dairy, etc. and figure out how many servings of each i am eating, then look at the food pyramid, or some other suggested eating outline and figure out where you have an abundance and where you have a lack. thats one way to approach it. 

but mostly, im struck with how much complexity there is. it looks like your just eating little bits of lots of things. like thats not much soup, chicken, or lasagna. a piece of lasagna has about 300-400 calories, depending on who made it, and those aren't large pieces, so you had about a 1" square. that would make me entirely crazy. 

I think I'd pick a primary protein for each meal,

so for dinner, either lasagna or chicken and go for a full serving of protein, lots of veggies with a complex starch (turnips are great!). through some fruit in your bag for later if your worried about sugar cravings. And whatever you chose for that dinner day, enjoy it. you will have tomorrow to make new choices. i'd really simplify it, and work on enjoying the foods you are picking instead of catering to the desire to have a taste of everything. for me that would spell disaster.  

im actually wondering if there is a snack in here too? you have a pb&j and some cereal. 

for breakfast, i usually pick one dairy, a fruit or two, and a complex carb like oats or whole wheat toast with pb. loose the jam. you dont need it and your eating fresh fruit. it will just keep the refined sugar jones going. i do appreciate pb as a protein, but it comes with high calories. fats aren't bad, you need them, but they add up fast. sometimes i slice a banana on top of my pb toast (to replace jam) or if its a snack, i put my tbsp of pb on an apple and skip the bread. 

are those peaches fresh or in syrup? i'd pass up on any fruit in a syrup and just eat fresh. you have to wait for the seasons to roll around, but its worth it. 

like the above poster, loose as much of the cupcakes and chocolate as possible. i know your working on it. fruit is your friend there. but take a full serving (of freash fruit, i mean) and eat it slow. pick something and really enjoy it. i think that might help. simplify and appreciate your choices. that's my 2 cents. if you do feel the need for a sweet, the hershey's has a lot less cal than the cup cake. make it special. savor it. don't eat it while multi tasking, or get distracted. its your sugar fix, so you might as well make the most out of it. 

keep us posted on what strategies you find help!

we're all in this together, but we each have to do it ourselves.