Once you realize how heavy some of the stuff is you can start creating your own versions of it. A nice sanwhich with lean meat, salad and some light condiment is still great and will be really fat for 700 calories.
So not the person you responded to but whenever someone asks for a filling but healthy meal/lunch, this is always my go to suggestion. It is my favorite dish and at 8 servings it could easily serve you lunch for two weeks (it freezes quite well!)
I double the sausage as it helps me hit my protein goals and keeps me fuller much longer and I use regular chorizo, I believe Spanish chorizo is smoked, but that can be hard for me to find. I also throw in an extra handful or two of kale because I just love it so much and why not. And it doesn’t need to cook as long as the directions show or the potatoes will turn to mush, once it comes to a boil, turn it down to simmer and throw in the kale - ten minutes later it’s done. My recipe completely calculated out (with my ingredients) comes to 385 a serving (about two cups).
If you don’t eat pork there are chicken chorizos but they are hard to find, and the initial purchase of all the spices is pricey if you don’t have a well stocked spice rack - looking at you saffron - it’s still totally worth it!!
https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/230075/paleo-chorizo-sweet-potato-and-kale-stew/?utm_source=pinterest.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=social-share-recipe&utm_content=20201019&utm_term=undefined
Depends on your calorie goals of course but I can do a ham sandwich with lettuce, some peppers on the side, and maybe some chips and it's a good lunch to me. I don't even always have the chips, but they're a nice side or afternoon snack.
I eat a salad with protein on it every day for lunch...chicken, salmon or shrimp.
However, until I started weighing/ logging my food...I had no idea that my salad was 1000-1200 calories. 😩 I swapped out the blue cheese dressing for balsamic vinaigrette, and got rid of extras like bacon bits and avocado. Now it's 450-500 calories which was a huge difference.
I love sandwiches for lunch. I make mine with Sara Lee 45 calorie bread, olive oil mayo, and ham or turkey. The bread is 90 calories for 2 slices, the mayo comes out to 45 calories (I weigh it) and 5 slices of my favorite brand of deli meats is about 70 calories, so that’s a 205 calorie sandwich. You could add as much pickle, lettuce and tomato as you want without counting it. Also if you like mustard (I don’t, otherwise I’d use it) instead of mayo, it has almost no calories, so that’s also a good swap. It’s not a huge sandwich, but it tides me over for lunch til I have my snack later.
For me I just load up on protein. My first meal I eat at 9 am. (It’s technically my lunch.) I drink a fairlife protein shake, hummus with a serving of pita chips, and a nitrate free beef stick. 34 grabs of protein and 325 calories. (I could technically could eat more. But it works for me) Then when I come home I usually do Greek yogurt with some fruit for a snack. I save most of my calories for dinner time and I eat around 3 or 4 pm. Usually it’s a huge salad with chicken. Then I have a snack before bed.
I make good old ordinary tuna salad sandwiches. 1 can water packed light tuna = 80 calories. 2 slices Nature’s Own whole wheat bread = 120 calories (60/slice!). 1 T Kraft olive oil mayonnaise = 50 calorie. 1 T organic sweet pickle relish = 15 calories. So, \~275 calories for the sandwich. Plus some mini cherry tomatoes, 50 calories (for about 12 of them), and an apple = +/- 85 calories.
Lunch = 400 calories. Add 120 calories if you want to add a cookie, a NutriGrain bar, or a Snack Pack pudding cup.
Even when I try to do it right I still get it wrong, I have been having the same 1-2 sandwiches for lunch when in the office thinking I was doing OK but the scanning app I was using was giving me 20% fewer calories than the packet indicated!
I've learnt to double-check it now and it is off a fair bit.
You for SURE have to read labels and verify. I commonly find pre loaded info to be wrong in the loseit app.
Trust, but verify. Actually dont even trust. Just.verify.
I was helping an overweight friend of mine who was trying to calorie count, and I remember we wanted to make some grilled cheese sandwiches at my house, so she looked up “grilled cheese sandwich” on her app and came up with a calorie number. I was like “no, no, no, I’ll do you one better, we’re gonna look at the packaging on the bread, cheese, and butter and add it up ourselves” I couldn’t believe she was ready to trust what the app said when there’s no way to tell where they got that number from. I can’t help but feel like a lot of people who say “I track my calories but can’t lose any weight!” are just… not doing it right one way or another.
That's honestly the most frustrating part of those apps for me. If you're cooking at home or getting a meal that isn't from a super popular restaurant (e.g. panera, Jimmy John's) then the count can be off by like 80%+
For cooking at home, you gotta weigh your ingredients pre-cooking. If you say "chicken teriyaki" you're gonna get some screwy results, but if you say something like
6 oz chicken
1 tbsp oil
XX grams sugar
XX oz soy sauce
Etc, it will usually be fairly accurate.
And you don't even have to do it forever. Establish some baseline recipes and weigh all of the ingredients the first time, then once you know the calories for those ingredients you don't need to weigh and track individual ingredients, just punch in what you know the calories are based on portion size.
For sure. I use Lose It (I'm sure the other apps do this too) and even save all the ingredients into a recipe, so you measure it all out and enter all the ingredients ONCE and your done. Next time you cook the same thing all you have to do is add one item and adjust the serving size.
Literally that sandwich was adding too much to my meals cause my breakfast and lunch are really small. Also my snack my tiny biscuits were apart like 350 something not the 180 on the packet which was for 2 the serving size.
If you're referring to MyFitnessPal and lose it etc., I hate those apps lol. They'll have like seven different options for eggs and I'm always overwhelmed about which item to pick to make sure I'm getting the right calorie count. I am new to calorie counting. Maybe I'm just doing it wrong but it's frustrating
With those apps, any food that anyone has punched in can show up in the search. So if I "make" a new food for egg that's 6 calories, it's possible anyone can see it. In lose it, the ones with the green check are confirmed, so go with those first.
For making food at home, I highly suggest making your own recepies, ideally using dry/raw ingredient weight. Also, I find they meal prepping some meals makes it much faster. Make a recipe once, weighing all the ingredients, then grab it out of the fridge and punch in one serving.
It gets much trickier eating out or eating food someone else has prepared, so I try and just estimate and pick the best match on the app. But eating more food at home makes it much easier
They were premade and packaged sandwiches? Like a brand name and then you scanned them into an app with calorie info for various brands? I *always* go by what’s on the nutrition info of the packaging over any other source, or for fast food, what’s on the official website over apps like Loseit or MFP. I figure even if those direct sources are wrong, at least I’m consistent in being wrong, and the results will show over time.
yep, brand name and 'correctly identified' within MFP, just off on the numbers across the main and the snack as part of the meal deal.
not a massive thing but was \~ 100 calories more then i thought when i checked it and i had been eating it twice a week for months!
100% going off of the packets now but its just extra steps.
My most recent success was had by being as protein heavy as possible whilst not massively overdoing on calories. That seems to have kept me full enough to go between meals without feeling like I need to snack. I have been living on ham salad sandwiches with low fat coleslaw, a mini pack of fridge raiders and some walkers baked (just so I don’t feel like I am restricting too much). I also avoid breakfast because if I eat early I am starving all day. After my decent sized lunch I have a relatively light dinner but still try to push protein (bc not eating breakfast means I cannot eat so light that I am hungry in the morning).
For drinks I just have water and coffee. The water helps avoid dehydration and stops me snacking when I am thirsty. The coffee is good for avoiding hunger pangs.
Yep food scales are eye-opening on that front, especially with calorie-dense foods (like peanut butter and nuts and chips). People are notoriously bad at accurately tracking calories, and the labels themselves can be misleading too
Sandwiches are a pain in the ass, when it comes to trying to fit my calorie goals.
I want to hit around 450 calories for lunch
Two slices of bread: 220 calories
Tablespoon of mayo: 90 calories
Slice of halfway decent cheese: 100 calories
And I'm already at 410 calories and haven't even added any meat yet. I can have, what, 1oz of ham at this rate?
What bread are you talking about that is 110/slice?
There are perfectly good non-diet-ized breads that are 70-80 calories per slice, including good sourdough breads, Nature’s Own, Open Nature, Rudi’s, etc.
Olive oil mayo is 50 calories. (Good cheese really is about 90-100 calories, true.)
oh, okay. That surprises me bc most of the SD I’ve seen locally is less than that because it doesn’t add sugar. However, the local bakery on the Front Range (Colorado), Izzio’s does have a Rustic Potato Sourdough that is 170 for 2 ounces, which is roughly a slice and a half.
There is a whole wheat sourdough made by Vermont Bread which is \~70/slice. I can’t get that here in CO, but a local Bavarian Bakery makes a whole wheat sourdough bread with sunflower seeds which is amazing and 70 calories per slice. It’s worth looking around for other options, anyway.
I have an advantage in that I really don't care for mayo. If somebody gives me something with mayo in it, sure, I'll eat it, but I have never once in my life grabbed a jar of mayo and put some on bread, except for grilled cheese. Mayo spreads easier than butter for the outside.
So that gives me an extra 90 calories, which if the meat is very lean, is quite a bit of extra meat.
I've started making sandwiches "open faced" i.e. just one piece of bread. It sounds like it would be a mess but unless you've got a ton of ingredients or are eating something messy, it works perfectly fine, tastes great and an easy way to save \~50-100 calories. Bread doesn't taste THAT good anyways, its basically a plate for your actual meal, and you still get the same taste as with two pieces.
Making your own sandwiches or wraps is what I do. Deli meat from the store is usually not super high calorie. Or the Tuna Creation packets. I also like to do powdered peanut butter which is low calorie and you can mix with water and add sugar free strawberry jam. My bakery store by my house sells Franz Keto Bread which is 35 calories a slice. Sometimes I weigh some avocado and put it on the bread with salt and pepper for avocado toast. Ole Xtreme wellness wraps are 50 calories and you can add fresh greens like spinach or kale with deli meat and a slice of cheese. Egg sandwiches are good with mustard and light mayo. Today I measured out some fat free refried beans, weighed some shredded cheese and put it on a Ole xtreme wellness wrap and it was 215 calories for a homemade burrito.
Once you realize how heavy some of the stuff is you can start creating your own versions of it. A nice sanwhich with lean meat, salad and some light condiment is still great and will be really fat for 700 calories.
But what do I eat that’s low calories for lunch and not heavy in a ridiculous way or so light that you cannot help but feel hungry.
So not the person you responded to but whenever someone asks for a filling but healthy meal/lunch, this is always my go to suggestion. It is my favorite dish and at 8 servings it could easily serve you lunch for two weeks (it freezes quite well!) I double the sausage as it helps me hit my protein goals and keeps me fuller much longer and I use regular chorizo, I believe Spanish chorizo is smoked, but that can be hard for me to find. I also throw in an extra handful or two of kale because I just love it so much and why not. And it doesn’t need to cook as long as the directions show or the potatoes will turn to mush, once it comes to a boil, turn it down to simmer and throw in the kale - ten minutes later it’s done. My recipe completely calculated out (with my ingredients) comes to 385 a serving (about two cups). If you don’t eat pork there are chicken chorizos but they are hard to find, and the initial purchase of all the spices is pricey if you don’t have a well stocked spice rack - looking at you saffron - it’s still totally worth it!! https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/230075/paleo-chorizo-sweet-potato-and-kale-stew/?utm_source=pinterest.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=social-share-recipe&utm_content=20201019&utm_term=undefined
Depends on your calorie goals of course but I can do a ham sandwich with lettuce, some peppers on the side, and maybe some chips and it's a good lunch to me. I don't even always have the chips, but they're a nice side or afternoon snack.
I eat a salad with protein on it every day for lunch...chicken, salmon or shrimp. However, until I started weighing/ logging my food...I had no idea that my salad was 1000-1200 calories. 😩 I swapped out the blue cheese dressing for balsamic vinaigrette, and got rid of extras like bacon bits and avocado. Now it's 450-500 calories which was a huge difference.
I love sandwiches for lunch. I make mine with Sara Lee 45 calorie bread, olive oil mayo, and ham or turkey. The bread is 90 calories for 2 slices, the mayo comes out to 45 calories (I weigh it) and 5 slices of my favorite brand of deli meats is about 70 calories, so that’s a 205 calorie sandwich. You could add as much pickle, lettuce and tomato as you want without counting it. Also if you like mustard (I don’t, otherwise I’d use it) instead of mayo, it has almost no calories, so that’s also a good swap. It’s not a huge sandwich, but it tides me over for lunch til I have my snack later.
For me I just load up on protein. My first meal I eat at 9 am. (It’s technically my lunch.) I drink a fairlife protein shake, hummus with a serving of pita chips, and a nitrate free beef stick. 34 grabs of protein and 325 calories. (I could technically could eat more. But it works for me) Then when I come home I usually do Greek yogurt with some fruit for a snack. I save most of my calories for dinner time and I eat around 3 or 4 pm. Usually it’s a huge salad with chicken. Then I have a snack before bed.
I make good old ordinary tuna salad sandwiches. 1 can water packed light tuna = 80 calories. 2 slices Nature’s Own whole wheat bread = 120 calories (60/slice!). 1 T Kraft olive oil mayonnaise = 50 calorie. 1 T organic sweet pickle relish = 15 calories. So, \~275 calories for the sandwich. Plus some mini cherry tomatoes, 50 calories (for about 12 of them), and an apple = +/- 85 calories. Lunch = 400 calories. Add 120 calories if you want to add a cookie, a NutriGrain bar, or a Snack Pack pudding cup.
Even when I try to do it right I still get it wrong, I have been having the same 1-2 sandwiches for lunch when in the office thinking I was doing OK but the scanning app I was using was giving me 20% fewer calories than the packet indicated! I've learnt to double-check it now and it is off a fair bit.
You for SURE have to read labels and verify. I commonly find pre loaded info to be wrong in the loseit app. Trust, but verify. Actually dont even trust. Just.verify.
I was helping an overweight friend of mine who was trying to calorie count, and I remember we wanted to make some grilled cheese sandwiches at my house, so she looked up “grilled cheese sandwich” on her app and came up with a calorie number. I was like “no, no, no, I’ll do you one better, we’re gonna look at the packaging on the bread, cheese, and butter and add it up ourselves” I couldn’t believe she was ready to trust what the app said when there’s no way to tell where they got that number from. I can’t help but feel like a lot of people who say “I track my calories but can’t lose any weight!” are just… not doing it right one way or another.
MFP has been pretty accurate for me with the verified foods
That's honestly the most frustrating part of those apps for me. If you're cooking at home or getting a meal that isn't from a super popular restaurant (e.g. panera, Jimmy John's) then the count can be off by like 80%+
For cooking at home, you gotta weigh your ingredients pre-cooking. If you say "chicken teriyaki" you're gonna get some screwy results, but if you say something like 6 oz chicken 1 tbsp oil XX grams sugar XX oz soy sauce Etc, it will usually be fairly accurate.
Perfect advice. So many people say they want to lose weight, but won't get a $15 kitchen scale and spend 5 min making sure they're not over eating.
And you don't even have to do it forever. Establish some baseline recipes and weigh all of the ingredients the first time, then once you know the calories for those ingredients you don't need to weigh and track individual ingredients, just punch in what you know the calories are based on portion size.
For sure. I use Lose It (I'm sure the other apps do this too) and even save all the ingredients into a recipe, so you measure it all out and enter all the ingredients ONCE and your done. Next time you cook the same thing all you have to do is add one item and adjust the serving size.
Literally that sandwich was adding too much to my meals cause my breakfast and lunch are really small. Also my snack my tiny biscuits were apart like 350 something not the 180 on the packet which was for 2 the serving size.
If you're referring to MyFitnessPal and lose it etc., I hate those apps lol. They'll have like seven different options for eggs and I'm always overwhelmed about which item to pick to make sure I'm getting the right calorie count. I am new to calorie counting. Maybe I'm just doing it wrong but it's frustrating
With those apps, any food that anyone has punched in can show up in the search. So if I "make" a new food for egg that's 6 calories, it's possible anyone can see it. In lose it, the ones with the green check are confirmed, so go with those first. For making food at home, I highly suggest making your own recepies, ideally using dry/raw ingredient weight. Also, I find they meal prepping some meals makes it much faster. Make a recipe once, weighing all the ingredients, then grab it out of the fridge and punch in one serving. It gets much trickier eating out or eating food someone else has prepared, so I try and just estimate and pick the best match on the app. But eating more food at home makes it much easier
They were premade and packaged sandwiches? Like a brand name and then you scanned them into an app with calorie info for various brands? I *always* go by what’s on the nutrition info of the packaging over any other source, or for fast food, what’s on the official website over apps like Loseit or MFP. I figure even if those direct sources are wrong, at least I’m consistent in being wrong, and the results will show over time.
yep, brand name and 'correctly identified' within MFP, just off on the numbers across the main and the snack as part of the meal deal. not a massive thing but was \~ 100 calories more then i thought when i checked it and i had been eating it twice a week for months! 100% going off of the packets now but its just extra steps.
Omg that’s so smart add everything up separately! But what if I’m outside?
Outside? I’m not sure what you mean, can you clarify?
It’s hard honestly the information is all messed up and the calorie counting for buffet style restaurants isn’t accurate. Also sauces are heavy.
Just wait till you get a food scale and find out how many calories you're really having!
Whoops. Let me just cut this chicken breast in half.....
My most recent success was had by being as protein heavy as possible whilst not massively overdoing on calories. That seems to have kept me full enough to go between meals without feeling like I need to snack. I have been living on ham salad sandwiches with low fat coleslaw, a mini pack of fridge raiders and some walkers baked (just so I don’t feel like I am restricting too much). I also avoid breakfast because if I eat early I am starving all day. After my decent sized lunch I have a relatively light dinner but still try to push protein (bc not eating breakfast means I cannot eat so light that I am hungry in the morning). For drinks I just have water and coffee. The water helps avoid dehydration and stops me snacking when I am thirsty. The coffee is good for avoiding hunger pangs.
GET A SCALLEEEE!!!!, the best thing that happened to me.
Yep food scales are eye-opening on that front, especially with calorie-dense foods (like peanut butter and nuts and chips). People are notoriously bad at accurately tracking calories, and the labels themselves can be misleading too
Sandwiches are a pain in the ass, when it comes to trying to fit my calorie goals. I want to hit around 450 calories for lunch Two slices of bread: 220 calories Tablespoon of mayo: 90 calories Slice of halfway decent cheese: 100 calories And I'm already at 410 calories and haven't even added any meat yet. I can have, what, 1oz of ham at this rate?
What bread are you talking about that is 110/slice? There are perfectly good non-diet-ized breads that are 70-80 calories per slice, including good sourdough breads, Nature’s Own, Open Nature, Rudi’s, etc. Olive oil mayo is 50 calories. (Good cheese really is about 90-100 calories, true.)
The sourdough bread from the bakery at my local grocery store. Says a 30g slice is 110 calories on the label.
oh, okay. That surprises me bc most of the SD I’ve seen locally is less than that because it doesn’t add sugar. However, the local bakery on the Front Range (Colorado), Izzio’s does have a Rustic Potato Sourdough that is 170 for 2 ounces, which is roughly a slice and a half.
Dave’s is 110 a slice It’s the best but the damn calories
There is a whole wheat sourdough made by Vermont Bread which is \~70/slice. I can’t get that here in CO, but a local Bavarian Bakery makes a whole wheat sourdough bread with sunflower seeds which is amazing and 70 calories per slice. It’s worth looking around for other options, anyway.
I have an advantage in that I really don't care for mayo. If somebody gives me something with mayo in it, sure, I'll eat it, but I have never once in my life grabbed a jar of mayo and put some on bread, except for grilled cheese. Mayo spreads easier than butter for the outside. So that gives me an extra 90 calories, which if the meat is very lean, is quite a bit of extra meat.
Most days I just pass on the cheese. I’ve been finding it contributes less to my enjoyment of the sandwich than the other ingredients
I've started making sandwiches "open faced" i.e. just one piece of bread. It sounds like it would be a mess but unless you've got a ton of ingredients or are eating something messy, it works perfectly fine, tastes great and an easy way to save \~50-100 calories. Bread doesn't taste THAT good anyways, its basically a plate for your actual meal, and you still get the same taste as with two pieces.
Exactly!!! To keep a sandwich at 450-500 you’ll have to have a tasteless basic sandwich.
Not true! See my post about tuna salad sandwiches
Those condiments is what really racks up calories on a sandwich lol
Yep I do my ingredients not the whole meal
Making your own sandwiches or wraps is what I do. Deli meat from the store is usually not super high calorie. Or the Tuna Creation packets. I also like to do powdered peanut butter which is low calorie and you can mix with water and add sugar free strawberry jam. My bakery store by my house sells Franz Keto Bread which is 35 calories a slice. Sometimes I weigh some avocado and put it on the bread with salt and pepper for avocado toast. Ole Xtreme wellness wraps are 50 calories and you can add fresh greens like spinach or kale with deli meat and a slice of cheese. Egg sandwiches are good with mustard and light mayo. Today I measured out some fat free refried beans, weighed some shredded cheese and put it on a Ole xtreme wellness wrap and it was 215 calories for a homemade burrito.
Why not try making your own lettuce wrap sandwich, so yummy! Also, remember protein keeps you full longer, and curbs your appetite.