3 meals a day | Imamother

amother

OP ↓

Tue, Aug 06 2024, 5:48 pm

I have pretty disordered eating and I would like to do better. Some days I eat very little and very healthy and some days a week I'm bingeing.
I want to start regulating my eating by eating 3 meals a day.
I'm a little afraid to gain weight but I know this is the way to go.
I don't like eating too early in the morning or too late in the evening.
Can you help me figure out what such an eating "plan" would look like? Meal ideas or protein, carb, fat etc and what times?
My insurance does not cover a nutritionist and I cannot afford one. Please help me if you can.

613mitzvahgirl

Tue, Aug 06 2024, 5:56 pm

Hi.. you can do a yogurt and a fruit for breakfast or a bowl of cereal and milk and a fruit
For lunch you can do a big salad with protein- or grain- like pick 5 vegetables and a protein like tuna or egg or avocado for lunch/ and for supper you can do a protein like fish or chicken- when your allowed, and a starch like rice or couscous or quinoa or baked potatoe and a salad or roasted vegetable..
if you have more questions please feel free to reach out..

amother

Offwhite ↓

Tue, Aug 06 2024, 6:05 pm

You should look up glucose queen. She speaks about how to create your meals so that you don’t have any blood sugar spikes throughout the day.
Nutrition is just part of it. Your ideas about food also need to change.(popular stigmas: “fat is bad, carbs are bad, veggies good,” etc)

I have a breakfast about an hour / hour and a half after I wake up(2 eggs, slice of bread with a little butter, greens like arugula or other veggie)

Lunch I’ll usually have a protein yogurt smoothie with fruit blended in. I make it in a ninja mixer.(2 pm) I also had a homemade butter cookie made with spelt and ground walnuts.

Dinner today was falafel balls with hummus, salad, techina, charif, pickles and pita.

For a snack I had grapes, mint tea.

I take supplements daily (amino acids, antioxidants, vitamins once every few days) which support my energy levels. (Go do bloodwork to check what you’re missing)

amother

↑ Offwhite

Tue, Aug 06 2024, 6:12 pm

Just wanted to say you are really incredible for taking the first steps!
Once you check what vitamins you’re missing,supplement, and have regular meals - it will make a mountain of a difference in terms of mood and general wellbeing.
There’s numerous studies showing that balanced blood sugar levels support weight loss.
Try to add dark leafy greens into your meals / smoothies on days that it’s hard.
Good luck!

amother

Fuchsia ↓

Tue, Aug 06 2024, 6:49 pm

amother Offwhite wrote:

Curious about the supplements you mentioned
Do you see a real difference in energy

Do you drink coffee how often ?

amother

↑ Fuchsia

Tue, Aug 06 2024, 6:55 pm

amother OP wrote:

I dont want to eat shakes or smoothies. I'm trying to eat real food.
Each meal should contain......?
How many hours between meals?

Real meals

5 mini meals a day
ex:
1. Greek yogurt with real fruit inside not the sugary stuff
2. Handful of nuts, air popped popcorn, Sweet potato, quinoa or healthy carbs
3. Fish and Israeli salad
4. hummus and carrots
5. Turkey cubes in salad with a dressing

Every 2.5 hours you’re awake, stop eating 3 hours before sleeping
Lots of water throughout the day
And making sure you’re aware that your hungry and full

tulip3

Tue, Aug 06 2024, 8:15 pm

amother OP wrote:

I dont want to eat shakes or smoothies. I'm trying to eat real food.
Each meal should contain......?
How many hours between meals?

Eat within the first hour after waking up..eat every three hours. Each meal should have a protein, carb, fat

Ex:
Breakfast:
A few eggs, roasted/sauted veggies, simple ingredients bread or starch veggies , some fruit. Ovocado or oil.

Lunch: tuna/sardines/salmon/any fish with veggies soup or salad. Add ovocado oil, ovocado or olive oil to dressing/soup. Starch -oatmeal, sweet pot, quinea etc.

Snack: nuts and fruit or smoothie that has protein powder, fruit and a fat (coconut milk/yogurt)

Supper: chicken/meat/turkey with veggies and a starch . Add a fat in as well.

Optione

Tue, Aug 06 2024, 9:05 pm

amother OP wrote:

I dont want to eat shakes or smoothies. I'm trying to eat real food.
Each meal should contain......?
How many hours between meals?

I am working through some stuff with a dietician. These are some general ideas, although everyone needs to tailor them to her own needs.

-Aim for 3 meals and 2/3 snacks daily. Meals should have protein, fiber, fat, and carbs.

-Snacks should have at least two of the above mentioned (protein, fiber, fat, carbs) or be a smaller portion of a meal.

-Try to not go more than 3 hours without your next snack or meal and make sure to drink enough.

Hatzlacha!

PrairieFairy ↓

Wed, Aug 07 2024, 1:23 pm

amother OP wrote:

I also want to acknowledge the effort you are making in taking steps for yourself! First in acknowledging that there is room to do better AND reaching out to make those efforts.

A lot of good ideas in the comments but, because you mentioned disordered eating...some questions first.

What do you consider "healthy" when you say you eat "healthy"?
What are your binges consisting of (I'm asking both quantity and volume)?
Does your discomfort with eating in the early morning or late in the evening have to do with the fear of gaining weight?

These are really important questions. Restriction leads to binging and trying to tailor a food plan to disordered eating thoughts can backfire. More helpful to address the concerns and thoughts so that all parts of you feel safe in the food plan without subtly continuing disordered behaviors. Work smarter, not harder!

I work with people in this niche and am still absolutely BAFFLED that not all insurances cover it. Does your insurance cover therapy in an affordable way (I know copays can be expensive as well)? Sometimes you can go that route by getting an eating disorder therapist and they can assist with it from that angle.

Every time I see a post here that someone can't afford this BASIC healthcare, I feel like offering a pro-bono/donation based course with information, approaches, tactics, food plans, accountability programming etc

Just not sure how I would carry that out. Maybe I'll make a separate thread to see if there's interest in that and if there is, work on figuring out how to offer this kind of thing in a sustainable way where I can afford to do that as well.

But basically, this is BASIC healthcare and we should ALL be able to have it! It is SO unfair that this is so unaffordable to many people Sad

flowerpower

Wed, Aug 07 2024, 1:24 pm

amother OP wrote:

10 am breakfast - something to the lighter side
12:30 lunch- veggie protien good carb
5 pm dinner- same meal groups as lunch

amother

↑ OP

Wed, Aug 07 2024, 3:09 pm

PrairieFairy wrote:

Some days I eat no carbs and just a yogurt, some nuts and salad or some version of that. Some days I'm eating carbs non stop until my stomach hurts. I've read many books and it sounded like the first step is to eat regular meals at regular intervals.

↑ PrairieFairy

Wed, Aug 07 2024, 3:50 pm

amother OP wrote:

Got it. And yes, that is correct. The first step is to eat regular/balanced meals at regular intervals. But if you have ideas that prevent you from doing that, the first step would be to work on those ideas so that you CAN eat regular meals at regular intervals.

Doing it in conjunction is best. If you can, the food plan from Optione is close enough to standard for this. Although it needs to be modified for your height/weight/activity/age/activity level so that it can best support you.

3 meals, 3 snacks. First meal within an hour of waking up and the rest in snack, meal, snack, meal, snack format every 2-3 hours. Again, this can be personalized for you specifically but this is a good start.

Make sure you're getting adequate carbs that you want and enjoy. It seems that based on your habits the restricting carbs makes you feel limited in them and that results in binging (which probably results in the minimal food days of compensating).

And make sure you're eating in the morning. If you MUST skip something (NOT condoning this at all but being realistic that it can be hard to go from restrictive to "normal"), skip the evening snack but NOT the morning snack or meal. The morning meals are more important than the evening ones when breaking the disordered eating patterns. (they are all important but will get results faster if work on not skipping/delaying the morning food).