BellaOnline Forums Food and Wine Low Carb What Is your Daily Menu Like?

I am very interested in knowing what other people's daily diets look like. I would very much appreciate seeing what others typically menu looks like. Those of you venturing into this forum could you please take a few minutes and give me an example of you what you ate in one day. Please be very specific. Serving sizes and maybe even brand names if you remember them. Thank you very much to all who post.

Hi gymeejet,

Had to comment on this, since I'm a dentist. Most people don't realize that, although the bones are constantly remodelling by exchanging Calcium ions with the bloodstream, the teeth are not.


Once your teeth are fully formed, they're fully formed, and that's it. The only place calcium can be gained or lost is from a very thin outer layer on the enamel. That' why the best cavity-fighting formulas have fluoride and calcium in them.

Where calcium absorbtion does come into play is in how it affects the supporting bone around the teeth. People who are calcium deficient are more prone to bone loss around the teeth(periodontal disease).


And Lisa is right about the sugary drinks. But if you're going to indulge, chocolate milk beats soda and fruit juices hands down. Those sugary drinks that are also high in acids and are "death" to our teeth if we're going to be sipping on them all day long without brushing. Which teens tend to do with sodas and little ones tend to do with fruit juice (sippy cups). Nothing like a constant sugar/acid bath to eat away at even the healthiest enamel!!!

Kat - I agree that gym time is good - we have an exercise bike in our living room and use it often, and have a bowflex in the basement. But those one-time visits while nice aren't as good as taking short but meaningful breaks throughout the day as far as metabolism. Our exercise editor has a TON of great information on this topic, so I refer anyone interested to go read over there. You want to do exercise to get your heart going several times each day, at different times of day.

On ice cream, you could make small amounts yourself, it would be nice and fresh and you could endulge in a different flavor each time! <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I agree wholeheartedly that people drink WAY too much soda - even diet soda - and that it's just not good for you. Drink water, water is yummy! You can have lemon in it, lime in it ...

Ajaye that sounds like a yummy meal. I love olives too! Now you've made me hungry, and it's almost 4am. I should be getting to sleep <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Typical day (is any day typical?) oh well...mine might go soemthing like this:

omelete (with cheese, onions, greenpeppers and if I have them, garden tomatoes).
Maybe a couple of fresh strawberries dipped in Splenda
Diet, caffeine-free soda (yes, for breakfast...so sue me)

Multi-vitamin (I try not to forget that so I make it part of my breakfast plate).


hamburger (lean as I can find) with all the fixin's but minus the bun. I usually use lettuce and mayo and maybe some ketchup if the sugar content is not too high. I eat mine with a fork.

I also try to add a green veggie here. Like green beans, or broccoli or something good for me.

Low carb chocolate shake (not every day of course but yes, on occasion I have a burger and shake for lunch). Low carb shake includes a cup of low carb Breyer's chocolate ice cream and about 1/4 cup of Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper (don't knock it til you've tried it). Yum. What a treat.


late afternoon/early evening Snack might include:

- An Atkins low sugar drink/shake (different from the ice cream shake). This has lots of protein and very few carbs (2g I think). I like either the chocolate or the Strawberry flavors.


Dinner:

Chicken (grilled, white breast with some kind of yummy spices on it.. maybe lemon pepper, or perhaps rosemary garlic....who knows depends on what mood I am in.)

Vegetables (something green or orange..preferably a couple of servings here.

Whole Grain bread. A slice sometimes. Sometimes Not. Just depends. Sometimes I have a slice of whole grain bread with my breakfast omelet ...that and some sugar free strawberry jelly. Yum.


Late Night Indulgence:

Yes, I have those quite often thank you:


Russell Stover Raspberry chocolate (sugar free of course) I have two and if I am feeling particularly wicked... I might have three (gasp) and a glass (two servings) of Carb Countdown milk. I find that despite being a fully grown woman, I HAVE TO HAVE milk. The carb countdown is completely fat free and has only 3g of carbs per serving as opposed to 12g per serving of regular milk.

I don't constantly munch on celery sticks. I do still like chocolate and I eat oatmeal whenever I think my body wants me to. I have lost 68 pounds eating something like this.

Kat and I seem to wind up on oppostie sides of almost every topic! I need to find out where you (Kat) live so we can go out for a glass of wine and chat for real! <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

I am a candidate for gastric bypass. I am 5'8" and 265 lbs (I was 275 before my D&C). I am probably one of those y'all would consider taking the easy way out. Insurance companies don't let you take this surgery lightly. I am actually stuck in the process because I did not pass the psychological exam back in early Feb. - my depression was too severe (I was at the point of suicide, only my children & my faith prevented it - & honestly it had more to do w/ my children because I thought if I died I'd go to heaven and Oh what a relief). I have to go thru 6 months of counseling & psychiatric care & be reevaluated before I can proceed with the insurance process.

I was not fat my entire life. I started gaining after my first child, which is also when my migraines and my depression started. I have gained and lost around 300 lbs all together. I have tried weight watchers, jenny craig, my physician's regimen (basically it was a modified diabetic diet), metabolife, xenadrine, citracal, and I can't remember what else.

My problem doesn't normally lie in the regular day's menu. The rest of my family is very healthy, and I cook to keep them that way. But I am just as addicted to food (especially carbs) as my Dad is to cigarettes, especially when i am in a bile black day.

I had to write down what I ate one time in one of my binge modes; I broke down crying when I read the list, here it is;
My Asperger son had gotten mad at me for trying to help him organize his homework so he wouldn't get zeroes, informed me I was making his life miserable, and he couldn't wait until he was 14 so he could live with his Dad. (Oh I also suffer from insomnia as a lovely little addition to the depression). So I was escaping into a Dean Koontz book.
(this is all progressional, I'd eat one thing & then get up and go get the next)

cheese stick and a small glass of tea.
popped some popcorn, got one cup & more tea
can of cashews, ate the entire can w/out realizing it
the rest of the bag of popcorn, more tea
small bowl of ice cream (Ben & Jerry's)
the rest of the container, glass of milk

I think there was some more stuff in there, but I can't remember, this isn't an every night occurance, but frequent. willpower doesn't figure in. Violently vomiting and/or dumping syndrome WILL prevent me from this tpe of behavior and coupled w/ my therapy will help me overcome it.

This surgery isn't a quick fix, it is a painful, life altering, drastic step to fix my health for myself and my family. I can't catch my 2 yr old at the park, so I can't take him anymore. Exercising is excrutiating on my back and knees. I am ashamed of how I look, I can't believe my husband wants to touch me - even though he says different, and sometimes I have a hard time letting him. my oldest son was involved in wrestling, I used to do Judo, and I could have helped him w/ his moves except I would have squashed him had I tried. I didn't fit in a ride at Six Flags w/ my daughter.

Y'all may think this is my fault and I deserve what I've done to myself, but I CAN'T FIX IT no matter what I do. I don't want to wait until I'm 350 lbs like my father. I want to do something about it now so I can enjoy my children while they are children.

Jenny that's wonderful that you've lost so much weight! And heck, if your drinking soda with breakfast is part of what makes you happy with daily eating, that seems reasonable to me! There's no rule about only having soda with dinner, which a ton of people do.

Congrats on your weight loss!!

Wow, Michelle, it does sound like you have a lot going on there! It seems like a great idea that you're in therapy. I'm not a doctor so I can't even begin to diagnose the issues - but I have to caution that if you binge eat, a stomach staple won't help for long. Your stomach will naturally grow to fit what you eat, all over again. So the therapy to help with the eating "reasons" will probably be far, far more helpful for you long term. If the stomach stapling helps give you a jump start on that, then that is a good thing.

Recent studies have shown that slow walking is much better for obese people than fast walking or fast exercise. Just about anybody can walk slowly. So especially if you have a kid, I recommend slow walks. Find a bike path nearby and go for a walk, even if it's 1/2 mile. If you can do that 2-3 times a week and make it a regular part of your life, I think that'll really help quite a lot. Just take it sloooow.

Also, if you keep your house free of ice cream, you can't binge eat it. One way to help with binge eating is to only keep healthy snacks in the house, so that is what you go eat.

i've been having an "issue"w/ my family over the snacks/ice cream problem - especially the kids. They don't think it's fair not to have stuff in the house for them just because I shouldn't have it (and that makes me feel guilty - i'm REAL GOOD at guilt).
Yes, definitely to the counseling helping w/ the binging more than the surgery, that's why the psychologist insisted on it first. But i still need the surgery to help reak a lifetime of bad habits. I am working w/ 5 different Dr.s right now (prmiary care, gastric, psych., neuro, gyno.) and all seem to feel this is a good decision- you don't get that often.

The thing I really like about the bypass is that, although you can cheat and blow it, my surgeon takes it very slow. You relearn how to eat in stages 2 wks to 1 mo. stages.
1. clear liquids (literally- broth, jellos, water, etc)
2. not clear liquids
3. mushy or pureed foods
4. soft foods
5. regular foods
So you are lloking at a possible 5 months before eating regular food. He doesn't want you eating red meat before 6 months. You can't drink and eat in the same meal, but you must stay hydrated so you drink water all day long. But you can't gulp, you have to sip or you'll vomit. if you overeat you'll vomit. if you have too much sugar (more than 5 g) you'll get "dumping syndrome" - the pancreas floods the body w/ insulin, heart races, sweat pours, dizzy spells, headache, then at the end you're wracked w/ vicious diarrhea.

it took me 4 yrs to decide to do this, believe me its not done lightly.

My daily menu is pretty much the same every day - I usually eat a different dinner each day but my day pretty much goes like this:

a Curves shake (whey protein) in the morning (on the way to work at 7:45am) - I make it with 8oz of skim milk

around 10am I have 1/2 cup cottage cheese and
1 cup strawberries

at noon I have a salad - yesterday it was just lettuce from the garden with about 4oz of deli roast beef and turkey shredded on top and around 1tbsp or cucumber dill Renee's dressing and i had a can of diet root beer

around 1:30 I started getting a headache so I ate a Nature Valley peanut butter granola bar hoping the crunchiness would relieve my head a bit. (I don't normally eat granola bars)

Had to leave work at 3pm because my headache was so severe.

Went home and slept and around 8pm I had a sausage stuffed with cheese with a small amount of mustard for dinner.

And that was it. Quite often I make a stir fry with spinach, asparagus, mushrooms, zucchini and chicken - I shake some parmesan cheese on top and that's a great dinner for me.

I don't eat a lot and since starting the low carb diet I haven't had much of an appetite. Sometimes I don't even want dinner but I eat something anyway because I don't want to be hungry at 10pm.

Oh I drink a whole lot of water too and take multivitamins at dinner time.