I’m eating 2 meals a day. I’m 5’1 and not counting calories right now but I know that I need to be eating around 1300 a day to be in a 500 calorie deficit. my fasting window is from 1-9. But i have NO CLUE if i’m doing anything wrong or right, so please let me know.
as an example of what i’ve been eating in a day:
for lunch today I had a cup of oats cooked with a cup of skim milk, some water and cocoa powder & sweetener. i also put on 5 big strawberries & sliced half a banana.
for dinner I had two miso glazed cod fillets (by glazed i mean i just brushed miso paste onto the fish), a cup of white rice (which ended up being more like 2 cups when cooked, so I want to reduce the amount of rice for the next time because I didn’t realise rice had THAT many calories lol) and some weird DIY miso soup (without tofu) because I couldn’t find the ingredients. I used maybe like 2 teaspoons of miso paste, some soy sauce, a spring onion and nori seaweed because like i said I couldn’t find the ingredients. I had to improvise lol. it still tasted good.
I don’t think i’ll have a snack today, maybe i’ll have a pear and some spiced black tea with milk later.
I’m using little to no oil in foods which I’ve noticed takes the joy out of eating, so I’ll probably reintroduce oil because I want this to be sustainable. I only really like olive oil and sesame oil anyway which I don’t think are too unhealthy!
I think you are doing great! And that sounds like a very manageable calorie deficit. My advice is that you should add a lot more protein to your lunch. Or have a very high protein snack at some point like yogurt or cottage cheese or a protein bar. This will help you feel more full. Your dinner sounds perfect and delicious :-)
I personally would need a lot more protein, fewer carbs, and more fat in order to not to be hungry. Rice, in particular, makes me hungry as hell afterwards, and I would never be able to make it through a fast after eating a meal that was so heavy in rice. I add veggies to my meals primarily to provide more bulk (and sometimes water) to fill my belly.
I don’t skimp on salt and spices because it’s really critical to my enjoyment of the food I’m eating. So is a little bit of oil where needed. I rely heavily on oil sprays because you have better control and can use a lot less than if you use an entire spoon of oil.
A lot of the most effective approaches tend to be low carb, moderate protein, high fat. What you eat is more important than the number of calories. Carbs (especially simple carbs like sugar, rice and bread) spike your insulin which makes it hard to impossible to burn fat. Protein also raises your insulin, but not as much. Fats don’t. So enjoy those oils! If you want to learn more about it, check out “obesity code” by Dr Jason Fung. The knowledge in that book was a game changer for me.