Hey-
Thanks for starting this board, btw. I've been dieting, slowly, for a few years (losing nearly 50 pounds so far, probably another 30 to go.) My challenge is to eat enough carbs/fat/protein to fuel my running so I don't feel like carp out there (training for a summer half). I feel like it's a very fine line between getting enough, and getting too much. Of course part of it is just loving to eat, but truthfully constant salads don't work for runners (or at least me). I've been trying to just add a bit more peanut butter, and a bit more whole grains. We'll see if that helps.

Hey Ron, No McDonalds??? they have a great asian chicken salad (gotta get it grilled) and the dressing it comes with is 90 calories for the whole pack. I always get that!!

Good ideas for meals:

breakfast: Kashi go lean crunch cereal, YUMMY
Scrambled eggs (one whole and two whites), on a carb control tortilla with fat free mozz cheese.

lunch: pre cook up a bunch of chicken breasts, however you like them and freeze the individually. for lunch defrost one in the microwave, cut it up in little pieces and put in a whole pita with lettece, cucumbers, carrots, fat free mozz cheese, mayo and mustard. Serve with fruit and some Kashi ranch flavored crackers.

The biggest thing that has helped me with eating while training, my meals needed to be bigger. I always found myself "dieting" and would be hungry after I ate which made for bad choices with snacking. With the bigger meals, I am rarely hungry between meals and when I am it's mini bags of microwave popcorn, the kashi crakcers, or a protein shake.

I tried to get back on the path of eating healthily this year - I fell off after the birth of my daughter and death of my mother, but I am ready to get back to the eating that makes me feel good. Before I had my daughter, I lost 50 lbs on a hybridized version of Weight Watchers and whole foods (I guess it is sort of what the Core program is now). Even then, nearly the smallest I have ever been (a size 12), I was 160 at 5'2". I think I am just plain old dense.

So, now I am back to eating only whole grains, no sugar (except for my morning coffee, and I am weaning off that), almost no processed foods, lean meats and lots of salad and veggies. I am much more strict during the week, so that I can splurge a little on the weekends, when my husband cooks. Luckily, we have always fed our daughter "real food", so I don't have that kiddy stuff tempting me. For me, it is mostly about portion control.

My trouble lately is finding that balance between enough to power me while running and still dropping off the pounds/fat. My first 2 weeks on the C25K, I felt ravenous all the time, and didn't feel like I lost any weight (I don't have a scale) based on the fit of my clothes. So off I go to the internet to research calorie requirements (why, I don't know since I hate counting calories), and find that I need about 2000 to lose weight at a healthy rate. Yet SparkPeople tells me I need 1250 - 1390. Hmmm.. So I wonder if I was eating too little, and my body was holding on to the weight. I bumped up what I was eating this past week, and things seem a little better.

Regardless of whether I am losing, I feel great! And I have discovered that running is not as bad as I always thought - I actually like it!

So, that is my long, convoluted way to say, I hear ya people!

Cereal? How about honey nut cheerios,BUT buy a box of regular cheerios and mix them together. This halves the sugar but you still have the flavor.
I also like Kashi Go Lean Crunch, again it is quite sweet so you could get the Good Friends cereal and mix it together to increase the fiber content and reduce the sugar.
Often in the natural food aisle there are really tasty hot cereals. I got a 5 grain oatmeal hot cereal the other day at our local store that is really good.

I have found Kashi - Heart to Heart (kinda of like cheerios) but even less sugar to be good (even my kids like it).

Here's what I've found works best for me. With heavy running (right now I'm marathon training), and still losing a good amount of weight:


-I eat clean, whole grain, or fruit/veggie carbs all **** day. Oatmeal, whole wheat pitas with hummus and spinach(I make it myself and make it very low fat), whole wheat toast with low-sugar jam, pasta with a healthy sauce, good granola, brown rice, tabouli (homemade low-fat), grape nuts, cheerios.

-I eat one protein serving, in addition to what I get from my staple foods (the carbs) per day. Usually beans with the rice, non-fat yogurt with the grape nuts, soymilk with the cheerios, edamame, or wild alaskan salmon. Sometimes I'll have a whey shake.

-I eat one fat serving. Peanut butter on toast, extra oil in my tabouli, edamame, flax seeds in the oatmeal, things like that.

A "serving" is probably two actual servings, in most cases. I know it sounds extreme to have one serving of protein and one servings of fat per day, but you have to realize that whole grain carbs have plenty of fat and protein themselves! And if you eat a variety of sources, you will get all the amino acids you need.

This makes it very easy to adapt my diet when my tastes change. I simply use these simple rules: Good carbs all day, good fat twice a day, and good protein once a day, and everything works itself out. I usually end up getting around 2500 calories, with a breakdown of 55/30/15 carb/fat/protein, which is just where I want to be.

I think that a carb heavy (good carb) diet is the key to losing weight while doing an excessive amount of training.

For example, here's what I had/am having today:

Breakfast: Oats. Probably three servings of oats.

Snack: Orange, cup of granola

Lunch: Three whole wheat pita pockets (half a pita) stuffed with hummus and spinach.

Snack: Orange, cup of granola

Dinner: Three servings of edamame (My protein and fat right here)

Snack: Carrots

I know this kind of simple meals would probably bore people to tears. But it's what works for me, I'm a lazy cook and won't make anything complex.

Eat less.
Exercise more.

Why do people make it so complicated?