That was a big hurdle I had to clear. It's not all or nothing, being honest with yourself is really the key.

MLYLT,

If you want to do another cook-along, I'll be making this chicken tinga tonight; even under-seasoned, I'd imagine it would have enough flavor. Easy on the cheese too!

No more fast food!

Eats fast food the very next meal.

0_o

Every time you even think about fast food, just go to the store and get some rotisserie chicken instead (and instead of gross lean cuisine meals too). It's already prepped, cheap, just about every grocery store has it, and you're not eating like a dumbass. That and a bag of fresh veggies and you're set.

You are seriously taking the hardest path possible to do the simplest task. It's frustrating just to read, so I can imagine how you feel on a daily bases when logging your food.

MLYLT you're beginning to worry me now eat some salad and fruits and veggies, even if you're having more than minimal calories. I know you're concentrating on that a bit more. Get some kale/red peppers or something imo it tastes pretty good and is inexpensive.

Honestly if you make those changes you'll start to feel better over the long and short term, and you can still eat some fast food sometimes.
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I'm no exper/life advice guy but start buying a bunch of healthy things at the grocery store, then I can only assume you will thustly consume them. If you had apples/oranges/bananas on hand (not saying those are the best things) you could eat them instead of some mickeyD's breakfast snack.


You could completely reset your mindset and just try to eat mostly/entirely "clean" or good healthy food for at least a few days. You should feel better and your long and short term health will be better. IMO, it's possible to put too high an emphasis on "losing weight" and too little on nutritious eating.

Do you have a set day/time you shop for groceries? Get one. Make a list that covers all you meals for how ever many days in between trips and stick to it. It's stunning to me that you run out of food.

I don't run out of food, I just don't have anything thawed to cook. I didn't prep my meals on Sunday and this is where I messed up. I don't have a set day, just when I start running low. I go about 3x a week for fruited; my daughter eats a lot of strawberries , blueberry's, and apples, so I'm constantly having to replenish the supply.

I had vending machine chili dogs for breakfast this morning :/
I ate two bananas and was still starving and grabbed the first thing I could find. I had a grilled chicken salad for lunch and ill be skipping dinner to stay under calories for the day.

O man.

How were they? Sounds not good.

MLYLT,

I just bought 5 lbs of bone in chicken breasts on sale for $3.75 to use in the chicken tinga tonight!

I concur that vending machine chili dogs are this sort of situation:

Please don't skip dinner. That leads to binges.

Also, what happened to eggs for breakfast? I'm all for fruit, but fruit are not meals, they're side dishes. They don't fill you up on their own. For breakfast if you have time, I'd suggest making a two egg omelet with a slice of cheddar and some chopped onions and mushrooms or possibly spinach. This is a remarkably filling (and tasty) meal for <300 (iirc) calories.

You were eating >100 grams of protein a day pretty consistently there for a while. Now you're regularly posting 40-60g days. High protein foods like eggs, dairy, beans, meats are very satiating and your calories should consist primarily of these. If you eat 1400 calories of a day with >100g protein, I doubt you will be so hungry all the time.

The chicken wings sounds good, bit I have late work meetings and will be short on time.
I don't have anyone to watch my daughter, so I'll have to bring her to the meetings. Think anyone will think anything of that?

I just simply ran out of eggs and kind of got tired of them for breakfast.

They're not wings, but word.

I mean, they "shouldn't", but some of them may anyway? If you've got no options, you've got no options, though.

You only had 970 calories yesterday and ate nothing after lunch. No wonder you were starving. This depends on where you work, what the meetings involve and how your daughter behaves. If it's a casual meeting with your team it could be fine. If you're meeting with a client, then probably not. If your daughter gets bored and starts running though the office, then probably not.

I've never seen vending machine chili dogs. So I looked up pictures and boy do those look sorry. Maybe it's just me, but I can't eat super garbage/low quality food. If it looks like a terrible version compared to a high quality version, it's an immediate no.

Vending machine chili dogs sounds more like punishment than food.

Just mistyped it lol

It was pretty good! I'd forgotten that this yields a buttload of sauce, so I'll have to poach some more chicken to use with the leftover sauce (~5 lbs of bone in breasts yielded about 2.5 lbs of meat after cooking, so enough for a dinner for the family and a lunch for me, with plenty of sauce left over).

Maybe I could make it on Monday night with 2lbs of chicken for my prepped lunches next week. Plain chicken everyday gets boring.

It's pretty tasty. The only actual spice (i.e. ingredient that provides heat) is the chipotles in adobo, so you can pretty easily modulate the spice level to your preference and that of your daughter. Or just reserve some of the sauce before you add the chipotles if you prefer a different spice level.

One iteration of the recipe (i.e. don't double it) is more than enough to handle two boneless skinless chicken breasts (if that's what you're going to do).

Is this one of your jokes in asking if you can bring your five year old, known for destructive behavior, to a professional meeting?

I'm sure her boss who just had to talk to her about interpersonal communication at work will have no problem with it. Just put a litter box in the corner of the meeting room, give the kid a bathroom scale, and everything will be fine.

I had to. My partner and I made arrangements where I would take a couple of his day meetings and he would do my night meetings. I mentioned it to my boss and she got pissed and said, "can't your ex husband get her from Daycare". I had to explain to her that he works out of town some and happens to be traveling a lot in February (none of her business), and if she didn't want my partner and I covering for each other then I would have to bring my daughter to the meetings.
The plants run 24/7, so when something happens on night crew, we have to have a troubleshooting/root cause meeting with the people involved and then other training meetings. It seems I've had a lot more night meetings than my partner, so he was cool because I covered for him when he was out and offered to switch and help out.

M,

You go to the store 3x/week.

You have said repeatedly you like to cook and are good at it.

Cook dinner every night. You can cook a good simple meal in less time than it takes you to stop and get good at McDonald's. Have the backup plans in place that I outlined in my earlier post.

Your current plan of staying under calories the way you're doing is a recipe for failure.

MLY,

I'm pretty sure that even near you there are places where people can bring their kids when they have to work

Yes, but she needs to take the kid to work with her so her boss can see why she really shouldn't fire her.