Eat your veggies

I have been dieting properly now (the counting calories malarky) now for nearly four months, doing a carb cycling thing for about two.

There are a couple of things I have noticed.

Dieting really sucks sometimes, even though the results are great.

There does seem to get to be this freaking hungry almost mad state, feel tired and horrible.

You know the only thing that brings back the balance and sanity?

Vegetables.

The low carb thing makes it easy to cook (which I do get really sick of), and there are some really quick meals, loads of nut butters and nuts, seeds, chicken breasts.

Interesting, I am less hungry on low carbs than I was when dieting with carbs. The hunger is even greater on high carb days.

I have seen a lot of your diet plans, and I know most of you are not on comp diets.

I have also noticed that there is a distinct lack of fruit and veg in a lot of them, and if there is, there is not a lot of variety.

I would highly recommend eating a really wide variety of foods when you are dieting, otherwise, it is just soooooooooo easy to fall off the bandwagon due to boredom or those cravings.

If you are not sure what to do with some veggies, or you want some recipes with some veggies, or you want to try something new, feel free to ask.

I find my prob to be mostly a time factor, so i make the most of my girll and wok. I feel like it is very boring and gets alittle sickining to make the same foods or prepare the same way, but ill just use dif seasonings, or use a variety of veggies to give alittle change. Iam really watching my GI mostly, but i eat only the good carbs, avoiding high fat ones, reguardless if its a good fat. Mostly for me it is an age factor and it was not a big prob for me in my 20's-30's, but now in my 40's nearing 50, i really have to watch the GI and fats and doing a regular cardio program.

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Now that winter is here, I like to eat more root vegetables in stews.

Here is one I made tonight

1. Add 500 -750 ml of water to a big pot with 2 low sodium organic stock cubes

2. Wash and prepare veggies (I usually cut most into circles, half-moons or strips for root veggies and stews)

3. Weigh the veg after prep.

4. Look up the values on an on-line site like Fitday or CalorieKing. I use the raw weights.

Celeriac (1/2 Root bulb) 290 g

122 kcals - 4.4 g protein - 26.7 g carbs - 0.9 g fat

Swede/Rutabagas 590 g (1 medium sized one)

212 kcals - 7.1 g protein - 48 g carbs - 1.2 g fat

Parsnips 183 g (3 medium sized)

137 kcals - 2.2 g protein - 32.9 g carbs - 0.5 g fat

Yam 278 g (1 large)

239 kcals - 4.4 g protein - 55.9 g carbs - 0.1 g fat

Carrots 229 g (3 medium)

94 kcals - 2.1 g protein - 21.9 g carbs - 0.5 g fat

Leeks 692 g (3 large)

422 kcals - 10.4 g protein - 97.9 g carbs - 2.1 g fat


Weight of veg in stew 2262 g or 2.3 kg

Total macros

1226 kcals - 30.6 g protein - 283.3 g carbs - 5.3 g fat


5. Add into the mix parsely, sage, rosemary and thyme (there is a reason for that traditional song, they taste fantastic together), and a couple of bay leaves.

6. Cook until the veggies are soft.

7. I cook chicken separately, usually boiled for stew in the same herb combo. This way I can weigh out the amount of chicken/protein I need and put it in each individual portion.


8. Check final weight of stew, in this case 2171 g (note the calories etc are not going to change, this is just used for working out portion size)

Then I put all my meals together based on what I know I need.

Most of my meals are about 200- 300 kcals as I will eat between 6-8 times per day.

This is a high carb meal, but my protein usually stays at around 40-50 %


Chicken 80g
88 kcals
18.5 g protein
0 g carbs
1 g fat

Stew 1226 kcals - 30.6 g protein - 283.3 g carbs - 5.3 g fat divide this into 10 so the macros will be:

123 kcals - 3.1 g protein 28.3 g carbs 0.5 g fat

Total weight of stew is 2171 (divide by 10 as well) so I would weigh out 217 g of the stew.

Total meal with chicken and veg


211 kcals - 21.6 g protein - 28.3 g carbs - 1.5 g fat

Check the ratios

21.6 g of protein x 4 kcals/g of protein = 86.4 kcals from protein/ 211 total cals = 40.9 % of meal is protein

28.3 g of carbs x 4 kcals/g of carbs = 113.2 kcals from carbs/211 total cals = 54 % of meal is carbs

1.5 g of fat x 9 kcals/g of fat = 13.5 kcals from fat/211 total cals = 6.4 % of meal is fat.

I could eat a bit more protein, so I may have 90 or 100 g of chicken with these meals.

This is for me on my comp diet, this is just an example of how to work out your diet so you know what you are eating.