RE: This is a fitness goldmine, but I'm so new! Help ge...
Hello again. Just by looking at your diet I can say a couple of things.
1. You could (maybe you should) increase your protein intake.
2. Even though I see salad and vegetables and an apple
I think you can add more high fiber foods to your diet. For every gram of dietary fiber you add to your diet you can subtract 7-9 calories from your daily intake. The recommended amount is 20-35g daily.
3. I see a lot of "fat free" products in there. To make a product fat free most of the time what they add is sugar or sugar alcohols to substitute the fat. This is definitely artificial and not what I call clean. Fat is what satisfies your hunger so to speak. Maybe you shouldn't substitute the fat free products for the full fat versions, but I think low fat might be a better alternative. Sometimes you can eat your fat free products and then think you're allowed to eat whatever junk food you want cause you ate fat free food all day. It's not good to do that.
4. Although I try to avoid alcohol I know that one glass of wine or one light beer a day is still allowed. If you go out with your friends just try to have no more than 2 glasses of wine. Also buy a huge bottle of water and stretch that wine as long as you can if you know what I mean so you don't drink more alcohol than you should.
LOL I see my reply is getting to be a little long. I'll try to cut it a little bit. As an ex lacto-ovo vegetarian I can give you some recommendations for food ideas. I still try to eat that way, but now I eat white meats (sometimes I eat red too x( ) and fish sometimes so hopefully you can get some more food ideas from people that are still 100% strict on their vegetarian diets.
Ok so what can you do to increase your protein intake? Lots of people might recommend tofu. Personally I never liked it, but I admit is a good source of protein. Also there are a lot of veggie meat products in the market. Most of them have a fair amount of protein. Morningstar farms makes good tasting products. You can also buy 100% soy protein powder. Although soy protein doesn't taste as good as other protein powders you can easily substitute a meal with a nice smoothie. In a blender, add 6-8oz of soy "milk" (Vitasoy Enriched Vanilla is nice), soy protein powder, fruit (half a banana and 4onz canned peaches make a good smoothie). If you want you can add 1/4-1/3cup of fiber one cereal for your fiber and you can also add flaxseed for your omega fatty acids. You can add more milk at the end till you find your desired consistency.
To increase your dietary fiber you could add organic multi-grain or wheat bread, beans, add sprouts to sandwiches or salads (alfalfa or bean sprouts), cereals, organic brown rice (you could eat this for dinner with some veggies and veggie meat, or make a vegetable soup with rice --remember to use vegetable broth--, you could buy wheat tortillas and buy veggie meat to make burritos, etc. The important thing is to make your food interesting and to change it once in awhile. You're not going to stop going out with your friends, but when you do try to make healthy food choices and eat reaaaaaaaally reaaaaaally slow so you don't end up eating more calories than you should and like I said already even if you drink alcohol always have lots of water in the table so you drink more water than alcohol.
You should keep eating yogurt and cottage cheese for your calcium. Remember that our calcium intake is really important. Well, I think that's about it for now. If I come up with more suggestions I'll post them. Good luck!
