Hmm. I think I see a few things. One thing that I do to make sure that I don’t “cheat” or eat something that is “bad for me” is I make meals ahead of time. Don’t have time? I find that I can make 18 meals in about 45 minutes once I’ve got everything. If you aren’t supplementing with protein shakes, that’s 3 days of meals there, 4-5 if you are supplementing. At the moment my diet has changed somewhat so I make the basics ahead of time and then build the meals every morning before work, BUT you can do it all ahead of time.
Instead of going through everything opinion-wise, I’ll just post what I’m eating right now. This is for cutting fat: I’m 6’2, 230 at about 16%. One day I week I go hog wild with food; I still make “wise” choices but I eat and eat and eat, and occasionally go on a caloriefest at subshops, Panera, etc.
I use the “taper method”. I’m only P+F the last 3 meals as I feel better when consuming all three macronutrients together earlier in the day.
There is no “diet” or “low fat” anything here.
Breakfast:
4 egg whites, 1 whole egg
1 orange
8 oz oatmeal (cooked… about 1 cup)
1/2 tbsp of flax seeds (mixed with oatmeal after cooking)
400ish cal
Snack:
1/2 cup cottage cheese
5 oz chicken (baked skinless boneless thigh, drained well)
1 banana
455 cal
Lunch:
1/2 cup cottage cheese
5 oz chicken (same above)
1 banana
1 apple
1 slice of flax bread or some nut-loaded stone ground wheat thing
645 cal
Snack:
1 cup cottage cheese
15 grams pistachios (mixed into cheese)
1/2 tbps flax seeds(mixed into)
355 cal
Dinner:
4oz chicken (same above)
15g pistachios (mixed in)
1/2 tbsp flax seeds(mixed)
2 tbsp salsa (mixed)
305 cal
Late night:
1/2 cup cottage cheese
1/2 tbsp flax seeds
150 cal
Total is about 2400 cal for a day. On workout days, I sometimes supplement with surge-like shakes post-workout. It depends on how I feel (this is a choice to keep sugar down in my diet).
There is no “BBQ chicken” here or “PB” sandwiches. I’m very specific about what I eat at what times, and what makes it convenient is that I’ve made my food allotment for the day in the morning; everything in the cooler gets consumed. Nothing more than that goes into my stomach in any given day, no matter what. This isn’t an example of what you should do, just an example of a structured method of getting somewhere. This has worked for me so far; I’ve been testing it out for 3 weeks now. When it stops working, I’ll change it up, and I do substitute equal portions of food sometimes to keep things relatively interesting, even though I’m typically not complaining about repetition.
Get a food scale (I have an electronic which is nice, but boing-boing scales work good too), some ziplock containers, and some food relative to a diet that you design. Get a small cooler and some Blue Ice pouches to freeze. Weighing food doesn’t take as long as you think and after you do it for a while, you sorta take pride in knowing exactly what you are consuming. Its a nice control factor over your whole body that for me, makes all aspects of my training program better.