High calorie nutritious foods

I'm probably going to get slaughtered for this but anyway :pac:

I need to get more calories in, I'm running on a huge deficit at the moment and for some absolutely ridiculous reason I find it really difficult to eat enough food. (this was never an issue for me before!!).

I know it's easy to say "just eat more" but I'm so aware of eating right, that I end up not eating enough. I'm getting in trouble over it now and had a talking to from my friends today :P

I am stupid busy. I'm on the go from early am to pretty late in the evening. Training 5 days a week (which will increase to six over the coming months). I need to feed myself accordingly, but can't be sitting down to have big meals all the time.

So. Easy foods to add to my diet that will push up my calories but that are completely healthy.

All I can think of so far is more eggs, adding avocado to salads, nuts, yogurt.

traprunner

Easiest to add is a protein shake.

Other than that foods higher in fat would increase your calorie intake. So nuts, nut butters, fatty fish, olive/rapeseed oil.

Roosterreid

Peanut butter is one that springs to mind.... both delicious and quick to eat.

Alf Veedersane

Oats, coconut milk, peanut butter, salmon, quinoa

Zillah

Drown everything in olive oil.

Lukker-

Whole milk
Butter
Choc covered peanuts are 500 kcal for a small bag

I'll be honest if I'm busy and I can't hit macros I just get a few double cheese burgers..

gizmo

In terms of quick foods that can be kept in the fridge at home or work and thrown into a bag when required, I find the Paleo bars that Transform makes in the video below to be fantastic.

The ones I make work out at 357kcal each with a macro profile of 6/13/31. They're more (healthy) Fats-centric obviously so I find they compliment the protein bars from this forum quite well.

I should use more nut butter actually. I'll bring some of that to work to eat in the afternoon with an apple.

Make some coconut milk based curries.

I could definitely eat choccie covered nuts

More butter in my eggs.

Quinoa I've just started cooking with so I'll keep at that.

I always buy low fat milk too so that could change!

I made a batch of paleo bounties last weekend and the old me would have had them gone in a day but I've still got most of them left.

Greenmachine

Cream in your scramble eggs.Blend 0.5l milk, 50 grams peanut butter, and a scoop of protein powder for added whack cook oats in mixture. Vary amount of oat to suit consistency you like.
Smoothies including either coconut milk or avocado.

gizmo

Deleted User wrote: »

I should use more nut butter actually. I'll bring some of that to work to eat in the afternoon with an apple.

Make some coconut milk based curries.

I could definitely eat choccie covered nuts

More butter in my eggs.

Quinoa I've just started cooking with so I'll keep at that.

I always buy low fat milk too so that could change!

I made a batch of paleo bounties last weekend and the old me would have had them gone in a day but I've still got most of them left.

I'd recommend this Chicken, sweet potato & coconut curry too. Quick to make with straight forward ingredients, not particularly expensive, portions aren't particularly large so it'd be very easy to eat two and double up on the stated nutritional contents if desired, it keeps quite well in the fridge and can be heated in a microwave extremely quickly.

Cream in scrambled eggs? That's a new one on me! Is it nice?

I haven't been eating porridge/oats at all lately as I wasn't running as much, I don't really want to load up on too many carbs either so I might wait until I'm back doing more mileage before I start on them again.

Trying to find the right balance is difficult enough!!!

Alf Veedersane

Deleted User wrote: »

Cream in scrambled eggs? That's a new one on me! Is it nice?

I haven't been eating porridge/oats at all lately as I wasn't running as much, I don't really want to load up on too many carbs either so I might wait until I'm back doing more mileage before I start on them again.

Trying to find the right balance is difficult enough!!!

Do you track your food?

If you want to increase your calories and get your macro profile like you want, it would be worth using MFP for a bit. Just to play around with different food combos and get a handle on it.

I've tried doing it, the first time I started logging I realised I was eating around 900 cals a day AND I wasn't losing any weight!!!

I go through phases of tracking, but I need to completely change my mindset to be entirely honest and to actually stop worrying about calories. Because when I think in calories I don't eat enough. Like a tbsp of coconut oil is over 100 calories so instantly I want to reduce the amount of coconut oil in a recipe.

The reality of the number of calories I think I should be eating, and the number of calories I should actually be eating are quite different and that's what I'm trying really hard to change. But eating 1800-2000 calories just seems like so much food.

At one point my CF coach reckoned (purely in a passing comment and without a proper review) I should be eating up to 3000 calories when I was mid marathon training. 3000 calories like? That seems absolutely mental.

I'm sure this thread makes me sound I sound like I must be thin but I'm not. Far from it. I could do with shifting a fair whack of weight tbh.

CaptainAhab

Extra virgin olive oil - one tablespoon is 100 calories or more and its fantastic for health
Fish oil/cod liver oil - same thing but with omega 3s and vitamin D
Eggs
Avocado
Nuts such as brazil, walnut, hazelnut, macadamia
real butter

Alf Veedersane

Then maybe just start adding in small amounts so you don't have a big jump in calories to begin with. See how that works with performance etc. Tweak as needs be.

I can totally understand that mindset with logging, tbh. I've a rough idea of what I'm getting from what I eat. Add oats on training days, for example. I'd say I hit the 90% good mark so I'm okay with that. But I've had to learn to be okay with it.

So just try going by 'feel' and seeing what works or doesn't.

I'm not feeling very strong the last couple of days so I missed training today and I got myself a nice steak, put cream in my spinach, and butter on my asparagus. Am I doing it right? :pac:

I'll do asyou say Alf, add things slowly and play around until I feel like I'm fueling myself correctly.

Thanks lads.

groovyg

Deleted User wrote: »

At one point my CF coach reckoned (purely in a passing comment and without a proper review) I should be eating up to 3000 calories when I was mid marathon training. 3000 calories like? That seems absolutely mental.

I'm sure this thread makes me sound I sound like I must be thin but I'm not. Far from it. I could do with shifting a fair whack of weight tbh.

3000 calories during marathon training :eek: That's a lot of food. Maybe the top guys consume this as a lot of them are training twice a day but that's a lot of food for an average runner.

Are you losing weight or something that people have said something to you?

groovyg

groovyg wrote: »

3000 calories during marathon training :eek: That's a lot of food. Maybe the top guys consume this as a lot of them are training twice a day but that's a lot of food for an average runner.

Are you losing weight or something that people have said something to you?

I do Crossfit too and it was that coach who said it. Fully agree though, it's a whole lot of food.

No not losing a whole lot of weight, none tbh, though have lost inches. It's more than I'm lacking energy and getting fatigued very easily. I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I was starving all day and hadn't stopped eating and when I said what I'd actually eaten my friends thought it was feck all taking into consideration I had already done a gym session and was running after work.

I know 3,000 is too many. But 1400-1500 is probably too few but I feel like I'm eating a lot even at that (worth adding this is me having increased up from 1,200) I could just eat cake like :pac: but I'd really rather not.

MagicMarker

groovyg wrote: »

3000 calories during marathon training :eek: That's a lot of food. Maybe the top guys consume this as a lot of them are training twice a day but that's a lot of food for an average runner.

Are you losing weight or something that people have said something to you?

I would have thought top level marathon runners are eating a HELL of a lot more than 3000 cals a day.

Mellor

A 60kg marathon runner would burn 3000cals on a day where he covers 15km. And I imagine that's a fairly light training day.

3000cals is a lot of food for a typical 50kg female. It's not a lot of food for a 90kg male.

PowerToWait

I burn up to 14-1500 cals 5 days so I had the same issues. I also got sweet tooth.

Started making my own banana loaves. It's a basic banana bread recipe with 1/3 of the flour. This is replaced with 2 cups whizzed oats and 5 scoops vanilla protein powder. 2 eggs go in. Half the butter replaced with same of coconut oil. Half the sugar.
Throw in chopped hazelnuts, almonds, raisins and dark choc chips. Also chia and flaxseed. Dessicated coconut too.

I sometimes add lime zest and juice.

It's never the same but it's always fantastic. I think you could live healthily enough on that alone.

Quinoa is great.

anonimity

You're trying to gain weight I assume? Use ice-cream and nuts. Get a bag of dry roasted/mixed nuts, cashews etc. Hardly filling and loaded with cals.

Protein shakes could be an easy addition but it depends, alone they don't tend to have that much in them and some people get bloated and won't eat much afterwards. Add peanutbutter to everything. Eat cheese, pasta, full fat yogurt, bagels + nut butters, drown some veg in olive oil and roast.

Nooooo! Not trying to gain weight. Just trying to keep my body moving!

I made similar to Dominic's bars with stuff from the cupboard. MFP tells me the little balls I made up are 150 cals each. I'm going to manually work out the breakdown as I suspect MFP hasn't got that quite right.

Going to see how I go with a green smoothie (with avocado) in the morning too!

Orla K

Yesterday I thinly sliced sweet potato and fried it in tallow, it was delicious and really easy to eat plenty of them.

Carbs with fat is the easiest and most calorie dense things to eat so go for roasted veg or put loads of fat on top of your cooked veg

I normally have two boiled eggs for breakfast but I added in a smoothie this morning with celery, spinach, apple, blueberries, coconut water, and coconut oil. I'm so full I feel sick.

I usually have some greek yogurt with berries and nuts mid morning but I can't see myself being able for that which means really I haven't added anything extra at all!!

You'd think someone who used to be fat would be well able to eat enough bloody food wouldn't you :rolleyes:

Tar.Aldarion

I eat nut everything, nut butters, peanutbutter stew, peanut butter/date/coconut balls, banana/soy milk/agave syrup /peanut butter/protein powder smoothies etc. The smoothie tastes amazing. Green smoothies wouldn't be too calorific. Plenty of things like hummous and oily dressings when eating salady things.

A cup of edamame has 376 calories (delicious snack on their own), quinoa 625 calories, Amaranth 729 etc instead of eating rice. Dried fruits, raisins, seeds and all that yummy stuff is quite calorific while being healthy.

Goshen

Are you anorexic in your thinking?

I spoke to my running coach about my concerns. I asked him what is an acceptable deficit. He told me that for a start I need to stop counting calories and just eat good food. I asked him if I kept a food diary for a few days would he review for me and he agreed he would. Nutrition is one of things I have to feed back to him about each week so it's OK for me to say I ate no junk, but I felt that was only half the story. So we'll see what he says.

For example, yesterday I ate the following;

*****

2 boiled eggs + smoothie as per my last post

Salad of quinoa, lentils, chickpeas, feta, tomatoes, spinach, blueberries, and 1 medium sized breast of chicken. Dressing was a tablespoon of olive oil and lime juice.

Very very small portion of turkey mince chilli with a turkey mince, with a tablespoon of greek yogurt.

Post workout & run; chocolate power ball thingy as per Dominic's recipe (mine work out around 150cals). and a small glass of low fat milk (I forgot I said I'd buy whole milk, and bought the LF super milk out of habit).

*******

I was so so full after my breakfast
My salad was not by any stretch of the imagination large (I used 1/2 cup lentils, 1/2 cup quinoa, 1 tin chickpeas which will make up the base of about 4 salads). I couldn't finish it, and I really really tried.
I was still full by dinner time but I have strength week this week so knew I needed to eat. A tiny portion of chilli was forced down my neck.

My lifts were so weak, that I couldn't lift even way below my previous max, and I was absolutely wrecked after running 7km.

I'm getting quite caught up in it, but only because I really really want to get the best out of my body and I can't do that if it's not fed right!

Goshen

Goshen wrote: »

Are you anorexic in your thinking?

I don't understand what that means?

Penny Tration

If you need to up the calories but can't physically eat enough, maybe try drinking a litre or more of full fat milk on top of your usual diet?

I don't think it's good for you to be forcing yourself to eat like you did with the chilli. Forcing yourself to eat will probably just make you feel bloated and gross - not exactly great for if you're trying to work out!

traprunner

Jenny Thalia wrote: »

If you need to up the calories but can't physically eat enough, maybe try drinking a litre or more of full fat milk on top of your usual diet?

I don't think it's good for you to be forcing yourself to eat like you did with the chilli. Forcing yourself to eat will probably just make you feel bloated and gross - not exactly great for if you're trying to work out!

Add some protein powder to that milk and it'll be a nice wee jump in calories.

Tar.Aldarion

Deleted User wrote: »

I spoke to my running coach about my concerns. I asked him what is an acceptable deficit. He told me that for a start I need to stop counting calories and just eat good food. I asked him if I kept a food diary for a few days would he review for me and he agreed he would. Nutrition is one of things I have to feed back to him about each week so it's OK for me to say I ate no junk, but I felt that was only half the story. So we'll see what he says.

For example, yesterday I ate the following;

*****

2 boiled eggs + smoothie as per my last post

Salad of quinoa, lentils, chickpeas, feta, tomatoes, spinach, blueberries, and 1 medium sized breast of chicken. Dressing was a tablespoon of olive oil and lime juice.

Very very small portion of turkey mince chilli with a turkey mince, with a tablespoon of greek yogurt.

Post workout & run; chocolate power ball thingy as per Dominic's recipe (mine work out around 150cals). and a small glass of low fat milk (I forgot I said I'd buy whole milk, and bought the LF super milk out of habit).

*******

I was so so full after my breakfast
My salad was not by any stretch of the imagination large (I used 1/2 cup lentils, 1/2 cup quinoa, 1 tin chickpeas which will make up the base of about 4 salads). I couldn't finish it, and I really really tried.
I was still full by dinner time but I have strength week this week so knew I needed to eat. A tiny portion of chilli was forced down my neck.

My lifts were so weak, that I couldn't lift even way below my previous max, and I was absolutely wrecked after running 7km.

I'm getting quite caught up in it, but only because I really really want to get the best out of my body and I can't do that if it's not fed right!

It is a great goal to eat right, no matter the reasons. Sounds like you are making a lot of progress and if you train 5-6 times a week then you start feeling the strain, a good diet will mitigate that but you will have some bad days like you had. I go about 5 times a week too and there is some natural running down of your body, apart from any calorie concerns.