So I'm trying pretty hard to stick to a strict calorie limit. I've never really needed to count calories before because I was either at a healthy weight or because making small changes like cutting out juice was enough to drop my excess weight (sugar is a huge weight gain trigger for me).
I've been calorie counting, which is easy to do during the daytime. I've chosen a target that's a bit below my recommended intake for my height/weight/lifestyle, because I'm pretty damn sedentary due to a combination of a physical disability and covid stuff. I feel like the BMI calculators don't account for that level of not moving my ass.
I usually only eat two meals a day, lunch and dinner. Often I don't actually have lunch, I might just have a handful of cheerios at a couple of points during the day instead (about a cup to a cup and a half total). I'm never hungry in the morning and often don't get hungry until dinner time. I spoke with my doctor about this and he said it's fine as long as what I do eat for my one meal is nutritionally sound and calorie dense enough to not leave me way under my calories for that day.
So for lunch I either have a slice of unbuttered whole grain toast with two soft-boiled eggs and some bbq sauce (I don't slather it, just drizzle), or if I have avocados I'll have an avocado sandwich with 1 medium avocado, two slices of whole grain bread and two slices of light swiss cheese. I sometimes add a slice of ham, if I have it.
The eggs and toast are about 350 calories and the sandwich is about 550. My dinner varies, I usually don't cook it so I can't weigh and count calories but I try to eat mostly veggies with some meat for protein. I can only sort of guess at the number of calories which is why I try to keep my lunchtime calories as low as possible.
What I'd like to know is is it better to eat the 'fatty' avocado with the also kind of fatty cheese (and sometimes ham) for protein and eat an extra 200 calories or should I stick with the eggs and toast, which is less nutritious but has substantially fewer calories? I'm really new to calorie counting and I'm not sure about how to make choices between lower calorie foods and slightly higher calorie but more nutritious foods.