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Healthy Eating
- Dec 16, 2007 at 8:40 PM
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I've followed SEVERAL different diet programs in my short 26 years of life so far. I've done everything from Atkins to Lurbs Super Soup and everything in between. I've found that it's really hard for me to follow any certain plan since I'm such a perfectionist. If I "fall off" the plan even just a little I feel like I've failed and then I give up. I used to have the "all or nothing" attitude towards dieting, either you were on a diet and following it 100% or you weren't. I've been able to lose weight before, but I would gain it back quickly after I stopped following whatever plan I was doing. They were all mostly good diets and they did work, but ONLY if you were following them near perfectly. None of them were things I wanted to or felt I could do long term though.
So when I started losing weight I decided NOT to follow a specified diet. Instead I adapted the good points of all the diets I've followed and put together some guidelines for eating that I knew I could stick to. I don't follow it 100% (and I don't expect myself to) but I do my best. I think the most important thing I did was change my thinking about food and instead of labeling food "good" or "bad" they're now "healthy" or "not healthy" and I never say I CAN'T have anything! I give myself permission to eat anything I want, I just watch portion sizes and make sure to work out harder on days I know I'll be eating more.
Losing weight is all about calories. You have to make sure you burn more fuel than you are putting in. I know we've all heard it before, but it REALLY is the truth!! As long as you have a calorie deficit you'll lose weight. The way my doctor told me to figure out how many calories a day to eat was to multiply my current weight by 8. If I want to maintain the weight I'm currently at, that's how many calories I need to eat a day. But in order to lose at least one pound a week, I have to either eat 500 calories less per day or burn off 500 calories through exercise (or do both to lose 2 pounds a week). Example: For a 200 lb person they would need to eat 1600 calories per day to STAY 200 lbs. If they wanted to lose one pound a week, they would either eat only 1100 calories a day OR still eat 1600 calories and burn up the 500 calories through exercise. If they did both (eat 500 calories less AND work off 500 through exercise), they would lose 2 lbs a week. One pound is equal to 3500 calories (so 500 calories less a day x 7 days a week= 3500 calories or one pound lost in a week). So no matter how you do it, for every 3500 calories you don't eat or work off you lose a pound.
It's important that you eat enough to keep your metabolism up though, so I wouldn't recommend going under 1100-1200 calories no matter what weight you are!! Some say not to go under 1400 calories even. If you eat too little, you're body will hold on to everything you put in your mouth and it will be resistant to letting go of any fat which will make weight loss difficult if you're not eating healthy stuff 100% of the time! By eating enough and keeping your metabolism up your body will be more forgiving when you "cheat" and eat something that's unhealthy. It'll just burn it up instead of holding onto it.
This is kinda quirky, but it helps me to understand metabolism a bit better. I think of it as a fire and the food you eat as logs to fuel it. If you're not putting logs on the fire consistently, eventually the fire is going to start to die out. If all you have are little red embers left and you throw a big log onto it, it's not going to burn up quickly like it should. It'll just sit there and take a LONG time to be consumed in the fire. The more consistent you are in adding logs to the fire, the hotter the fire will burn and the quicker the logs will be consumed. Now that's what you want to happen!!! You don't want to be putting huge logs on it though, that will put it out as well since the fire won't be able to keep up with the amount of fuel you're putting on it. You need to add just the right size of log every few hours for your fire to burn the hottest and most efficient.
If you can't simply reduce your daily calories because it will put you under 1100, then you'll have to work out to make up the difference. I'll write more about working out later but I have to say that I think exercise is KEY to losing weight and KEEPING IT OFF!!!! You HAVE to build more muscle to keep off the weight you're losing! I think that's why so many people yo-yo with their weight! Muscle burns up more calories than fat just while you're sitting or sleeping. If you increase the amount of muscle you have you'll burn up extra calories w/o even having to lift a finger! :P
Anyway, I'll go in to more detail on that later, but for now, here's some of the eating guidelines I follow and some of my favorite meals/snacks. Most of them are snacks because that's what I have a hard time with, especially when I'm wanting something sweet. I like to keep things simple so I tend to eat a lot of the sames things. I get overwhelmed when I have too many choices!! And most of these are really quick to fix too since I don't like spending lots of time in the kitchen. Like I said before, I had to make my OWN plan that works for me and my lifestyle and of course these aren't the only things I eat but hopefully there's a few ideas here that someone might like to try.
~ I always buy 100% wholegrain bread and pasta products. Whether it's just bread or english muffins or bagels, ect. I always read the ingredients to make sure it's always ONE HUNDRED PERCENT whole grain! If it says "enriched" on there, I don't buy it. My girls have got used to it now too and they have no problem eating it.
~ I only buy NATURAL peanut butter, Skippy has a really good one that you don't have to stir! I try to stay away from hydrogenated oils as best I can.
~ I buy everything I can "Low Fat" cuz by lowering the fat, you lower the calories (there's 9 calories in every gram of fat). I never buy the fat free version of things though (like sour cream or cottage cheese) cuz it is nasty and it really doesn't even save many more calories than the "light" version.
~ FRUIT FRUIT FRUIT!!!! We LIVE on apples it seems, we're always eating apples! Either with peanut butter or sliced deli turkey to add protein. I always buy a lot of whatever is on sale at the moment, bananas, strawberries, pineapples, cherries, nectarines, ect I'm not a huge veggie eater, but I LOVE fruit!
I also love...
~ Rice cakes with peanut butter spread on them.
~ Jerky!
~ Strawberries with Splenda or light Cool Whip.
~ I'm always making "fruit salad" with any fruit we have in the house mixed with light yogurt. One of our favorite combinations is strawberries, bananas, and grapes (either green or purple....although green LOOKS better..lol) mixed with strawberry yogurt. I've done ones with bananas, apples and oranges with orange yogurt before as well. You really can't go wrong with any combo!
~ Sugar free JELLO with light Cool Whip. Sometimes I'll add fruit to the jello while it's setting.
~ Sugar free instant Jello Pudding is a good one for beating cravings, especially chocolate. www.jello.com has some great recipes that are low fat, low cal and sugar free!
~ Whole Wheat english muffins with peanut butter is another good one. I eat these ALL the time!!
~ Shrimp (the precooked ones in the red bag at walmart) with cocktail sauce is a really easy way to get some protein.
Some other tips.......
~ Drink TONS of water. I've always tried to drink at least half my body weight in ounces, if not more! I always have a (big) bottle of water with me! Whenever I wanna eat something, I drink so much water I start to feel bloated (for lack of a better word). It makes my tummy feel full so I don't want to eat anymore.
~ Fill up on whole grains and protein, especially in the morning. It makes you feel more full through out the day. Oatmeal w/ Splenda and cinnamon (or Quaker's Weight Control oatmeal) with either an egg-white omelet (2 egg whites and one whole egg and whatever veggies I have) or two hard boiled eggs w/o the yolks is usually what I have in the morning.
~ I don't buy any junk food anymore. If it's not in my house, I can't eat it. DH still likes his chips and chocolate bars, but I make him hide them from me cuz if I see them, I'll eat them! :P
~ I try to stay away from anything that comes in a box like crackers, cookies, and boxed meals (like hamburger helper) since it's usually extremely processed and has no nutritional value left. They're just boxes of empty calories, trans fats and preservatives.
~ Chew gum all day long! When you have that minty taste in your mouth you don't want to eat plus it can satisfy a sweet tooth sometimes! Get lots of different flavors so you don't get bored with it!
~ I make sure to eat some kind of protein with everything else I eat. I have a hard time getting in my protein since it's usually more time consuming to prepare, but it's very important you get enough so your body can build new muscle! Plus it takes longer to digest so it can help you feel full longer. Some of my favorites that are super fast are Turkey Pepperoni, deli sliced turkey, egg whites (either scrambled or boiled), fully-cooked frozen shrimp (I just put it in a bowl under warm water and it thaws pretty fast), light string cheese, natural peanut butter (but not too much), and yogurt has a decent amount of protein per serving too.
~ Another thing I've learned is that will-power has NOTHING to do with losing weight. Believe it or not but I have NO will-power whatsoever when it comes to food!! That's why it's important for me to only have healthy food in my house and to stay away from places where I know I'll over-eat!
Comments:
Thanks for the tips... I have gone on and off of diets and working toward incorporating diet and exercise into my every day life... making it a better LIFESTYLE for me not just a "diet"
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