Wait...you mean this
isn't a travel blog? Enough with Maui for a few days - I still have some funny (to me, anyway - hopefully to you as well) pictures to post, but I thought I would actually write about dieting for a change!
Once upon a time I decided to lose weight. And I did - sometimes the weight came off quickly and sometimes slowly - but it always came off. Until the month of October. *cue ominous music* From October 1st to the 15th,
nothing happened. The scale didn't move down, not one bit. Of course, it didn't move up, either - but that wasn't much consolation! As I was continuing to watch what I ate AND do three killer workouts each week, I grew increasingly frustrated.
I even spoke with my trainer, Brad, about it, and after looking over my food logs, he gave me some good advice. Basically he told me to mix things up a bit - perhaps eating the same thing for breakfast month after month might not be the greatest thing for losing weight, no matter how healthy it was. I have to say that I shed a tear at the thought of not eating my beloved Fage yogurt, Kashi Golean Crunch cereal and fresh sliced strawberries every morning. Brad also thought that I wasn't getting enough good fat in my diet and advised me to cut back on the carbs (including some of the fruit - the horror!) and add in some nuts, olives or natural peanut butter.
Well, as you can imagine, these were some major changes that I needed to wrap my mind around. Luckily, I was leaving for vacation soon and knew that by being out of my normal routine and away from home, I would have no choice but to make some changes. And, as evidenced by the previous post, I ate some very different foods - but hey - I was
on vacation! Cut to my return home from vacation and all the wonders of gelato. Would I be able to get back on track, diet-wise? The (blog)world waits in anticipation...
.
.
.
.
.
and the answer is yes! You know why? Because I had the mindset that vacation was for having some fun with food, but being home is where the rubber hits the road. Plus, while realizing that I look like a normal person, I still have about 20 - 25 pounds left to lose...and I want to get on with it! I weighed myself on Saturday, and I was up four pounds, which wasn't unexpected. By Monday morning I was already down 2.5 pounds, and I'm hoping that this downward trend will continue. I know it sounds weird, but I was just glad to see a different number on the scale on Saturday, even though it was higher.
So it looks like mixing things up, starting with the vacation food, might do the trick. What am I doing differently now that I'm home? Well, I have actually had some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (made with 1 tbsp. of Maranatha Organic Peanut Butter, about a tsp. of Smucker's All-Fruit Spread, and an Orowheat Sandwich Thin) for lunch last week - I forgot how good pb&j tastes! The fruit selection in the store has changed and now I'm on to eating apples, clementines, a banana every once in a while, and pomegranates are back - yum! I bought a carton of egg whites and am having a 1 egg plus 1/3 cup egg white scrambled breakfast taco (eggs, fresh pico and corn tortillas at 55 calories each make for a yummy breakfast). And while I can't give up my yogurt breakfast for good, I am trying to not eat it every day. Plus, I'm changing
that up a bit by reducing the amount of cereal (down from 1 cup to 2/3 cup) and since strawberries are no longer in season here, I've tried adding 1/4 cup of dried cranberries to the mix. Tasty! I do need to get to our health-food store to see if I can get the dried cranberries without added sugar, but for now the Craisins will do. With those changes, I've dropped nearly 100 calories from that meal alone.
I'm being pretty strict with myself and sticking to 1,200 calories per day. For a while there, I wasn't counting fruit or veggie calories, and while I still won't count the veggie calories (I don't eat high calorie veggies like corn or potatoes), I will count what fruit I eat toward the 1,200. Hopefully with these changes, I can finally get to the end of this journey, and start the next phase - maintenance!
Once upon a time I decided to lose weight. And I did - sometimes the weight came off quickly and sometimes slowly - but it always came off. Until the month of October. *cue ominous music* From October 1st to the 15th, nothing happened. The scale didn't move down, not one bit. Of course, it didn't move up, either - but that wasn't much consolation! As I was continuing to watch what I ate AND do three killer workouts each week, I grew increasingly frustrated.
I even spoke with my trainer, Brad, about it, and after looking over my food logs, he gave me some good advice. Basically he told me to mix things up a bit - perhaps eating the same thing for breakfast month after month might not be the greatest thing for losing weight, no matter how healthy it was. I have to say that I shed a tear at the thought of not eating my beloved Fage yogurt, Kashi Golean Crunch cereal and fresh sliced strawberries every morning. Brad also thought that I wasn't getting enough good fat in my diet and advised me to cut back on the carbs (including some of the fruit - the horror!) and add in some nuts, olives or natural peanut butter.
Well, as you can imagine, these were some major changes that I needed to wrap my mind around. Luckily, I was leaving for vacation soon and knew that by being out of my normal routine and away from home, I would have no choice but to make some changes. And, as evidenced by the previous post, I ate some very different foods - but hey - I was on vacation!
Cut to my return home from vacation and all the wonders of gelato. Would I be able to get back on track, diet-wise? The (blog)world waits in anticipation...
.
.
.
.
.
and the answer is yes! You know why? Because I had the mindset that vacation was for having some fun with food, but being home is where the rubber hits the road. Plus, while realizing that I look like a normal person, I still have about 20 - 25 pounds left to lose...and I want to get on with it! I weighed myself on Saturday, and I was up four pounds, which wasn't unexpected. By Monday morning I was already down 2.5 pounds, and I'm hoping that this downward trend will continue. I know it sounds weird, but I was just glad to see a different number on the scale on Saturday, even though it was higher.
So it looks like mixing things up, starting with the vacation food, might do the trick. What am I doing differently now that I'm home? Well, I have actually had some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (made with 1 tbsp. of Maranatha Organic Peanut Butter, about a tsp. of Smucker's All-Fruit Spread, and an Orowheat Sandwich Thin) for lunch last week - I forgot how good pb&j tastes! The fruit selection in the store has changed and now I'm on to eating apples, clementines, a banana every once in a while, and pomegranates are back - yum! I bought a carton of egg whites and am having a 1 egg plus 1/3 cup egg white scrambled breakfast taco (eggs, fresh pico and corn tortillas at 55 calories each make for a yummy breakfast). And while I can't give up my yogurt breakfast for good, I am trying to not eat it every day. Plus, I'm changing that up a bit by reducing the amount of cereal (down from 1 cup to 2/3 cup) and since strawberries are no longer in season here, I've tried adding 1/4 cup of dried cranberries to the mix. Tasty! I do need to get to our health-food store to see if I can get the dried cranberries without added sugar, but for now the Craisins will do. With those changes, I've dropped nearly 100 calories from that meal alone.
I'm being pretty strict with myself and sticking to 1,200 calories per day. For a while there, I wasn't counting fruit or veggie calories, and while I still won't count the veggie calories (I don't eat high calorie veggies like corn or potatoes), I will count what fruit I eat toward the 1,200. Hopefully with these changes, I can finally get to the end of this journey, and start the next phase - maintenance!