This time I knew I had to do things differently. I wanted to lose weight, keep it off, and still be able to live my life! Isn't that what everyone wants? The first thing I did was get the My Fitness Pal app on my phone. The app takes into consideration your height, age and activity level to determine how many calories you should be consuming in a day. I love this app because it tracks everything I put in my mouth. It also has a bar code feature which makes it super easy to add packaged foods. One of my favorite tools is the My Recipes tool. This allows you to create a recipe, add in the ingredients you use, and it calculates how many calories are in each serving. This takes all the guess work out of how many calories your meal has, which can be tricky if it's a recipe you've created yourself.
My theory for weight loss, which I stole from my brother who recently lost 50 pounds, is "eat whatever you want as long as you don't exceed your allotted calories for the day". Makes sense right? I mean it's the same thing we all learnt in high school Physical Education (not gym, right Amie!). So why don't we follow this already? Because it's hard that's why! The first few days I started paying attention to what I was eating were definitely the hardest. You don't realize how many calories you're eating until you start logging them.
Since Roman originally started this weight loss journey I decided to take my cues from him. I started eating 3 meals and 2 snacks a day, just like Roman. I tried to choose snacks that were satisfying and would keep me full. Here are some of my favorites:
- apple slices with 1T of peanut butter and a sprinkle of chocolate chips and coconut
- rice cake with 1T of dark chocolate almond butter, a sliced strawberry, coconut and chia seeds
- 2 slices of Melba toast with 1 Laughing Cow cheese triangle
- a few slices of deli chicken with 1oz of cheddar cheese
I always try to cook meals that contain whole ingredients and are good for my family. I try to limit the amount of packaged food we eat as much as possible but we do have a few staples like pasta, instant rice, canned soups and a few snacks. Freezer cooking is a great way to get healthy meals onto your table regardless of how busy you are. When your freezer is full of delicious healthy food that only needs to be reheated, you will greatly reduce the amount of times you are digging through the recycling looking for the pizza flyers to see what the specials are. Not that I've ever done that....
For the first four months portion control and snacking were the only changes I made. Shortly after I started this journey a Moms Facebook page started a biggest loser "competition". There are no prizes and no buy in fee, really it's just a way for us all to be held accountable. I highly recommend joining something like this, or even just sharing your progress with a friend, but make sure it isn't someone who is going to judge you every time they see you with a McChicken in your hands!
I normally have one day a week where I don't monitor my food as closely as I usually do. I guess you could call it a cheat day. This day is usually Saturday or Sunday for me since the weekends can get busy and it's hard to eat really well at restaurants. This doesn't mean that I go crazy and eat everything in sight but I do go over the calories I'm allotted for the day. The weekends also make good day for cheat days because I usually weight myself on Fridays and this gives me time to recover from that extra serving of mashed potatoes and gravy!
I know it's hard, but you have to stop weighing yourself after every pee! I understand the ultimate goal is to lose weight but being a slave to the scale is about as fun as being overweight. From personal experience you can fluctuate a few pounds day to day and you'll drive yourself batty wondering how you gained 3lbs in one day. Pick one day to be your weigh in day. My weigh in day is Friday and I like to weigh myself first thing in the morning before I eat breakfast. This allows you to track your real progress since the weights will be take at the same time each week. Don't get me wrong, I've been tempted to jump on the scale mid week to see how tings are going, and it usually ends up with me feeling a little discouraged, so just avoid it.
About a month ago I decided to sign up for a DanceFit class that is offered at the Yara Centre here in Moose Jaw. I used to dance as a kid and I thought this would be a super fun activity. The exercise thing was secondary to me just wanting to get out and bust a move like old times. I posted on the local Mom Facebook page that I was signing up if anyone wanted to join me. I was quite happy to go by myself but why not make some new friends in the process. Turns out the class was a little harder than I remember dance being but I absolutely LOVE it! One night a week Roman gets to hang out with John for the evening while I go out and get my butt kicked. Whatever type of exercise you decide to incorporate make it something you like/love doing or take a friend with you so it's more of a social thing. If you dread the thought of hauling your butt out the door to work out then you're not going to keep it up. This is just the beginning so you don't have to sign up for some crazy spin class that you hate. Start with something as simple as walking the dog or jogging on some trails with some killer tunes. You don't want to freak yourself out and send your body running for the cake the TV so start slow.
These small changes and 6 months earned me 21 pounds lost so far! Is the weight melting off? No. Do I wish it was faster? Yes. Is losing around 1 pound a week something I can maintain over a long period of time and keep the weight off? Absolutely! And so can you!
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