Well, here's the new plan for those asking "how do you do it?"... We've found the ONLY way for us to make sure we stay on plan is about the oldest trick in "dieting"... be mindful of the calories you take in. Wow, really? Yeah, that's our big secret. :) Here's how we usually break down our caloric intake over the course of an ideal day:
8am Breakfast - 450 calories (Jay); 350 calories (Dee)
11am Snack - 150 calories (both)
2pm Lunch - 300 calories (Jay); 250 calories (Dee)
4pm Snack - 60-90 calories (both)
7pm Dinner & Dessert - 500 calories (Jay); 450 calories (Dee)
TOTAL CALORIES: around 1500 (Jay); around 1300 (Dee)
The big secrets? If you notice, the largest meal is breakfast (not counting the dessert combined in with dinner). We try not to eat past about 6-7pm, as we want to be nice and digested by bedtime around 11pm or midnight. Also, we're eating FIVE times a day! Every 2-3 hours! Who has time to be hungry?!? :)
We also try to throw in a 1 or 1.5 mile walk around 9am and 5pm!
Here's how a typical food day looks for us:
Breakfast - 2 packets of oatmeal (OR a bagel); 1 serving Egg Mates (OR half a serving of Egg Mates and half a serving of deli meat); 6 oz. nonfat yogurt; 1 serving fruit; nice big cup of coffee with Splenda and fat-free creamer
Morning Snack - "Trail Mix" made of: 1/2 serving raisins; 6 almonds; and 1/2 serving pretzels (OR a graham cracker substituted for the pretzels)
Lunch - 1 serving of my Chicken Noodle Soup (recipe in this blog) OR a chicken/spinach wrap; salad with lettuce, spinach, carrots, snow peas, cauliflower, etc. and fat-free Italian dressing
Afternoon Snack - 1 serving fruit, such as an apple or orange
Dinner & Dessert - 1 serving of my Chicken Chili (recipe in this blog) OR 1 serving lean protein with a large vegetable portion (edamame, spinach, California blend, etc.); 1 cup sugar-free chocolate/vanilla swirl pudding; 1 oats & chocolate fiber bar
That's a snapshot of Jay's daily meal plan... Dee's is pretty much the same, but lose the Egg Mates. We find ourselves taking in about 15-25 grams of total fat per day (trying to keep it low!), while maintaining at least 38 grams of fiber and 56 grams of protein for Jay (25 fiber and 46 protein for Dee). We found some clever calculators online for those numbers, and I'll have to find the link and get it on here sometime.
We're also discovering the joys of water. And that whole "eight 8-ounce glasses" doesn't work for everyone. We've read in several places that you should take your body weight, divide it in half, and drink that many ounces of water each day! Dee and I typically go well beyond those numbers, and we feel like it's definitely helping to keep us hydrated and healthy, as well as flushing out all the bad stuff. :)
There's plenty of wiggle room in there, and we used to rely a lot more on the frozen convenience meals, but since we're starting to think Dee's headaches are coming from nitrite and/or MSG, we're trying to cook a lot of things ourselves so we can control the ingredients. We've found we can pretty much substitute whatever we like in there, as long as we stay in our calorie range and keep the fat low and the fiber high.
Anyway, that's where we are for now! We're both doing exceptionally well, and know this is something that we can keep up easily. Once you start a new way of life, you do pretty much have to do it forever. Once we get closer to our "goal weights", we should be able to increase the calories a bit, and figure out that magic number that will allow us to maintain.
Rock it!
--Jay :)
Showing posts with label guidelines. Show all posts
Showing posts with label guidelines. Show all posts
Friday, April 23, 2010
Friday, January 22, 2010
Rule Number One: There Are No Rules
Rules to Eating Healthy and Losing Weight?!?
Well... we don't think of them as "rules"... more like "guidelines" really. Here's a quick look at our approach to building a healthy lifestyle and getting ourselves back to a decent weight.
Our approach is sort of a combination of things we learned from the Nutrisystem style of eating, combined with a little bit of Alton Brown's "four lists" from a recent Good Eats episode.
Our basic things to remember is that you don't have to stop eating out. It's all part of the balancing act. We usually eat in because it's cheaper and we have more control of what goes into our food, but when we eat out, no matter where we go, there's almost always something that can be found on a menu that won't kill our entire month! :)
The stuff we've gleaned from Nutrisystem are:
-MOST Important Thing: Eat breakfast. Every day. Whole grain, dairy, protein, fruit.
-Salads are great to eat before lunch and dinner, and help fill you up. Watch the dressings, and we lean toward non-fat Italian or Catalina/French style rather than creamy dressings.
-For lunch and dinner, vegetables should be in higher quantity than meat.
-Fiber is what keeps you full. An eating plan high in fiber leaves you more satisfied.
Common breakfast items for us are whole grain bagels, lean ham or turkey sandwich meat, egg substitute, and nonfat yogurt. Sometimes we rock a little fat-free cream cheese and strawberry preserves on our bagel. Lunches are usually a healthy microwaveable soup, a couple of large carrots, sugar free gelatin, an apple or orange, and either a serving of pretzels or a 100-calorie snack pack. Dinner is usually a frozen healthy meal, and a nice serving of a vegetable like broccoli, brussels sprouts, or spinach. For dessert, we lean toward chocolate fiber-type bars, sugar free pudding, or gelatin. A good snack item we used to do daily was a trail mix of things like almonds, pretzels, raisins, etc. And of course, water, water, water.
Recently, we watched Alton Brown's new philosophy on Good Eats, involving "four lists". From this, we've decided that we're going to start trying to incorporate these new ideas:
-Eat one or two pieces of fruit each day, typically an apple or orange.
-Eat at least one whole grain item each day.
-Leafy greens, every day. Spinach or brussels sprouts are our faves.
-We will have a small handful of nuts every day, usually almonds.
-Carrots every day, usually at lunch, which are great to make you feel full.
-Green tea, every day. We brew our own and sweeten with Splenda.
-Try to incorporate oily fish like salmon or sardines at least 2-3 times per week.
-Sweet potatoes, at least thrice a week. Mmm... I love sweet potatoes.
-Limit red meat, and any pasta above and beyond what's in our frozen meals.
-No fast food, no soda.
That's about the gist of it. We're excited to see how these new ideas may work!
--Jay
Well... we don't think of them as "rules"... more like "guidelines" really. Here's a quick look at our approach to building a healthy lifestyle and getting ourselves back to a decent weight.
Our approach is sort of a combination of things we learned from the Nutrisystem style of eating, combined with a little bit of Alton Brown's "four lists" from a recent Good Eats episode.
Our basic things to remember is that you don't have to stop eating out. It's all part of the balancing act. We usually eat in because it's cheaper and we have more control of what goes into our food, but when we eat out, no matter where we go, there's almost always something that can be found on a menu that won't kill our entire month! :)
The stuff we've gleaned from Nutrisystem are:
-MOST Important Thing: Eat breakfast. Every day. Whole grain, dairy, protein, fruit.
-Salads are great to eat before lunch and dinner, and help fill you up. Watch the dressings, and we lean toward non-fat Italian or Catalina/French style rather than creamy dressings.
-For lunch and dinner, vegetables should be in higher quantity than meat.
-Fiber is what keeps you full. An eating plan high in fiber leaves you more satisfied.
Common breakfast items for us are whole grain bagels, lean ham or turkey sandwich meat, egg substitute, and nonfat yogurt. Sometimes we rock a little fat-free cream cheese and strawberry preserves on our bagel. Lunches are usually a healthy microwaveable soup, a couple of large carrots, sugar free gelatin, an apple or orange, and either a serving of pretzels or a 100-calorie snack pack. Dinner is usually a frozen healthy meal, and a nice serving of a vegetable like broccoli, brussels sprouts, or spinach. For dessert, we lean toward chocolate fiber-type bars, sugar free pudding, or gelatin. A good snack item we used to do daily was a trail mix of things like almonds, pretzels, raisins, etc. And of course, water, water, water.
Recently, we watched Alton Brown's new philosophy on Good Eats, involving "four lists". From this, we've decided that we're going to start trying to incorporate these new ideas:
-Eat one or two pieces of fruit each day, typically an apple or orange.
-Eat at least one whole grain item each day.
-Leafy greens, every day. Spinach or brussels sprouts are our faves.
-We will have a small handful of nuts every day, usually almonds.
-Carrots every day, usually at lunch, which are great to make you feel full.
-Green tea, every day. We brew our own and sweeten with Splenda.
-Try to incorporate oily fish like salmon or sardines at least 2-3 times per week.
-Sweet potatoes, at least thrice a week. Mmm... I love sweet potatoes.
-Limit red meat, and any pasta above and beyond what's in our frozen meals.
-No fast food, no soda.
That's about the gist of it. We're excited to see how these new ideas may work!
--Jay
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