Quote:
Originally Posted by Blackadar
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My suggestions...let's see. Let me approach by categories.
DIET:
My diet is fairly...restricted. Not in the sense of doing any sort of fad diet or anything, and I do give myself the freedom to cheat off of it, so it's more self-restricted I guess you'd say. I've been lucky so far in that I haven't had to get all calorie-counting (although I'm certainly calorie-aware). But I don't keep a daily calorie-log or Weight Watchers "Points" log or anything. I just know that my breakfast is in the neighborhood of 200-300 calories, my lunch is probably 400 or so, and my dinner will be around 300.
If I go out to eat I stick to salad or a lil chicken breast or plain grilled seafood - although every so often I'll go out and have some red meat.
Avoiding alcohol (unless I'm having drinks with someone for work, then it's one drink and nothing but veggies for the rest of the night), since alcohol decreases your metabolism by 30%.
But like I said - I do let myself enjoy eating too. Fri/Sat/Sun nights I have 2 pieces of pizza each night for dinner (from my favorite local pizza place). Then again, I only have one "brunch" type meal before that during the day, and potentially a midafternoon 100 calorie snack if the "brunch" was more a breakfast (Saturday).
Breakfast is a 100-calorie English muffin and a little bit of "I can't believe it's not butter light," along with a smoothie that's 1 teaspoon of fat-free yogurt, one banana, a handful of frozen berries, and a quarter-cup or so of that tropicana 50 oj-ish stuff, along with a dash of skim milk to make it not too thick.
Lunch is a 250-calorie or so sandwich (100 calorie deli-flat bread, slice of deli meat (buffalo chicken), slice of cheese), along with fruit+veggie (carrots + clementines most of the time), a small handful of baked chips (half a serving size), and a half-serving of reduced fat nilla wafers (60 calories in 4).
Lately I've been very stuck (in a positive way) on Healthy Choice microwave meals for dinner. Pretty solid taste-wise, between 200-260 calories in most of them (some of the more saucy ones are just north of 300). It's not ideal, but my schedule gets me home around 7:30 most of the time it seems, so I don't want to have to take the time to cook at that point.
Snacks can be 100-calorie popcorn packs, a bit of dry cheerios, a handful of goldfish.
Every so often I have one of the small york peppermint patties (50 calories) when I need a chocolate fix. Weight Watchers makes some surprisingly tasty frozen desserts.
And I chew a lot of Stride gum.
MANAGING HUNGER:
I drink a ton of tea. Probably like 5 cups a day. Fills me up with liquid at a zero-calorie cost. Drink tea every couple hours. Two in the morning before lunch. One in mid-afternoon and one basically right around dinnertime. Fill my stomach up with liquid so I'm less hungry overall.
Snack on carrots (satisfying crunch), or fruit. 100 calorie popcorn packs if you gotta have some salt and something to fill your stomach.
Try to stick to a routine pretty good so my body knows when to expect food (insofar as that's possible).
In some respects as you know though, it's just about listening to your body. If my body says "I'M STARVING...FEED ME!!" then I'll eat something. I ate an extra organic granola bar yesterday for example, around 6pm when I went out to read before dinner.
EATING HABITS:
Well, like I said - drinking a ton of tea. Filling up on water at restauruants and at home all the time. Here's a good one I think I've suggested before -- eat veggies/salad FIRST. And not just first as you sit down at the table (although you can do that if you're eating slow enough), but like a good 30 minutes before you eat the rest of the meal (to the extent that's possible) in order to fill you up on that stuff rather than the other stuff.
I used to be a huge believer in the "don't eat anything within 4 hours of going to sleep" rule, but I've really relaxed that in practice (also because I stay up so late) and I let myself snack on a cup of dry cheerios and/or a handful of goldfish after dinner if necessary.
Portion control is obviously the huge thing. Shrinking the stomach down so that you need to eat less to be full. Hell...I can have one hot dog and call that a meal now. Or two slices of pizza instead of a full small pizza (although lately I've been thinking of cutting back to just one slice even). There's not really much I can say about that - it's painful while you're doing it obviously, because you're hungry, but it's sooooo necessary.
EXERCISE:
Nothing complicated here. 45 minutes (around 5.2 miles) of straight cardio on the elliptical (on the "weight loss" program where it varies the incline). High resistance on it (right now I'm at a "12" on the machines at my gym). 6 days a week (I take Sundays off).
So in summary...I guess a lot of it just comes down to willpower really. If I have the urge to go crazy (and yes I was craving McDonald's fries when I was at the mall yesterday), I say to myself "Listen...that isn't going to help you get thinner. Don't be a fatass idiot."
So yeah...self-deprication and willpower. Don't be afraid to call yourself out if you're going to do something stupid. But at the same time, give yourself little cheats. Just don't make your cheat "I'm going to go eat an entire pie/cake all by myself." Make your cheat like "I'm going to stop for a small size fat-free frozen yogurt after my salad for dinner."
And have people to cheer you on. I update my mother everyday around lunchtime (yes...I'm a mama's boy). It feels good to have someone else being like "you're awesome...i'm so proud of you."
There ya go. My thoughts.