For the past few months, during the early weeks and months of my Diet Bet journey, I've been getting by eating 1000 and 1200 calories a day, plus working out fairly strenuously as I was training for the Orange County Half Marathon. Even before I went on vacation in September for my 20th wedding anniversary (where I gained about 7 pounds), I was struggling with a weigh loss plateau. I was forcing myself to do some serious juicing experiments and using alot of short term "tricks" in order to lose the weight and win diet bets. Those experiments and tricks led to me being really hungry and then wanting to seriously binge after I'd become a confirmed winner. That's not really getting me to my weight loss goal OR my desire to be a truly fit and healthy individual.
Last Sunday, I started listening to podcasts because I was doing some other self-exploration, and I found Fat 2 Fit Radio on iTunes podcasts. WOW. These guys, Jeff Ainslie and Russ Turley, really have alot to say about weight loss and becoming "the thin person you want to be." They are pretty opinionated, but they do alot of reading and research and find articles and authors to quote all the time. In particular, they really cut in to both Paula Deen and Carnie Wilson on two of their different episodes because of the personal choices these ladies made regarding their health and weight loss (The Paula Deen rip was pretty funny, actually, LOL). But what I continued to hear them reference was BMR, or Basal Metabolic Rate. I finally downloaded their app (which I found from their website) so I could learn more. These are the calories you need to consume to maintain your current weight basically by just being alive and breathing. They list a chart that includes the calories you need to eat to lose weight if you are sedentary, lightly active, moderately active, very active, or extremely active. What I realized is that I was not eating ENOUGH. Your body will go into starvation mode if you aren't eating enough calories to sustain your lifestyle, and that doesn't really help you lose the weight any faster.
So I've been doing this for five days this week (granted, I've also been carb loading for the Half Marathon that I'm running on Sunday!) - but I've been very structured about what I eat and I've been keeping it at about 1500 calories per day. Some of the staples in my meal plan include:
Breakfast: Special K Protein Cereal - OR Nutrigrain waffles - OR oatmeal (and a piece of fruit)
Morning Snack: 2 ounces of pretzels - OR a bagel thin and fat free greek yogurt - OR piece of fruit and granola bar
Lunch: Turkey Sandwich and Progresso Weight Watchers Soup - OR large salad with chicken or turkey
Afternoon Snack: repeat of morning snack - OR 24 Teddy Graham Crackers and a FF greek yogurt
Dinner: Baked Fish - OR Baked Chicken - OR pasta (with veggies and a salad)
Evening snack: 1/2 cup of fat free or sugar free ice cream and fruit or Teddy Grahams
It's working! I weighed in a 144 on Monday for my new DB game and today I'm at 141.8. That was even with a deviation on Wednesday night at Super Burger! I've not been really running this week because I'm tapering for a half marathon...have averaged 10,000 steps a day and a little circuit training. So I feel pretty good and think I will stick with 1500 calories for a couple more weeks. I just wanted to share that I was really enjoying Fat 2 Fit radio as a learning podcast. They don't produce new episodes, but there certainly are enough to listen to as is!
I hope many of you will check it out! ENJOY! Happy and Healthy Eating this weekend!!