What I ate today (a day to day journal)

[The Kizzy]

Jennay if I can do it, so can you.

[DangerPaul]

Wow good job there Paul! I don't think I could ever eat that much though, even if it's small portions every couple of hours. I heard that's the way to go, but how it is right now I get up for work, have a soda while I'm working (yea I know it's bad), eat a bagel or something on first break, then I don't really eat till I get home or sometimes till dinner. Rinse and repeat that 5 days a week, add in water I sip on all day, plus breaking a sweat at work, and that's how I've been able to slowly shed about 30 lbs. I just don't have the appetite I used to, which sucks because I'm scared of hurting my moms feelings when I go to visit and she' s trying to push all this german food on me. So when do you reward yourself?

Typically on Friday nights when the woman I meet earlier in the night sucks my dick.

[liquidstayce]

Oral Sex is the perfect reward and good protein too!


" I can dig a piece of fruit, granola bar, pretzels, or a yogurt every 2 or 3 hours np. Not a full meal though. "

OK all of those can be good choices but if paired with some protein and fat so it keeps you full longer and doesn't burn up so fast. No one said you had to eat a 6oz steak every meal. 3 meals and 2-3 smaller snacks works too. First you need to figure out how many calories you need and then after that you can break them up a few different ways but ALWAYS balance the carb/protein/fat ratios. How many calories you need depends on various factors, including height, total body weight, ratio of fat to muscle, age, gender, genes and physical exercise. (Plus illness, pregnancy etc.) But usually, a woman's calorie needs can be reasonably accurately assessed by focusing on two calorie components. Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) and physical exercise. Example: Jane Doe weighs 140 pounds. She is very physically active. Her calorie needs are 140 x 16 = 2240 calories/day to MAINTAIN 140 lbs. If she wanted to drop weight then she would need to reduce that by 250-500 calories a day either by eating less or exercising more.
Ok.. this isn't exact but here is sort of the rule of thumb to do your calculation:
Very Light Exercise
Multiply your weight in pounds by 12

Light Exercise
Multiply your weight in pounds by 13

Moderate Exercise
Multiply your weight in pounds by 14

Moderate-Heavy Exercise
Multiply your weight in pounds by 15

Heavy Exercise
Multiply your weight in pounds by 16

That gives you your maintainence calories. Again - you need to start out by reducing 250-500 in order to see results. If after a few weeks you are breaking out your meals and eating at regular intervals, eating the right foods, and doing good activity/exercise and you still don't get results drop again by another 250 - 500 calories and then see what happens.


Now back to the snack ideas -

You are talking all simple carbs that get turned into sugar pretty soon after you eat them in your examples.

Better Choices:
piece of fruit/carb: apple + protein/fat: 1 TB natral peanut buttter (the one without sugar added)

pretzles - not really ever a good choices because its a white flour product that breaks down fast into sugar - > then stored as fat. However, if you must have pretzles once in a while make sure to eat half the portion and then add in a couple string cheeses. carb: pretzles protein/fat: 2 string cheeses

yogurt - again always a good choice especially for women because of the extra calcium we need plus the active cultures are a bonus however many yogurts are loaded with sugar. Read the labels. READ ALL LABELS! Some of the fat free yogurts are the worst offenders. You want to keep sugar in a product ideally under 12 - 15 grams max but a couple grams is even better. Lowest sugar yogurts are usually "light" yogurt. Better choice would be 1 or 2% cottage cheese because it has a slow burning protein - casein and if you don't like the texture you can blend it up in advance and get rid of the lumps. Posted cottage cheese ideas in another thread. Check them out. Now if you have to have the yogurt that is fine - just pick a good one. Matter of fact 1/2 yogurt 1/2 cottage cheese is a good combo
too.

Granola Bar - AWFUL choice. Full of sugar and fat most of the time. Better choice than potato chips or a cherry coke. If you really have to get a granola bar once in a while try the peanut butter nature valley ones. I think they are
around 180 calories with 11grams of sugar. Barbara’s Nature’s Choice is a better one but harder to find. That has about 7 grams of sugar and 80 calories.

Other easy snacks:
Power Crunch Protein Bars are a really good easy to bring with you snack -
You can find them on the web here : http://www.vigorousliving.com/pocrba12perb.html Those are 190 cal, 7 grams of sugar 13 grams of protein/ 13 grams of carbs - very balanced snack. Not all protein bars are equal. Many have too much sugar.

Nuts + Fruit (protein + carb)
10 grapes + 10 almonds (almonds by far are the best choice nut around)
you could even add yogurt to that too if you wanted a little bigger meal

natural peanut butter on celery sticks

turkey chili - will post how to make easy healthy one in another thread

[Lyion]

In regards to rewarding yourself, pick one day a week, and eat whatever you want within reason. That doesn't mean gorge, but have a schedule, but break from it once a week and have that really bad for you stuff you crave.

Friday is a good one for me.

If you don't do this, you'll probably fail in your diet long term.

[leah]

ohh.. and P.S. How about instead of rewarding yourself with food thinking about a reward by buying a kick ass new outfit that shows you keeping off 30lbs =)

Eating crappy once in a while isn't a bad thing. I know a lot of people that actually build in a free day or free meal once a week and just eat whatever. It's when you do it on a daily basis that it becomes a problem.

a weekly free day is what has kept my sanity in the last year and a half of superdieting. A++

[liquidstayce]

Ya.. Dana and I followed that as well for a while. It is a good strategy. If you eat well all week then you get the free meal or free day. Same idea when working out. We did 6 days on and one day of rest. Sometimes the day off from the gym and free meal were the same day. Was a good mental and physical break.

If you don't get 6 days of good eating then you have to give the free day up. Now for me this happened every once in a while and eventually that free meal turned into a floating free meal that I just had whenever. The problem with not planning the free meal in advance actually was not a good call because then I would eat just cause I felt tired, lousy, or in a bad mood then beat myself up for messing up my free day. I was a huge emotional eater so by doing that meant I wasn't changing behavior. So.. ya free day is awesome.. just might want to plan it in advance. Stick with the same day every week whenever possible.

[leah]

i'm a big-time emotional eater, and it took me forever to realize that... even longer to get it under control, and i still slip every now and again.

fridays are generally free days for me meal-wise, and saturdays are free days workout-wise (except for this last week because i hurt my knee at work so i had to take it easy :/).

[DangerPaul]

198lbs

I give the last 3lbs about 3 weeks as the loss has slowed down and the muscle is starting to add to my weight. I officially hate excercise, healthy eating and giving a shit about my body Q Q

[Mop]

please keep it to the spirit of the thread - you know people trying to be healthier and what not.

[The Kizzy]

I took last week off, my Aunt Flo came to visit, so I ate what I wanted and did not work out one day. I am back in the gym in the morning, and I am already starting to regret taking the time off. I loved those french fries frm Wendy's.

[Jennay]

I kinda give up tracking for a bit too heh. I kinda realized I don't really eat what I should or enough of it, (one night I didn't even eat dinner.. then waited till noon the next day to finally have a PB+J) and need to replace soda with water. Work is getting a bit more strenous so I can use that as an excuse for exercise. I should be ok.