I've been trying to change the way I've been eating for the better lately. I'm amazed at how quickly I can get full on so much less food than I was eating before. It's been a real challenge for me though at night after the kids are in bed; the urge to snack is very strong. I've lost 2 pounds in the past week which isn't much but it's a start.
There were 2 things that pushed me to start paying more attention to how I was eating: 1)I have a gig coming up that is going to be filmed and played on a local TV station and 2) Heidi's success with her eating journey.
So what have I been doing? Eating lots and lots of salads! Salads for atleast 1 meal a day, and sometimes a side for the other meal. If it's the meal I always "beef" it up with egg whites, tuna, fish or chicken and lots of yummy veggies. A typical day would look like this: Breakfast: Oatmeal with dried fruit, walnuts, 1 tsp brown sugar and 1/4c whole milk on top (YUMMMY). Snack: Apple, banana, orange or fruit smoothie. Lunch: Beans and Rice or a salad. Snack: Granola bar or fruit or yogurt. Dinner: Grilled Marinated Chicken with a veggie side and some rice or couscous. Then I'm done eating for the day. No more mindless snacking throughout the evening. Sometimes if I'm about to go to the gym, I have a hard boiled egg as I'm leaving the house. My trick is to plan out my snacks and it really keeps me from doing anything stupid. It's not hard to grab a banana or granola bar before I leave the house and eat it when the time is right.
It's actually been quite good for the grocery and restaurant budget as well which is a major bonus. So I hope I can stay on track a bit more with this plan so that it just comes very naturally to me and I can lose those remaining pounds that I gained during pregnancy.
The sad thing is that I'm going to take a bit of a hiatus from baking bread. The kids have been coping with whole grain waffles with peanut butter and tortillas with cheese but it's not the same. I'll start making it again soon. I'm just trying to build up my will power a bit more.
Cool! Glad it’s working for you Ellie! Ellie’s right. The key is not to snack at all.. just have a piece of fruit, granola bar, veggies – whatever. Chips are the devil. When I have my dinner (before 7pm)that’s all I eat until the next morning.. there is no snacking and guess what? I’m not hungry after that! But it’s a process and it’s hard at first.. but gets easier as each day passes. Go for fruit or cottage cheese!
I’m also trying to figure out an eating plan I can live with. I think I’m going to have to do it (changes) in stages. The 1st stage is being more careful about snacks. I decided to actually look at the nutritional (??) info on the Doritos bag yesterday. Ouch! Even though they say a serving is 11 chips, if I’m honest I have to admit a serving for me would be more like twice that. So here’s the comparison between the Doritos snack I had yesterday to the piece of whole wheat toast with peanut butter & honey I had today: Doritos = 16 g. fat, 300 calories, 34 carbs, 2g dietary fiber, 4 g. protein. Toast = 9.5g fat, 120 calories, 25 carbs, 5 g dietary fiber, 5g protein. Ellie is right, we just can’t be so mindless about this!
Yes, I’ll try to put it on YouTube and my myspace page.. if i’m happy with it. :)
Are you a cottage cheese eater? It’s a great high protein snack for when you’re preggers.
I need to get better at snack discipline, too. I have the opposite problem at the moment, being that with running, nursing (once a day) and being preggo I need to make my snacks count. I have a bad habit of filling up on pretzels in the car and then I’m starving a minute later because pretzels are pointless.
I need to get back into the granola habit, they made me sick the first trimester but they should be yummy again now. And the girls are big on bananas right now, I should just keep buying them and munching on those with peanut butter.
Good luck with your gig. Will it be watchable from Ohio?
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