So in the last week and a half I’ve been trying to start a journey. As I’ve continued, the journey has become a little more defined in having a tangible goal. I am going to try to lose 20 pounds before my 30th birthday (May 8th).
So I decided, rather than go with some fad diet, I would analyze what things I was screwing up with my diet and how to fix those things. Four primary factors:
1. Too many empty calories via drinks
2. Too many unhelpful calories through snacks
3. Not enough exercise
4. Overeating
So I have decided to approach these four subjects with varying degrees of vigor. The first, I’ve decided to limit calories in drinks to be under 100 calories per day. This means that I can still enjoy my tea with a bit of honey in it, but can’t indulge in sugary lattes or coke. A week and a half in, this hasn’t been broken yet, so I guess it wasn’t so difficult to remove from my life. Not that I haven’t pined to have some sugary drink, but not enough to pull the trigger.
For the second, I have tried to supplement my sweet tooth with flavored yogurt and fruit rather than baked goods and other snacks. I had a slice of apple pie and a cone of ice cream since the diet started, and I’m fine with that as long as I can stick with my other rules. I am also going to try to walk to the ice cream shop rather than getting there any other way. That way, it will be earned.
The third is tricky. I bought a three month pass to the gym last month. I’ve been trying to motivate myself to go four times a week. It’s really tough, because I try to stay busy, but I’ve been going pretty diligently. I think I might need to put in more work during my time there, though.
The fourth is in most ways the most challenging because I love eating. My solution so far has been simply to overeat on vegetables and other healthy food, including making salads to supplement high-calorie dinners. I might try to address this once I am a little further in, but so far my calorie counts have been pretty good.
I’ve been using MyFitnessPal to record my progress. It’s an online food diary that tracks the calorie content of everything that you eat. It’s not perfect — there are multiple different entries for the calories of different things, but with a Google search the truth usually is apparent.
I’ve also been trying out some new recipes to use to add some extra nutrition to my diet, particularly fiber.
I already made a potato lentil soup a couple of times. It’s quite filling, and pretty delicious. I don’t think I could eat it every day, but I might try to make it to bring to work for lunch a couple of times a week.
Today’s experiment is broccoli, chicken, and quinoa casserole. We’ll see how that goes~
