What is my meal plan? Well, there is a basic core plan and there is some grace allowance for the real world too.
- To take care of my body and have more energy I need to eat better foods.
- To lose weight (safely and long-term) I need to eat a limited amount of food daily (your basic Calories Burned > Calories Consumed formula)
- To not go crazy out of my mind with boredom and risk falling off the wagon, I need some wiggle room once in a while.
The Core Plan - Limited portions of good foods.
I've tried the controversial Adkins plan, which, good or bad taught me a lot about nutrition from both sides of the debate. It also taught me how I am not built for extreme, self-enforced restrictions, which set me up for binge relief reactions.
I've done counting calories. This approach was both successful in helping me to lose about 20 lbs three years ago (I have since gained it back), and it also taught me a lot about the general caloric value of a lot of different foods. However, like so many, I got weary of the constant need to measure and count.
Marrying everything I've learned into one, the basic "diet" plan I'm roughly using as a guide is the Change One diet & fitness plan, a book I really enjoyed reading for its one-step-at-a-time, surviving real life approach to changing how you eat. I highly recommend it. It's the most non-crazy diet plan I've ever encountered, and was championed by my employer in our company-wide health initiative last year.
Based on my takeaway from the book I have structured my "core" meal plan as follows:
- Breakfast: 1 small serving fruit, 1 serving lean protein, 1 serving whole grain, 1 glass V8
- Lunch: 1 Lean Cuisine
- Supper: 1 serving lean protein, 1 serving whole grain, 1 glass V8
- Evening snack: 2 Kashi whole grain cookies
- Cardio days: 1 banana before working out
- Optional: Afternoon snack of fruit, unlimited vegetables (with little or no dressing), as much tea as I want, but only two cups daily can be sweetened with honey (1 tsp).
This is the plan for a "basic" day. A weekday, without things like birthday parties or holidays or other things that are part of life cropping up and providing obstacles and temptations.
Grace for the Real World
This is where my "meal plan" rule gets very subjective and where I'm going to have to tread carefully to not slack off. There are birthday parties. There are holidays. Easter Sunday is Day 84 of this challenge. There are family dinners and going out to eat and things where I might not be able to follow my "plan" ahead of time, but if I come up with an alternative that is either a reasonable swap or allow a controlled amount of indulgence for a truly special occasion, commit to it and don't stray beyond it, then I'm still not breaking my "plan" for the day.
Example. Friday of Week #1 my Mom and I went to the movies. We decided to go to Panera beforehand for supper. I love the Fuji Apple Chicken Salad there, and it's full of good things-- greens, nuts, chicken, apples, but they use a lot of dressing and it's pretty high in sugar. Giving it some thought ahead of time, I decided that the salad with a whole wheat baguette as my side would satisfy my supper plan closely enough, and to make up for the sugar in the dressing I would forgo my evening cookies that night.
That's what I decided. That's what happened. And I got a check mark in "stick to my meal plan" for the day.
I'll take each "special" day as it comes, one at time. I've had some victories so far-- I'm 100% clean avoiding office temptations, and that's a huge boon.
Another reason that the established "meal plan" isn't nailed down is that I might need to adjust it in a general way. Suppose I find myself losing weight too quickly after a few weeks? I don't really think this is going to happen, but it's just an example.
In any case, this is my true test of resolve: "No you can't have more" for 14 whole weeks...
Saturday I'm having some theater friends over for games and movies. I'm having tacos but they're sure to bring all sorts of desserts and chips and goodies. I still haven't come up with a plan...
Nothing like dieting to make me want to be even more anti-social than I already am!
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