Weight Loss- the Eating and Drinking Part

In August 2012, I decided I was sick of being fat.

And then I decided to do something about it.

I knew a lot of people who had huge success with Weight Watchers. Knowing that the basic premise was portion control, I tried to do it on my own, because, let's face it: I'm too cheap to pay for a program, and the thought of counting points made me cringe. I might be married to a math teacher, but I don't love math anymore than I did in high school.

I started looking at the Nutritional Info on what I was eating- for the first time ever. Talk about an eye opener. Up until then I had no idea the amount of calories I was consuming. Let me tell you, it was not pretty.

Turns out, I was eating 2-3 times more than my body actually needed.

I decided to shoot for three 500 calorie meals, with two 100 calorie snacks in between, and two squares of dark chocolate after dinner. Two squares of dark chocolate? That doesn't seem like part of a diet. It was for me. I am a sweets girl, through and through, and I knew I was never going to make it if I cut out sweets entirely.

I also knew I wasn't going to make it if I went on all "diet food" and didn't enjoy what I was eating. I love to eat! I needed a diet that allowed me to still eat what I liked (for the most part), but within reason.

Those are the key words: Within reason. When I was growing up, treats were just that- treats- and we didn't have them daily. But when college came? Whew, boy, no one was around to tell me what not to eat! A pint of Ben & Jerry's? No problem! I relished the freedom to eat whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted.

Thus, the problem. I estimate that I gained about 35 lbs from the time I entered college to the time I graduated. In retrospect, I treated my body horribly. I ate unhealthy food all the time and drank like a fish on the weekend. It's a wonder I didn't gain more.

Back to 2012. I made changes to my daily eating routine. Instead of a toasted bagel for breakfast, I have a bagel thin (delicious!). Instead of half and half, I use skim milk in my coffee (took a little getting used to, but now I wouldn't drink it any other way). Instead of "saving up" for 3 meals a day and binging at each one, I have a snack twice a day to tide me over and keep my blood sugar from dropping (a piece of fruit, serving size of Sun Chips, Wheat Thins & Laughing Cow cheese wedge, etc). Instead of a glass of grapefruit juice with lunch, I drink water all day long, from breakfast onward. Instead of two handfuls of chips with my sandwich for lunch, I eat two handfuls of veggies. Instead of seconds and thirds of whatever dinner we were eating, I take one very small helping, then another very small helping because I like being able to go up for "seconds", and know that it's actually one serving total. Instead of cookies, ice cream, cake, cupcake, insert favorite baked good here, for dessert, I have two squares of dark chocolate (now I prefer dark chocolate over milk chocolate any day).

Water- the more I drink it, the better I feel. It's all I drink all day besides a cup of coffee in the morning and a small glass of skim milk with dinner.

These are the major changes I made to my eating habits. As you can imagine, that's not all it took. In my next post, I talk about the Exercise part. Or the Active part, as I prefer to call it.