Because you asked Part 2

So I posted a couple of days ago a rough outline of what I've done exercise wise to get where I am today, I thought that I would start putting my "diet" on paper so to speak.

I say "diet" because its become more of a lifestyle change for me. Originally I decided to give up soda last spring (I think January, but honestly I can't really remember) and I was only planning on trying to do it for 3 months... Don't ask why that was the magic number but it was. At 3 months I thought "what the heck, I've done it this long lets see how much longer I can go without soda". Between then and now I've broken my no-soda decision a couple of times... maybe a total of 6, mainly for Rootbeer because a good Rootbeer is just so worth it! And I've stolen the occasional sip from Matthew's Dr. Pepper, and it always reminds me why I gave up soda. Blech! Then again I was never really a fan of Dr. Pepper so thats not the best comparison.

Recently I gave up coffee... I'd been talking about it with a couple of other health conscience people that I know, and honestly I didn't think I'd be able to do it especially considering the fact that I have a child who insists on waking up before even the sun is up! But when I got sick the beginning of Feb it seemed like the perfect time to challenge myself. I'd already gone 5 days without coffee, and I figured that if I was going to go through detox then it already happened when I was sick so I should be good to go! April 4th will be two months coffee-free.

Now in the long run, giving up soda and coffee are just two tiny parts of the lifestyle change that I've made (though for me, the mental difficulties of giving them both up was one of the most challenging things I've done) A big part of my change has been actually paying attention to portion sizes. I bought a digital food scale, so that things that say (30 g) I actually know what size that is! It made me realize just how much I have been overeating for years (just as I know most people in the US do). I've tried to be aware of snacking too - thankfully I've always like snacking on things like carrots and cut apples - so I'm just making a conscience effort to reach for those first before chips, sweets, and other "badness" as we would say in my MT class.

To drop the weight I used the help of an app on my iPhone called "MyNetDiary" I think you can also create a profile online with them, but having it mobile with me was the easiest thing. You can input what your eating, it asks for the portion size that you ate, and it calculates the calories (along with all the other health info of that particular item) I input all my stats, height weight, and then told it how much I'd like to loose total and what my timeline was. It calculated everything for me and then told me what my recommended calorie intake should be, without any exercise calculated in. Also you can track your exercise on that app, and it will adjust your Analysis for the day and let you know if you should eat more.

I believe when I started using the app, it recommended 1800 calories for me, to reach my goal of weight loss. Each person is different, but if you start counting calories (like me) and make each one count then its not as horrible as it sounds. I would be full with 1800 calories for the day, as long as they were healthy filling calories... If I cheated and ate something like a donut, or a handful of candy then I was starving.

I started off horribly in the breakfast department, I've never been big on eating right after I wake up, so before I headed to the gym I was lucky if I consumed 1/2 a cup of coffee and a banana. Now, partly because Steven wakes me up so early and I have time to digest a bit and partly because if I don't I feel sick to my stomach, I have a bowl of granola (2/3 of a cup) with 1/2 cup 1% milk and also a banana (more for the potassium)

Today is Sunday, and as I'm sitting here typing this (because Steven is totally occupied with playing with his trucks) I'm having a bowl of 2/3 cup granola, 1/3 cup fresh blueberries, and one 6 oz container of vanilla yogurt all mixed together.

But back to when I started on my journey.

My diet became pretty mundane, I know my classmates could probably all tell you what I ate for lunch everyday. It started out as just Tuna salad (that I made on my own with 1 tsp of mayo, to keep the calorie value low but the protein value high) 7 triscuits, a cut apple and some baby carrots. Within the last 2 months or so I started revamping my diet because I'd gotten down to where I wanted/needed to be and I don't want to get sickly skinny.

Dinner was either a very strict serving of whatever I made for Matthew and Steven (because I felt bad for them and know that they got tired of eating chicken breasts and brown rice and salad) OR it was broiled chicken breasts, in a garlic herb marinade, a serving size of brown rice (2/3 cup) and a large fresh salad with 1-2 tsp of blue cheese dressing, just enough for flavor but not enough to drown the salad.

To be honest I wasn't great with keeping up on my diet on the weekends, I'd splurge and we'd make a big weekend breakfast complete with waffles, and either bacon or sausages (or sometimes both!) And on occasion we just decide that neither of us really feel like cooking and we give in to the take-out monster and especially then I don't count the calories because it makes me feel awful.

Right now in my diet I've re-input my info in the "MyNetDiary" app, and asked for it to calculate maintenance calories (to maintain my current weight, though I'm trying to build muscle so I'm adding a bit more protein in than it recommends and if I see weight gain it should be in muscle) I should eat, everyday without adding in exercise, 2500+ calories. The first few days of this calculation was difficult to wrap my mind around, especially since I was used to consuming 1800 or so a day...

I'm still in the process of slowly re-vamping my menu... And some days its more of a challenge to get the calories than others. A typical day is this:

Breakfast

2/3 cup granola

1/2 cup 1% milk

1 banana

2 shot bloks on the way to the gym

Snack on the way home from the gym

1 shot blok

VitaCoco (Coconut water, which is a great natural hydrator - and healthier than most sports drinks)

1/2 to a whole apple (depending on how big they are)

1/2 a Clif Protein Builder bar, or MoJo bar

Post gym meal

Spiru-tein shake, one scoop

8 oz of 1% milk

Late Lunch

4oz Tuna

1 tsp mayo

2 Tbsp Sweet pickle relish

7 Triscuit crackers

2/3 cup granola

4-6 oz Vanilla yogurt (Light & Fit)

1/3 cup blueberries &/or Strawberries

1 apple

3 oz carrots

Afternoon Snack

1/3 cup walnuts

1/4 cup craisins

Dinner

2/3 cup brown rice

1-2 cups salad

1-2 tsp blue cheese dressing, or balsamic dressing

3-4 oz chicken breast, broiled

I've been having to add in evening snacks to get close to my calorie goal, trying to do it as healthy as possible. Having another small salad, choosing hummus and peas, and apple with only the recommended serving size of peanut butter (which is so tiny compared to how much I used to eat with an apple), and things of the like. My biggest splurge is that I bought these little tiny mango & cream bars at Trader Joe's, they are a small serving roughly 80 calories I believe and just enough of a treat that I can enjoy it without feeling guilty.

Mix in with this I have the minimum recommended servings of water, plus usually 3 more... And occasionally at night I'll have a cup of fresh brewed white or green tea.

Like I said, that is a rough outline of what a normal day has looked like for me. Right now I'm in the process of completely re-vamping my daily intake of calories, and for the next 4 weeks I'm drastically changing my diet and trying to cut out all the "bad carbs" and leaving mainly just the healthy ones found in fruit and veggies. So while I type this I'm thinking of the bread that I walked past this morning, and my Sunday cookie ritual that I chose to forgo.

If anyone would like to post menu ideas, or other websites that they use I welcome it. Hope you all had a wonderful Sunday!