I read a fantastic blog post yesterday from Lori at Finding Radiance. She’s lost 100 pounds the old fashioned way – watching what she eats and exercising. No short cuts, no diet pills, just dedication. She’s redoing their bathroom and she made the analogy between renovating and weight loss.
The last line of the post is what struck with me the most:
It is a complete change in life to lose weight. You must do the full renovation to have permanent lifestyle changes to not only get the weight off, but keep it off.
I realized that while I started off strong in January, a few of my bad habits came back without me even realizing it. And extra glass of wine, a piece of cheese eaten when I was looking for something else in the fridge.
I realized I have to go back to basics again. I bought a journal yesterday.
If I bite it, I must write it. I also found a cool new nutritional website. While I do like fatsecret.com because its free, this one has a price tag of $7.95 a month, with the first trial week free with no credit card to “hold” it.
What I like about it is that it’s super easy to navigate and the recipe builder is super easy to use. The only thing I can’t figure out is how to get a total for each meal, it just keeps adding it up together. But when I put in my weight, and my goal weight, they said I should eat 1653 calories a day.
Breakfast was a Chobani parfait – this one with a new flavor to me, apple cinnamon. I loved this parfait in the beginning, but again, by the time I got to the last 1/4 of it, it was just too sweet. I will eat this yogurt, but it will have to be by itself.
I went to the gym at lunch. I did a 5k – this time running 7 minutes, walking 3 minutes. I am trying to build up my cardio strength again after my 21 days of running a 5k last fall. Not a bad time!
Lunch was leftover black bean soup from last week, but I added 1/2 cup of Mexican yellow rice and a cup of chopped baby spinach. I added some buffalo Tabasco and it was spicy delicious.
So I put in my breakfast, lunch and my 500 calorie dinner into the nutritional data on the new site, and I was still only at 1200 calories for the day! So I made a snack of the last of my marble rye (recipe coming soon!) with a teaspoon of strawberry jam, and half an apple. (and yes, I did take a bite before deciding to take a picture!)
Dinner was Tony’s famous fried rice – so.fricken.good! He gave me this huge bowl and I thought, I’ll eat about 1/3 of it. Nope! I was hangry and ate half – which my estimate is at about 500 calories.
And after dinner I ate 15 almonds. My totals for the day?
- 1543 calories, 73 protein, 245 carbs, 31 fat and 23 fiber
What I learned is that wowza, that was a high carb day for me. And guess how many milligrams of sodium I had?? 3700!
So my plan is when I get my act together this weekend, is to not only plan out my meals, but enter them in this site to see how I can make my nutrition better each day. I’d like to stay around 150 carbs, and watch the sodium intake.
I did great drinking my water – I bought this water bottle because its 1 liter (33 ounces) and I drank three of these before leaving the office. I just need to drink more water at home.
I have some more link love today:
So proud of Amanda at Getting to Goal – she just PR’d her last 1/2 marathon – running in Chicago in January!! Great job Amanda!
Now that our temps are in the single digits with wind chill advisories, today would be the perfect day to try Bonnie’s pumpkin spice lattes – they look amazing!
And why have I never thought to pickle my own jalapenos?!! Jane has the perfect recipe that I can’t wait to try.
Alright, time to get my food together and get out in this frigid weather – and in case anyone is wondering, I will be wearing a winter coat today!
Make it a great day!
That is a great correlation. You can do it!
Writing everything you eat down can be very powerful. I realized a while ago that I was eating way too much cheese throughout the day… And it was so easy to “not notice.”
Journaling really is a good way to keep accountable for your intake each and every day. I would probably try and find out how much of everything Tony puts in the rice though – even if you don’t really want to know, depending on how much oil he uses, it could really add up.
Your new journal should help you keep track and if you keep track, you will find success. I believe that. I’ve been really trying to be good at keeping up with what I eat the past couple of weeks and it has been paying off on the scale. I had gotten slack too and virtually have had no weight loss at all for a long time. Thankfully I hadn’t gained anything either. It was just a matter of time though because I was out of control.
Journaling definitely makes a big difference for me. Glad you’ve got your new journal and some renewed mojo 🙂
i always do SO much better when i keep a food journal. i really need to start doing it again. that fried rice looks to die for!
Yep, Tony’s fried rice skillz are amazeballs!
Single digits? I can’t stand that – WAY too cold for my CA blood. Good luck with the journal! I was supposed to be writing down what I ate this much, for a nutritionist consult. But I failed miserably. I maybe do it every 3-4 days. I just can’t remember!
That soup looks good Biz. Your marbled bread looks even better 🙂 I pretty much only drink water but, because I lack potassium Gatorade G2 or G3 series was recommended to me. The G3 is way to sweet for me but, I am hooked on the G2 Fierce Grape and it’s only 200 calories per 32 oz. Just for something else to drink occasionally 🙂
I’m so glad you’re going to track your sodium and hope you’ll post it along with calories for the meals you have. I like to read your blog, but am scared to make some of yours ideas because they sound pretty high in salt. 🙂
I think I’ll include the sodium stats in my nutritional break down, it’s just something that wasn’t on my radar, but now it is 😀
my sister has lost over 150 lbs and did it by tracking all of her food on the livestrong site. That and of course daily exercise! I think tracking what you eat is good even if you arent trying to lose weight, just so you can see what you are consuming broken down.
I use Calorie Count for food journaling and this website http://www.freedieting.com/tools/calorie_calculator.htm# to figure out how many cals I should be eating.
Thanks for the link! According to that site, I need 2010 calories to maintain, 1610 to lose weight and 1360 for “extreme” weight loss. Interesting!
Oh man Biz…..sodium is the killer for me. If we only knew how much sodium and sugars were in everything we ate…..it would probably chock a chicken. When I went to Inches A Weigh they told me I should keep my sodium intake to 1500 a day and even that was high. I know when I have taken in too much sodium my ankles swell. (water retention) When shopping I read A LOT of labels…sometimes sodium is so high, you can get your quota of sodium in one meal!!!! Yikes! I immediately put that product back in it’s place!!
In Inches A Weigh, I thought I was eating too much (breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, dinner, snack, gosh and don’t forget the smoothies and protein bars, writing everything down, WI on Mondays and measurments once a month and riding those toning machines every day….deep down, I hated it)…then one person would tell one thing and another person would tell me something else….I would get so confused. they all had a lot of good to say. But there was so much stress not to mention the politics amongst the trainers that went along with trying to lose weight. I was glad when I left. The place is closed up now, maybe that says something about the place.
I think you are doing good, keep it up and you will make your goal. Hey, it takes us years to gain weight and it will take years to take it off and keep it off….it’s a total “lifestyle” change!!! One day at a time. LOL…..I should copy and paste this for my blog today!!!
Loved this comment Louise! You should cut and paste it! 😀
I liked Lori’s post – she has much wisdom. For food tracking I like My Fitness Pal -its free and links with my fitbit one activity tracker. Journaling always seems to work well for me.
I know you can achieve your goals!
Thanks Tami! 😀
Hi Biz! I have found that the only thing that works for me is journaling. I really, really like My Fitness Pal. My rule is – if it passes the lips it gets recorded. I’m a people Pavlov dog. I work well off rewards. Doesn’t have to be fancy, could be a simple comment or note from my other half, but the app works for me. You can choose or not choose to be friends with people. My bestie and I are connected and it keeps us accountable because we know that we can see each other’s food diary. You can also keep it private – I did that for a long time. It has graphs and charts and all kinds of bells and whistles. I like it because I can show my doctor and he can see everything in one spot. Best part – it’s free! Ok, enough of that – no I’m not a paid sponser. lol
Have a great day – work week is almost over!
Thanks for the tips! 😀
I need to do the same thing, Biz. I’m queen of the bite, lick, taste. I just refuse to think about getting serious about tracking food until after Sunday–there are BBQ ribs and whiskey sours in my future.
I’ve got the exercise down, but yesterday after doing 45 minutes of laps (nonstop, mind you) in the pool, I realized it’s probably a darn good thing I do exercise because it’s the only thing preventing me from gaining a ton of weight.
Sigh.
Wow – Lori’s quote right there got to me – definitely sharing it with my friend who’s doing this with me.
I used myfitnesspal.com also. I love it. It’s free, has an app for your phone so you can track on the go too. You can track your calories, in & out. Also all macros. You can also adjust them too. Let me know if you end up checking it out. I’m fitnhealthymama2 over there.
…and you & your breads – OH MY LORD… That small piece of rye has me keep scrolling up to look at it. What is wrong with me…? LOL
You are the third person to recommend it, so I’ll check it out!
Hi Biz! Yay for food journals! I believe in my food journal because it works. It is the best weight-loss tool I have. I wrote about that on my blog today.
I agree that Lori’s post was very good because it really does take a rather drastic lifestyle change to make a drastic change in fitness or weight loss.
🙂 Marion
Have you ever tried SparkPeople? I used to use that for awhile, and enjoyed it. This was a few years ago, so it may be different now, but it was free and was super easy to use.
Can’t wait to check out the link for pickled jalapenos! Yum!
I used SparkPeople a LONG time ago – maybe it’s newer now??
Thanks for the shout out, Biz! That will give you an extra entry to win the coffee in the Healthy Heart weekend 😉
Have you looked at My Fitness Pal? The recipe builder is nice and it will separate out your meals and snacks for calories. I switched over from LIvestrong to MFP and quite like it. There is a free phone app for it too, which I will get if I ever upgrade from my stupid phone.
I love your coffee – woop! Nope, havne’t tried that one yet – I’ll check it out. 😀
I used to really love the livestrong my plate calorie tracker – super simple!!
I’ll check that out Errign – thanks for the tip! 😀
Great job on gettigng remotivated. It’s not easy. I am also trying to stay strong going into February
I love that Apple Cinnamon yogurt, but it is high in sugar 🙁 It was in the mid 70’s here yesterday, with a mother of a storm last night and in the 50’s today. Supposed to get cold again…BOO! Bring on the Spring!
Our temps started at 55 this morning (along with wicked wind and heavy rain) and now are dropping all day – but the sun is out!!!
I wouldn’t pay to use a website like that – there are too many free ones that work just as well. Another thought: if you really want to track and do it well, you’re going to have to stop “guesstimating” meals when Tony cooks or you eat out. I say this because it’s proven that even when tracking diligently, most of us can be off by 20% in correct calorie counts. In a 1500 calorie day, that’s 300 calories! That sort of margin of error can add up.
Also, I’m wondering did they give you a time frame to lose the weight? You know, so many pounds per week or whatever? That might explain their calorie calculaton.
They didn’t provide a time frame, but at 1600 calories they said I could lose 1-2 pounds a week. And yes, the eyeballing has to stop 😀
I recently switched back to pen and paper journaling. I’m still tracking on WW online, but sometimes I like to write notes or comments. I’m struggling to get over another plateau and I’m hoping this helps eventually. That bean soup looks so good right now. The weather here is so strange. An hour ago it was pouring and extremely windy. Now all is calm and the temperature is nearing 50 degrees. I won’t be wearing my winter coat today.
What Lori said is so, so true. I’ve been hit with the stomach virus and my old food ways have started creeping in again – just eating crap food because I don’t feel well. Good for you for buying a journal – since joining myfitnesspal.com, I’ve been “writing it down” online and I swear that’s the biggest key to weight loss success – being held accountable!
I’ll have to check out myfitnesspal.com – what I love about the ontracknutrition site is that the recipe builder is so much better than anything I’ve used before –
Lori’s post was really great, I agree!
Glad that you are tracking – I know that for me, tracking was a huge part of my weight loss. The only thing I’m questioning is that the site said you could eat X number of calories a day to lose weight…do you normally lose at that amount? And also, when you were finished with your food for the day, you ate more because you had “leftover” calories – but were you actually hungry?
I’m happy to hear you’ll be wearing a coat today! Stay warm!!!
I am really not sure Shelley – I went to a bunch of different sites – basically put in my weight, my goal weight and losing 1-2 pounds a week working out 5 times a week and the calorie range went from 1600 to 1900! I am going to stick to the 1600 for the month of February and see what happens!