After being upset with myself with how Christmas went I started feverishly exploring all kinds of diets. After talking myself out of fad diets like the "Cabbage Soup" diet I found a strategy that seemed to make a little bit of sense to me. The strategy is to basically reverse the order of your calorie intake. The philosophy is pretty simple---if you think about the purpose of food and calories, it's to provide energy for your body to do what it needs to get done. Most of us (at least where I'm from in the Midwest) eat the majority of the calories at dinner time--but what do we prepare to do after dinner? Me, I prepare to watch T.V., maybe do some work on my computer, and go to bed. I don't need a lot of calories to accomplish this.
So, this past week I experimented with flipping my calories so that my biggest meal was breakfast, a medium meal at lunch, and a small meal (approx 200-300 calories) for dinner. Here's what I found:
- At first it was difficult for me to eat such a big breakfast because I wasn't used to it. Prior to today I would typically eat a container of greek yogurt for breakfast every morning. I stuck with the greek yogurt but added in other items, examples include adding chia seeds, granola, blueberries to the yogurt, eating bananas, healthy omelettes, healthy egg-white breakfast burritos, etc.
- I've found that when I get to lunch I still felt pretty fulfilled and it's almost difficult for me to eat a "medium" caloric lunch.
- I was not starving by the time I got to dinner. Prior to this week I come to dinner STARVING, whether or not I'm on a "diet". I get a blood sugar drop and a hoarding feeling around 5 p.m. where I want to eat everything in sight....and then eat dinner. That didn't happen to me this week. My favorite low-cal meal was a large spring mix salad with avocado, lime juice, cilantro, and 3 Tbs of salsa.
- The downfall is not always eating what the family is eating because unfortunately we are still a family of convenience foods---a habit that I hope this process will help me change. But, if the family eats frozen pizza for dinner then I eat a salad because the pizza isn't the nutrient dense enough (Yes--I totally see and understand the hypocrisy--if it's not nutrient dense enough for me, then how can it be nutrient dense for my kids?! I'm working on it. I can't get all of the kids to like salad so I'm experimenting with different healthy and convenient dinners---for example, they love spaghetti squash and it would be pretty easy to roast some on a Saturday and put dinner-size portions in the freezer. The kids also love baked chicken---another easy "make ahead" or even crockpot food. I've been searching through Pinterest for ideas. Please! Message me or post for me any of your favorite healthy meals that your whole family loves!
I also worked out twice this week. Which isn't a lot. But when you go from 0 to 2 that's a pretty good jump in progress, I'd say ;-) I have plans to increase that # (Taking the kids to swim at the Y today!) and I also ordered Zumba Gold that came in the mail this week. That's right, don't re-read that. Zumba Gold--which is Zumba for the 55+ crowd. BUT, if you have a spine that is probably around the age 70, it works :-) I'm looking forward to trying it out. Hopefully when I am about a year post-fusion I can do the regular zumba with no problems. Until then, I'm cool with Zumba Gold, Sweatin' to the Oldies, and of course doing what I can at our Y's gym and pool.
Hoping for another loss next week and not a gain. Otherwise I'm renaming my blog to "My wonderful Yo-Yo diet". Well, don't hold me to that.
No picture this week. I don't feel like combing my hair yet. :-)
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