Wednesday after work hours, Amber and I had life changing conversation about what we need to be doing when it comes to our eating.
We know that:
- We generally eat very well. Over the past year, after cutting a lot of bad foods out of our diets/eating them in moderation AND learning correct portion sizes, we cannot even stomach some of the
fatty-goodnessbad food that we used to eat. - We both have a love hate relationship with tracking our food. Amber cannot stand it because it makes her feel constricted. I don't mind it most of the time, but then I get obsessive compulsive about it. I mean, I cannot put something in my mouth without tracking it.
- We don't really plan ahead when it comes to our eating.
- AND when we don't do whatever we "commit" to doing, we get upset and give up completely until we "get motivated" to restart.
SO, what does this mean? The biggest thing that we identified is our need to plan ahead. If we are able to plan ahead, it will help almost all of our eating related problems. I've talked before about my love for the BodyBuilding.com website, and all of those lovely figured people all take a day to plan out ALL of their meals for the ENTIRE week. I mean, you will never see a Tupperware collection like theirs if you walked into their kitchen on a Sunday. Breakfast. Lunch. Dinner. Snacks. All planned so eating is an afterthought throughout the week.
Last night after doing some grocery shopping, I decided that I needed to plan ahead a little more myself. I get hungry at random times throughout the day and never have a pre-portioned snack available. Instead of leaving the whole box of Wheat Thins on the shelf until I get hungry, I went ahead and pre-portioned out little snack baggies so I can grab a full portion size when hunger hits me. Since they are pre-portioned, this will also keep me from reaching my hand back into the box to grab "just one more". I then placed all of the snack baggies right back into the box to store them in the pantry.
One small step towards planning my meals is completed! I also figure that if I get into the habit of pre-planning my days (food wise), then tracking will be much easier. Essentially, if I plan my week on a Sunday, then I should be able to pre-track my calories for the whole week and just adjust when needed. Although I get obsessed with tracking my food, I know that it is a habit that I need to try and get myself more comfortable with and planning ahead will make that much easier. This will also be a little less stressful than following a meal plan because I will be making my meals with ingredients that I have in my kitchen. When I attempt to follow a meal plan I always end up substituting and that just defeats the purpose.
It is midweek, so I didn't want to stay up all night preparing food for the rest of the work week, but come Sunday. I am going to test out my meal planning skills and get myself ready a full work week of pre-portioned food.
Have you ever tried meal planning before?
Good idea Kim. That is a step in the right direction. I would suggest your next step be eliminating processed foods. I know packaged snack foods are yummy but they don't help support your weight loss. I would suggest you choose quality food vs quantity when it comes to calories. It's not enough to just track calories but rather the quality of food you are eating. If you notice many of those awesome figures you see on bodybuilding.com tend to eat small meals of lean protein, veggies and complex carbs all from whole food sources. Think string cheese and a peice of fruit, nuts and fruit, cottage cheese and fruit or maybe a protein shake if you don't want a meal. Hope you don't mind my advice. :)
ReplyDeleteI never mind your advice. I am working on the whole food part, slowly but surely. This week I got a wind of motivation mid-week, which is not really conducive to meal planning since I lack the time during the week, so I picked up some quick healthy snacks to get me through until Sunday. And beyond, so I don't binge from not eating all of my favorites.
Delete