Everything I read keeps telling me that weight loss is 20% exercise and 80% diet, so let’s talk about the 80% today and then we’ll hit that 20% tomorrow.
Eating intentionally is the act of know what you will eat and when you’ll eat it. The Body-for-Life program is built on that. Eating six meals a day isn’t about gluttony, it is about eating small, yes, tiny meals spaced evenly throughout the course of the day. If you wait until mealtime to plan your meal, you’re setting yourself up for failure. The key to eating intentionally is to plan your day the night before so that when you wake up the next day you can work your plan. The Body-for-Life website (www.bodyforlife.com) makes this particularly easy with the Daily Progress Reports available for download at http://www.bodyforlife.com/exercise/journals.asp.
Planning Your Meals
The Progress Reports allow for change. On the left side, you have space to write the plan for what and when you’ll eat (that you should create the night before) and then, on the right side of the page, is space for you to list what you actually ate and when. I find this system really easy to use. I always clean the kitchen before I go to bed, so I usually take a look in the fridge and freezer to get an idea of what is available and then I take five minutes before bed to plan my next day’s meals.
Like all of you, I don’t live in a vacuum. I have a husband that insists his homemade lunches simply are not complete without cookies and an 18-month old who only seems to eat French Fries and Cheddar Flavor Rice Cakes. I can’t eat that stuff and expect to lose weight! That’s where creative cooking and storage comes into the picture.
I try to make good use of my cooking time because, like you, I have too much to do already. Here is an example: my husband wanted cheeseburgers for lunch yesterday, so I cooked the whole package of ground beef as three-ounce patties. While he was throwing cheese and pickles on his burgers, I took the extra patties and some Gladware and prepared a few future meals for myself. While I had the George Foreman Grill hot, I grilled a sliced onion, some canned mushrooms and some frozen pepper slices (all very healthy carbohydrates). Top a plain burger patty with grilled onion, mushroom and pepper and you’ve got something a little more interesting and tasty than a dry patty! (You also have a perfect Body-for-Life meal, minus a potato or whatever starch you plan to add.)
*I should mention here that starch is my mortal enemy and although I am following the Body-for-Life program, I am modifying it slightly to limit the starch in my diet.
The Eating-for-Life program is really simple to follow. Just eat six times a day to avoid energy fluctuations and hunger. There are no tricky measurements or weighing of foods. A portion is the size your closed fist or the palm of your hand for all solid foods. For instance, any protein portion should be about the size of the palm of your hand. A portion of carbohydrates should be about the size of your closed fist. Simple enough! A piece of meat about the size of your palm and some veggies or a salad that take up as much space as your fist and a starchy carbohydrate also about the size of your fist (like a baked potato or rice).
Now that you know the serving sizes, here are the foods you should choose from:
Proteins:
Chicken or Turkey breast, Lean ground turkey, Swordfish, Orange roughy, Haddock, Salmon, Tuna, Crab, Lobster, Shrimp, Lean Beef (ground or steak), Buffalo, Lean ham, Egg whites or substitutes, Trout, Low-fat cottage cheese, Wild-game meat
Vegetables:
Broccoli, Asparagus, Lettuce, Carrots, Cauliflower, Green beans, Green peppers, Mushrooms, Spinach, Tomato, Peas, Brussels sprouts, Artichoke, Cabbage, Celery, Zucchini, Cucumber, Onion
Starchy Carbohydrates:
Baked potato, Sweet potato, Yams, Squash, Pumpkin, Steamed brown rice, Steamed wild rice, Pasta, Oatmeal, Barley, Beans, Kidney beans, Corn, Strawberries, Melon, Apple, Orange, Fat-free yogurt, Whole-wheat bread, High-fiber cereal, Rice cake, Popcorn, Tortilla, Whole grains
And avoid:
Butter, Fried foods, Mayonnaise, Sweets, Whole-fat dairy products
Another thing that makes the Eating-for-Life program convenient is meal replacements. You’ve probably seen the Body-for-Life brand on the shelves at Wal Mart. Well, whether you buy the Body-for-Life or EAS brand, you’re buying the same product because they’re all made by EAS. There are Body-for-Life meal replacement bars and drinks and they’re packaged to travel so they make staying on top of mealtimes at work or on the read really easy. If you’re the thrifty type, pick up a bucket of Myoplex powder and mix your meal replacement drinks yourself. I usually mix up a double serving in a big shaker cup at night and leave it in the fridge for my two liquid meals the next day.
I’m on Day 5 now. I’ll confess, I’ve missed a few workouts and on day 2 had a run-in with a bag of sugar-free peanut butter cookies. Sure, there wasn’t any sugar, but there was still plenty of flour that went into those cookies and flour, being a starchy carbohydrate, is my enemy. I probably could have lost a lot more in these past several days if I had been a little stronger in the face of those cookies.
How are you doing? Visit the Body-for-Life forum here at Families.com and tell me about your progress. (I could use a few reprimands for those cookies, too!)