Yeah, it's tough to keep the food interesting and healthy at the same time, isn't it? Unless you're someone that loves to cook and keeps lots of good healthy ingredients in the house, it's always a struggle! It looks like you have a good plan going in terms of spreading your meals out during the day, so that's good. I was a strict "three meals a day" person and found that when I waited to eat between meals, by the time the meal rolled around, I was starving and would eat way too much! My day now looks a lot more like yours. I try to look at the total calories for the day and then try to stick to that. Not that I'm a strict calorie-counter by any means, but I just try to be more aware of how many calories something has before I mindlessly eat it. For example, I read somewhere that if you cut 100 calories out of your daily diet, you would lose something like 10 pounds in a year. Then I took a look at what I was eating/drinking each day and tried to make some changes that wouldn't make me feel too deprived. I'm not a coffee drinker, but I do have a Snapple iced tea every morning. So I switched to Diet Snapple and chopped 200 calories off my daily intake right there. It took a while to get used to it, but now I like it just as much as the regular, and I feel good about the 200 fewer calories. I also took a good look at portion sizes. I, too, have cereal every morning (Total Raisin Bran). I usually get ready for work before I eat, so I'm pretty hungry by the time I sit down and would pour a pretty good sized bowl of cereal. I looked at the portion size on the box and saw that it was one cup. Well, when I measured what I was eating every day, it was at least twice that! So now I limit it to one cup. And I actually feel better for this change--I'm not "stuffed" like I used to be when I was done! I've also started making my lunch at home every day instead of eating out. Even though I'd try to make good choices outside, the food you make yourself is always better since you have total control over it. I choose light wheat bread, which is only about 35 calories a slice (you can't believe how many calories are in some breads!). And I usually have turkey instead of something higher in fat. If I'm really energetic, I'll put lettuce in it to sneak in a vegetable, but I don't do that all the time. Just by making these few small changes, I've actually lost some weight. I'm not sure how much because I don't usually weigh myself, but my clothes are all fitting much more loosely and I've actually had to buy some in a smaller size! It's probably been about four or five months since I started making these changes. My next challenge is to improve my eating at night. During the day I'm usually very good. Even if someone brings food into work, I'm not usually all that tempted. Evening/night time is definitely my weak area. I usually work out right when I get home, because if I didn't, I'd sit on the couch and just chow! The time between my workout/shower and dinner is where I need to change. I'm so hungry, and dinner's not ready, so I go into total snack mode! If I'm smart and buy good stuff, like baby carrots and hummus (one of my favorites!), I'll eat that and won't feel too bad. But if I don't, I'll just chow on whatever I can find, and it's usually not healthy! And I also enjoy a beer or two with whatever I'm munching on, so that just ups the calorie count. So my next goal is to keep the healthy snacks in the house at all times and make sure that I choose that instead of the popcorn, chips, etc. And I'd like to limit myself to one beer (light beer, about 100 calories) instead of two. That would be another 100+ calories off my daily total! It's a lot of thinking, but it's not that bad. I think the key is looking at your daily diet (write everything down if you have to), identifying your weak areas, and then making changes. Try to focus on one area at a time so you don't feel really deprived all at once. A lot of it's just common sense and then just making yourself stick to it!
Good luck--we're all in this struggle together!
-Marie
