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Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Giving an old plan a new try


For the next couple of weeks, I am home alone as my husband is on business travel to Xiamen, China.  I look at this as both a good and bad thing.  It’s bad, because of the disruption to our routine and because I will miss him.  On the other hand, having him away may help me eat better if I don’t succumb to take-out the whole time.  While he was home for two weeks between trips, I put on a couple of the pounds that I had lost earlier in the month.  Without a plan in place, we reverted to our usual habits of dining out often and snacking daily.  Fortunately, I am still down five pounds for the month so I am at least making progress albeit slowly.

My plan for the immediate future is to stick to a calorie budget.  I’ve found from past experiences, that if I track my food intake I tend to eat better.  It’s not much of a plan, and not the best plan, but it’s a plan. To start off, I will aim for 1800 calories or less per day.  If I can average between 1500 -1800 calories, I will be happy.  For the most part, I will try to eat healthier foods, meaning unprocessed, less grains and less sugar.  I am unable or unwilling or a little of both to cut off all sugar and grains cold turkey.  I will start with the calorie budget and work from there.  Knowing that the healthier the food is, the more I can have of it will hopefully cause me to look for ways to eat better.  That’s the plan anyways.

Thanks for stopping by!

7 comments:

  1. What an interesting trip your husband is going to be taking! I'm always wanted to go to China (I am very interested in Asian cultures!)... Also I think that setting a calorie budget and sticking to it is a great thing to do, and it's how I started out my weight-loss journey and continued to track my calories for many years while I got comfortable with it.

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  2. That is basically what I do, although I've had to restrict my calories to 1400 to lose weight (I'm only 5 ft tall and around 180 lbs). 1500-1800 sounds excellent. I find I run out of calories before the end of the day if I eat too many carbs, so although I'm not against grains I have to restrict them just for the calorie count. And of course processed foods have a very high calorie cost.

    For me, if I try to cut out all "bad" food completely I go into a deprivation panic spiral and eat everything in sight, so counting calories is a good compromise. I can have a treat without feeling too guilty.

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  3. Excellent plan!!! Cheering for you!!

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  4. Baby steps. Rome was not built in a day and all that cliche stuff. :) 1500-1800 calories sounds very doable and is actually what I am doing as well. Good luck. I'll stay tuned :D

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  5. I find that when I track my food I can stay more focused. You can do this!

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  6. too bad you couldn't go with the hubs! I calorie counted for the past 18 months! love fitness pal :)

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  7. Eating less of these is a good plan

    "I will try to eat healthier foods, meaning unprocessed, less grains and less sugar."

    Take Care and keep focused

    All the best Jan

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