I followed a sensable meal plan, counted my calories and exercised.
A basic day looked like this
Breakfast:
whole grain (usually cereal, lol)
dairy or protein
fruit
Snack:
protein
fruit
Lunch:
whole grain
protein
vegetable
small healthy fat
Snack:
Vegetable
small treat like an oatmeal cookie, 2 mini chocolate bars, some cheese
Dinner:
protein
vegetable
starch (potato or some sort of whole grain like rice, wheat roll, couscous)
Small fat, like I can't believe it's not butter with olive oil
Snack:
dairy (pudding, ice cream, yogurt)
fruit
Your calorie range depends on your weight and activity level. Like right now, I am 239, so my range is 1600-1800. And you should aim to try to burn 300-500 calories a day, 5 days a week. I measured everything I ate so I could get accurate calorie counts.
Exercise when I started was small. I really started right from the very beginning. 15 minutes on the gazelle 5 days a week, and 2 days of strength training, A whole 5 reps at a time with 2 lbs, and I cried through that. But, as I got stronger, I added more time on cardio, more reps and moves with the weights. Within a few months I was doing workout videos and able to exercise about an hr at a time and strenght was up to 3 days a week. By 6 months I was down half my weight loss, and into things like turbojam, running, cycling, P90X.
I found through my first journey, find things that I liked to do for exercise. It kept me coming back to it every day. And eat foods that you like. And I learned that taste buds change over time. I now eat a lot of things I couldn't stand before. I hated asparagus, now I like it steamed el dente, I like raw spinach, and I can eat tomatoes in small amounts. All things I couldn't stand before. But once I got all the junk out of my system, my tastes changed.
I wish I could say I didn't like junk anymore. I heard a lot of people say that happened to them, but not for me, which is some of the reason I gained weight after I started working again and was surrounded by sweets. But, I've just got to learn to control them again like I did before.
It can seem like a monumental task. But if you keep with it, it will happen.
For me, I had to be strict at first. Even on holidays or birthdays, I stayed away from anything that wouldn't have been on my plan. I rememeber my Aunt telling me at Christmas that just 1 cookie wouldn't hurt me. But I said it would, and didn't eat any. Even my own birthday I asked for no cake. After awhile, I could start to follow the 80/20 rule (which means you are on plan 80 precent of the time, but leave room for holidays and birthdays to have small splurges). But when I started, I knew I had to get things under control completely before I could develop the ability for small splurges like that.
Heather
The bicycle is the most efficient machine ever created: Converting calories into gas, a bicycle gets the equivalent of three thousand miles per gallon. ~Bill Strickland, The Quotable Cyclist
| current weight: 239.0 |
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