Regardless of what kind of diet, regimen or lifestyle you chose to take on, the real challenge is sticking to your guns and not allowing "almost did it" to become the norm. Whether you chose to limit your portions, your calorie or carbohydrate intake, or a combination of any, the most important thing is to focus on and account for all of the ingredients you consume instead of guesstimating. Once you begin to allow yourself to estimate, a cookie or a spoonful of Nutella quickly begin to feel as low in calories as a bite of an apple of a side salad. To be successful, I had to train myself to be accountable for everything I ate, no matter whether I thought it should count or not.
For a long time, I googled ingredients and covered pages of my sketchbooks with calorie counts and recipes. This took a lot of time and I often had to remember what I had earlier in the day as I did not immediately have access to my inventories of ingredients. A few months ago, my friend Anna introduced me to an amazing free program and app called MyFitnessPal. It is basically a free version of Weight Watchers where everything is built around calories as opposed to points. I fell in love with this program and would recommend it to anyone starting out on a new healthy lifestyle.
When you make an account with MyFitnessPal, you log in your height and weight as well as your level of physical activity and how much weight you would like to lose per week. The program develops a plan of daily calories for you to follow in order to safely lose 1 or 2 pounds per week (there is also a recommended breakdown for carbohydrates, proteins, sugars and sodium, but I follow my own plan as I was recommended too many carbohydrates and not enough proteins.)
MyFitnessPal is available both as a phone application and online, so you can have it with you wherever you snack. Now, all you have to do is keep track of everything you eat. The great thing is that the menus of most popular restaurants are already in the system. Whenever you go out to lunch, you can log your sandwich on your phone as you eat it. If you have the phone app, you can scan any foods that have a barcode, which makes logging food even easier.
You can easily change portions depending on your consumption. I found that accurately determining portion sizes have been really important in my success. It is not so easy to pour a "cup" of cereal when your coffee mug is 16 ounces, and I dare you to guesstimate a half a cup of Hagen Dazs as you are eating it straight from the pint during your favorite RomCom. Always remember to adjust the serving size to what you actually consumed, no matter how much larger it is than the serving size, this program is for you to keep track of your health not for anyone else to judge you.
I know it is tough to admit that you ate more than you should or more than is recommended. I remember in undergrad, I would love to go to Luigi's pizza right by Pratt. I loved the Sicilian slices, and always wanted to eat two. As fat as I was, I was too embarrassed to order them, so I also ordered two different drinks and asked them to be bagged separately, so no one would know. But the only way I could make myself lose weight was by facing exactly what I consumed per day. Facing my deliciously cheesy demons helped me conquer them.
Another great resource that MyFitnessPal offers is a recipe builder. Every time I make myself dinner, as I cook, I log in exactly how much I use of every ingredient in a new recipe. It's helps me to decide how large a portion to have and how many delicious add ons I can afford. You can mark how many portions the recipe has, and log the recipe by portion as you eat it. Don't forget to log the olive oil...It it really adds up!
You can also log in all of your exercises, which is really great. For extra results, try mot to consider exercise an excuse to eat more.
Honestly, the most useful bit of MyFitnessPal for my morale is the fact that the calories you have left are displayed in green, yet if you go over it turns red. It is amazing how colors are embedded in our psyches. Go it alone, or do it with friends, whatever will help you most. Feel free to reach out and add me as a friend, I have several friends who have recently joined its me. We are keeping each other accountable and looking forward to amazing results.
I have a couple of friends that are starting off on a low carbohydrate diet, which I will talk about in my next few entries, and I have been helping them keep track of their progress and recommend ideas I have come up with over the years. I am happy to do the same for you. My MyFitnessPal account is DariaSouvorova, find me!
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