Diet Wars: Setting Goals

In Search of..... Fun Foods to Eat Under 300 Calories

Pizza - Who would have thought that you could still eat pizza on a diet? A normal slice of pizza (1/8 of the whole pizza) is roughly 140 to 196 calories, depending on the size of the pizza and what other stuff will on there. I would stick to the thin crust cheese pizza, with maybe one additional topping of mushrooms, chicken, veggies, maybe pepperoni. A slice of pizza and a small tossed salad with fat free dressing can make a great meal.

Grilled Chicken Salads - The BK Garden Salad with Tendergrilled Chicken is your best bet. The whole salad along with the packet of Fat Free Ranch Dressing is exactly 300 calories. A perfect lunch. I never add the croutons to the salad and they probably add a little more. Shoney's has a similar salad along with a side of fruit. A cursory look at several regular restaurants and fast food restaurants shows that in many places you have to be REALLY careful with the salads. You can easily be fooled into thinking you're eating healthfully (which in theory you are) but especially the restaurant salads like you get at O'Charleys, Logans, etc., are going to be anywhere from 500 to 1,000 calories! Yikes! (Thanks to Hungry Girl for that tip)

A Filling Breakfast - I've never been a good breakfast eater and tend to wait until late in the morning, and then stop off at McDonald's for a sausage and biscuit. I've discovered a very filling breakfast for just below 300 calories is a toasted English Muffin with a tbsp. of jam (preferably sugar free), and two boiled eggs. That's more that I would ordinarily eat, but since I'm having to make do until lunch, I figure I should get that protein from the eggs. You could also make your own Egg McMuffins and stay well within range.

Monday, October 6, 2008

Setting Goals

I lost another 2.5 lbs this past week which gives me a total weight loss of 11.5 lbs! So on the WW website I get another little "star" for making the first 10 pounds - although I got fussed at again for "fast weight loss!" That just kills me!

In terms of setting goals for weight loss - I've got the long term goal for total weight loss of course, but I also look at the recommended goal that WW sets which is to lose 10% of your total weight as a step by step process. So my first short term goal according to WW is to lose about 25 lbs.

But I have found that my own mental goal is to get past certain weight hurdles based on 10s - in other words - I started out at 253.5, so I was excited when I got below 250. Now I'm at 242, so my goal is to drop below 240, etc. Then when I get to 210 - the big goal will be to get below 200. That'll be a day to celebrate!

With the first 11.5 pounds off I'm feeling successful and encouraged to keep going. I'm not always so faithful to recording the points each day - especially on weekends. But I find that I'm ALWAYS conscious about points and how many I have at a given time. I've done this long enough now that I have a sense of how many points there are for foods that I commonly eat, so I just keep running inventory and if I get unsure - then I back up and lighten up on what I eat to make sure I don't go over. And although I've never recorded them - I know also that I have 35 points a week to play with - so that gives me a cushion on the weekends!

My big success this past weekend though - was going to my brother and sister-in-law's for dinner and not overindulging - especially on the raspberry chocolate brownies and homemade chocolate ice cream. So I might have had a few too many slices of fried green tomatoes - but I only let her slice me a very small slice of brownie and a small scoop of ice cream. And although initially other family members teased me a little bit - knowing my addiction to chocolate - overall they were actually quite supportive and encouraging me (although I really know that they were just happy that it meant more brownies for them!)