Positively Weightless: July 2018

I have been spreading out my new meal plan through the last few weeks and figured today would be a good day to finish up. My dinners and snacks are both pretty small topics to talk about, so I figured I would just include them both in one big post rather than fighting to produce two.

Let's start with dinner and then make our way to snacks. Honestly I do not have a whole lot to say about dinner. Despite the popular opinion that dinner shouldn't be this big filling meal, I keep dinner as my lightest meal of the day. Think about it... by the time you are eating dinner most of the time you are winding down for the day. I know I personally eat dinner as soon as I get home from work and the gym. Once I finish with dinner I usually get in the shower and then straight into my pajamas to settle in for the evening. You eat food for energy to keep yourself going so to me it makes the most logical sense that dinner would be a smaller meal as you do not need as much energy anymore.

My usual dinner is some sort of protein and a vegetable. I tend to lean more towards a leaner protein like chicken or a nice piece of salmon and on the side I usually will have a nice mixed green salad with a light dressing. Another nice side option are some nice steamed vegetables, especially green vegetables. I have been loving zucchini and picked out some nice asparagus to go with dinners this week for myself. Steak is an occasional protein option for me as well. Honestly I am not too much of a red meat eater to begin with, but sometimes I really just want it. Pick a small steak for yourself if you are on the same boat (I usually stay in the 6 oz range) and eating red meat is just fine in my opinion. As you can see I try to stay away from carbs at dinner time. I mean obvious carbs by this not the naturally occurring ones in some of the other foods. Potatoes, bread, rice etc. I tend to steer clear from for dinner. Overall dinner is just a small meal to replenish myself after my long day and my nice workout.

Snacks are pretty important in the meal plan I have myself following as well. I know that probably sounds crazy, but snacks are not an enemy at all as long as you are smart about them. It is important to eat snacks in between meals for me in order to keep my metabolism going, and trust me ever since I started doing this I can absolutely tell my metabolism is boosted. I start to get hungry between all my meals, so a snack is great to stick in there to help with that while keeping hunger at bay to make it to the next meal.

The most important part of snacking, however, is to make sure you are not overdoing it. My snacks are typically in the 100-200 calorie range. I have been having a 100 calorie pack of nuts between breakfast and dinner. Between lunch and the gym I have another small snack. That is around 3 pm (I have lunch right at noon). I have been eating an apple with one tablespoon of all natural peanut butter. This week my plan is 1/2 cup of plain Greek yogurt with berries and a teaspoon or so of natural peanut butter as well. It does not need to be anything huge, just something nice that will give me some fuel for my workout. The last snack I typically have is a protein shake. I make this in my car as soon as I leave the gym and drink it on my drive home. I personally have a 30-40 minute drive home, so this snack is really just to keep my hunger at bay while I drive home and cook my dinner. If I skipped this one I would literally be snacking the entire time I was cooking my dinner which would obviously lead to overeating.

Overall I feel that this new meal plan is absolutely working for me. Sure the number on the scale is hovering in the same area right now as it has for a while, but I feel the changes in myself ad know I am getting healthier. Some of my clothes are too big for me to wear at this point and I feel the clothes that used to be tight fitting me correctly now. I see little signs in the mirror as well. My collar bone is a bit more visible now, my face is visibly slimmer in pictures, and I totally see more of a shape forming on my hips than I ever have. As I mentioned before I am working with a personal trainer now and doing a lot more weight training. My trainer said it is 100% normal to be staying the same or even gaining weight right now as I am weight training and building muscle, so I am not worried at all. I think this is the best meal plan for me and it seems to be working a lot. With a bit more discipline I will be golden. I hope this series of posts inspires you to come up with your own!

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I shared my thoughts on exercise a few weeks ago, and that is important of course. I talked about finding something that works for you and making sure you stay active. Not everyone's schedule is going to be the same. With all of that being said I think it is also very important to take a break and listen to your body.

I know, this may sound surprising to you especially since I just posted about how important exercise is and being active is. Do not misunderstand me, I still stand by all of that. What I do think is that sometimes we also just need a break. Sometimes our bodies just need extra rest in order for us to keep going on our usual schedules. Sometimes in order to not hurt ourselves either physically or even mentally, a little break from our normal routine is important.

The whole inspiration for this post comes from last week. On Monday afternoon after work I went straight to the gym as I usually do. When I got out of the car, for whatever reason I noticed my upper right leg seemed to have a pulled muscle. Now as silly as this sounds I have no idea how this happened. If was fine when I left work and I noticed it when I got out of the car at the gym. I decided since it was not too bad I would just go in and do my cardio. I did and it seemed to be fine. The next day, however, the pain got a little worse all throughout the day. I attempted to do a lunge and almost screamed from the pain. I decided it would be in my best interest to skip the gym that day and go straight home to rest and stretch the muscle out really well. That helped me so much. Instead of risking injury and making things worse for me, I decided it would be in my best interest to stray from my normal routine and recover.

I want to tell you that it is perfectly fine to stray from your schedule. I personally go to the gym 4 days a week, and 90% of the time I am able to stick to that. There are going to be weeks where that doesn't work out though! I do not beat myself up over it. I simply get right back to my normal routine the very next week. As long as the good weeks far outweigh the off weeks then you are good!

Sticking to a routine is never worth your physical or mental health. If you pull a muscle like I did just test the waters, but do not overdo things. If you are unsure on what to do then reach out to someone for advice. I personally texted my trainer, and he helped me out a lot and gave me advice on what to do. If you had a super rough day and just need a break from working out then take it. I know I have days where I just want to be home as soon as possible. I do not suggest doing this too often. Exercise can be an amazing stress relief. But if your mental sanity means skipping the gym and going home to put on your pajamas and have a glass of wine then do it. Just make sure you get right back to the gym on your schedule the next day.

The same can actually be said about diet as well. I am a firm believer in eating healthier when you can, but letting yourself live as well. My weight went up a few weeks ago because I enjoyed myself at the 4th of July picnic my family had. I went right back to eating well after the holiday, but I let myself stray on the day of. Yes, you should make a conscious effort most of the time to make healthy choices. Your physical health will thank you for this. I do feel also that you should allow yourself to stray and enjoy from time to time as well. Do not go crazy by any means, but if you are at an event that has some yummy but not healthy choices go ahead and have a little, just do not go overboard. That is the most important thing to remember when it comes to both straying on your diet and exercise: Balance.

My overall message here is to not push yourself farther than your should. Listen to your body and listen to your internal dialogue, but do not let this become a habit. As long as you only do this once or twice, then you are just fine. You are not any less important or worthy as a person just because you needed to take a day off or decided to give in and eat something you normally wouldn't. Take it easy on the days that you just cannot push through to do your usual plan. The most important part is getting right back into your routine again once you have mentally or physically recovered.

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Next up in the meal plan is lunch as you may have guessed. I would say lunch is the hardest meal to work around when trying to eat healthy, at least for me. There is a lot of temptation all around us during the day that can lead to some not so great food choices. A great example is joining work friends ordering take out or asking if you want to join them at a restaurant. I personally work around a lot of different places that I could leave and go to grab something for lunch. Some of these choices are good, and some are bad. There also is a food truck in our parking lot at least once a week. While I am sure some of the trucks that come have some decent options, those are not always going to offer the best choices either.

In my meal plan that I follow now, lunches should be the second biggest meal of the day. I personally try to keep my lunch in the 400-500 calorie range. You want something healthy but big enough to help you get through the rest of your day (and workout if you go after work like I do). I try to keep my lunches exciting and satisfying as well.

My first word of advice is to plan things out. Typically I am deciding what I want to make for my lunches the next week on Thursday. From there I write out a shopping list of all the ingredients to make sure I get everything over the weekend. Pick one day of the weekend to do your prep as well (otherwise known as meal prep of course). I personally do all of my cooking on Sundays. I know in the past I never used to plan things ahead like this and that always lead to me scrambling in the morning before work, or I just decided to buy something for lunch which as I mentioned earlier doesn't always lead to the best choices. If you have a nice plan and do all the prep at once, then it is one less thing you have to think about during your busy week.

This week I made Butternut Squash Mac and Cheese

from the Cooking Light: The New Way to Cook Light

cook book.

When it comes to actual recipes I have a few suggestions as well. I utilize Pinterest a lot for recipes of all kinds. Create an account if you do not have one, create boards for the different meals or even just a board for healthy meals in general to save all these recipes. I also have a pretty large collection of healthy recipe cookbooks that I go through. I just bought a few on Amazon. That is nice to do so you can read some reviews on the recipes included as well as look at the preview pages. Go to your local bookstore and check the clearance section! Years ago I bought a Cooking Light cookbook for only $8 (the sticker price was around $30) in the clearance section and it has so many yummy recipes in it. If you don't want to go out and buy a book you can always check one out at the library as well and just copy the recipes that stand out to you. You can improvise as well. I sometimes like to keep my lunches pretty simple so I will just pick a grain/carb, protein, and vegetable(s) and cook them up. There are honestly so many ways to get creative and keep yourself interested in your meals.

One other suggestion I have is to buy yourself some nice containers to store your food in. I have some nice glass containers. They seal all the food in which is not only great to store your pre cooked food in the fridge, but it also makes the travel to work a lot easier as well. A cute lunchbox to bring everything in couldn't hurt either!

My biggest rule with lunches in my meal plan, as I mentioned before is to be prepared and prep what you can ahead of time. Do whatever you can to deter yourself away from giving into temptation and buying something really bad for you for lunch. Not only will your body thank you for it in the long run, but your energy levels will be so much higher later in the day as well. Pack ahead and you don't have to worry about it for the rest of the week. Just grab and go! Trust me if you stick to this and have a good healthy lunch during your day, you will thank yourself for it!

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I have talked a lot about diet and eating right on this page. Just last week I started my little series about my new meal plan I have been following. I wanted to break that up and do different posts in between, so no this post will not be about lunches. I wanted to dedicate some time to talking about exercising. I have covered this topic in the past, but my thoughts on exercise have changed quite a bit so I wanted to revisit it.

Trust me, I am the first one to admit I never liked exercising or being active. I would not have been well over 300 lbs in high school if I was a very active and athletic kid. I hated gym class. I absolutely dreaded it to be quite frank. I played softball as a young kid but that didn't end very well when I broke my arm tripping and falling running to first base with the only decent hit I ever got (I was a very graceful child, I know). I never exercised at all. I would walk the dog occasionally but that is about it. If you would have told me back then that when I was in my mid 20s I would be going to the gym four days a week I would literally say you were insane. If exercise is not your thing I completely understand.

With all that being said, it is also really important to make it known how necessary exercise really is. If you are someone like me especially that has a job that you are sitting most of the day, exercise is especially important. Trust me, it was an extreme struggle to get into the gym routine I am in now. I had to make myself keep going every day at the beginning of the year. I have always been that person that does not want to go at all, but once I finish my workout I feel amazing. The days that are a particular struggle to go always feel that much sweeter in the end as well.

If going to a gym is not your thing, I encourage you to find your thing. There are SO many ways to exercise in so many different settings. When I first lost weight a few years back I was so incredibly self conscious. I would never have stepped foot in a gym back then for fear of being judged. I found ways to workout from home that worked for me. I used the Wii Fit back then and honestly that worked great. It's a fun way to ease into exercising and you can do it completely in private if that is what you prefer. Once I gained a little confidence, I started going to the gym with a friend which also helped a lot. There are plenty of ways to workout from home if you have the space. Do some research and find the best option for your lifestyle and schedule.

Do not be afraid to change things up either. I have been doing cardio four days a week at the gym and added in the leg and arm machines two days a week as well. To be quite frank my body had just gotten used to this. A few weeks back a trainer talked me into doing a free session with him at my gym. I was very reluctant to agree but he was very persuasive. To say I was sore the next few days after this session would be a gross understatement. I could hardly walk my legs were so sore. This is a wake up call in a way. Clearly I need to shock my body more and no wonder my results were coming to a halt. The following Monday I signed up for once a week sessions. I hesitated at first as they are definitely not cheap, but I felt it was right for me. I have been wanting to move on to different exercises and use different gym equipment, but was worried I wouldn't know how to use and do it properly. This way I have someone watching me and aiding me in the process. It really is pretty important to change things up from time to time, so don't be afraid to do so!

Exercising should make you feel good and should never be a punishment to your body. I know I personally feel amazing after a workout and especially after a nice shower after a workout as well. If there is something I am not fond of doing, I stop doing it and move on to the next thing. Never torture yourself in the process. Get up and move and become a more active person. Trust me I went from the least active person ever to someone that works out on a very frequent basis. If I can do that, anyone can!

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I have been wanting to share what I have been doing as far as food goes on my new journey on this page for quiet a while. Right at the beginning of January when I decided to buckle down and start living in a healthier way, my diet was pretty healthy and I lost about 15 lbs right away. Well, while I worked on my gym schedule and getting more consistent with working out my diet started slipping a bit. I was doing my best to work 4 days a week at the gym into my schedule and to be 100% honest, I just got a little lazy with meal prep for a while there. My weight was staying at the same weight and was just not budging. I was obviously getting frustrated, but knew I needed to clean up my diet even more to see results again. I took to some friends for advice and was able to come up with a nice meal plan that works for me. I don't want to dedicate a whole post about that, because I have done that already. What I did want to do is break down each meal, explain what I am personally doing, why this works for me, and give some examples and/or tips. Today I am starting with breakfast.

I used to be a pretty light eater in the mornings. Back in my teenage years I hardly ever even remembered to eat breakfast in the mornings before school. I think that was a huge issue for me to be honest and why my weight got so out of control. As a friend of mine pointed out, breakfast really should be your biggest meal of the day. If you eat a big breakfast, it will keep you going and will be burned into energy throughout your day (rather than a big dinner where you are pretty much settling in for the day and do not need as much energy).

I started making myself have a big breakfast about two months ago. Quite honestly it was pretty hard to do at first because I was not used to eating that much so early. My goal was a breakfast between 500 and 600 calories. I tend to be right in that range, but if not it is usually in the high 400 range. I am always full when I finish and that is usually a good sign. The main reason for that is because it holds me over completely until lunch time. Typically I used to start feeling my stomach growling by 10:30 am, and I usually eat my lunch around noon. The fact that I am no longer hungry before then makes me less prone to snack between these two meals. Snacks are important too in my opinion, I will write a post about that in the future, but the timing and amount of snacking you do is crucial as well while trying to lose weight.

There are plenty of great ways to have a big healthy breakfast that are fairly quick to make. I typically give myself about 20 extra minutes in the morning before I have to go to work, but I know not a lot of people do this. Most of the breakfasts I make, however are fairly fast to make and you can multitask as well. Here are a few examples:

Oatmeal with Fruit and Something Sweet: Oatmeal is great because it really is a blank canvas. What I have been doing is cooking up one serving of oatmeal (typically only takes about 5 minutes). While the oatmeal cooks, I slice up some fruit to top it off with and warm something up to drizzle on top. One of my most recent concoctions is oatmeal with fresh peaches and melted cookie butter drizzled on top. I know, suggesting cookie butter probably sounds crazy to you. It is by no means healthy, but the way I look at it is as long as it fits in your calories, is measured by the serving size, and you don't eat it all the time, it is fine. Allowing yourself something sinful like that will make you less prone to cheat and eat half of a jar of it later on. Another great example of an oatmeal combo would be oatmeal, sliced strawberries, and melted peanut butter on top. Really there are plenty of combinations to choose from.

High Protein Pancakes with Eggs and Fruit: Have you ever heard of Kodiak Power Cakes? Probably the best store bought pancake mix I have ever tried and it is a very healthy option. These pancakes have a good amount of protein, are made with whole grains, and typically only have around 200 calories a serving. I will make up a serving of these, scramble up 1 whole egg with 2 egg whites, and add some sliced fruit to the plate. Add a tablespoon of pure maple syrup on top of the pancakes and you are still well in the calorie range.

Yogurt, Fruit, and Granola Parfait: This has been my go-to breakfast as of lately. Mostly because summer is probably the best season for fruit. This breakfast is probably the easiest since there is no cooking involved. Just some chopping and measuring and that's it. I think the best part about this one is that it is very versatile. I have been trying to cut out dairy where I can, so I have been using coconut milk and nut milk yogurts when making these. Try to use plain yogurt regardless to the type it is as this will cut the amount of sugar. The granola has been fun too. I have been trying the different flavors of paleo granola that our Whole Foods sells in bulk as well as some ancient grain granola from Trader Joe's. The fruit can be anything you like as well. Peaches are great this time of year so those have been my go-to, but berries are great this time of year as well. I wanted to share a picture of the different combos I have been having here.

I hope those examples helped at least give you an idea of breakfasts you can make on your own! Get creative and make something that you know you will love to eat and look forward to having in the morning. Having a big breakfast has been working wonders for me and I highly suggest it to anyone trying to eat right. I would love to hear some suggestions from any of you if you have them as well!

I will follow up this post eventually and share a new post based on the other meals of the day as well. I also look forward to writing a blog about my personal experience working with a personal trainer as I just started weekly sessions this past Thursday. There are a lot of fun things coming up that I have in store for this page here, so hang tight and as always, thank you for reading!

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