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June 21, 2005

What I Eat & How I Exercise

This will be a quick post about how I’m maintaining an average 2 pound per week weight loss.

Food
For breakfast most mornings I have a soy protein shake (made with soy milk). I don’t eat dairy unless I’m out at a restaurant and there is no alternative. Other breakfast options are veggie meat products like Boca breakfast patties, etc. I keep the carb consumption low. At breakfast I have the most will power so the shake usually fills me and sustains me until lunch.

Before I get too hungry I eat lunch. Usually something like a veggie meat sandwich, veggie dogs, or Celantanos vegan entrees (they are so good and low in fat and calories). Most days I’ll eat a ton of steamed broccoli with lunch. Oh yeah, I drink a large glass of chrystal light lemonade to help fill me up.

If I need to snack before dinner, I eat steamed broccoli if I didn’t have it for lunch or plain tofu (I love it, but most people probably wouldn’t), or fruit. If I’m really hungry I’ll have plain veggie meat something or other.

For dinner I pay the least attention to what I eat. Stir fry tofu & veggies with rice, mushroom raviolis with marinara sauce, veggie meat product of some kind.

Most nights I eat a snack size bag of microwave popcorn. The snack size is the best and I don’t get light or anything, I actually eat the “movie theatre butter” one.

Basically, I generally stay away from too many carbs. With the mostly vegan diet you don’t really have to think about it too hard because everything is lower in fat and calories (and absolutely none of the bad fat). I stay away from too many oils, etc. If I eat something that is more fattening (like tater tots, love 'em!), then I stay strick to the serving size (I count out 12 and no more).

Note
I gradually learned to eat this way, and it gets easier over time. I’ve stopped craving some of the junky stuff. I completely abstain from many snack foods, that way I forget what they taste like and crave them less. If I were to occasionally indulge then I fear I might think about them too often. Also, if I start feeling down in the dumps (or hungry or whatever), I leave the house and go to a park or mall with my daughter. Buying me something fun is good too. Worst case scenario, I do a chore or home improvement project. I try and distract myself in other ways now and it is working. I’m learning that I was eating for reasons other than really being hungry. I'm trying to learn to eat to fuel my body and be healthy, not for recreation (I know that's cliche, but I'm going to convince myself of that).

Exercise
As many days as I can, which turns out to be about 5 days a week, I do an aerobic tape. Sometimes I do my elliptical trainer if I feel like I need to mix it up or if I worked out my muscles too hard. The aerobic tapes I do are The Firm. I’ve said it before, they are the best! They do aerobics and weights. So you feel like you’re getting a great workout. They are under 50 minutes. I do the “Tough aerobics mix” and the “not-so tough aerobics”.

Lastly
I don’t know if this helps but something that I’ve been doing from the beginning is listening to a hypnosis CD when I go to bed. I have this series for losing weight but I only listen to one of them. I don’t have the details near me now but I’ll get them later for anyone who is interested. I really got it to relax myself and help me fall asleep and to practice meditation sometimes. I think it’s good to take time out for yourself and relax. I also believe when you hear something enough it has an impact (look at advertising, that works). So if I repeatedly hear these good messages, maybe it will too.

So I don’t know if it’s made a difference, but I enjoy it when I go to sleep, and thus far it hasn’t hurt!

That’s about it. I gradually got to this point weaning myself off certain types of bad foods and building up to my exercise routine.

Posted by hopeful @ June 21, 2005 9:58 AM