This has been a long time coming, I suppose. I've always struggled with my weight. Okay, maybe not ALWAYS, but certainly since moving the summer between 7th and 8th grade. That was a summer filled with potato chips and ice cream ... 'twas a blessed summer, that found me 2 sizes larger when school started -- oops.
And here I am, 48 years old, 100+ pounds overweight, single, lonely, and on blood pressure meds.
So -- having done the Weight Watchers thing before (successfully until I quit) and the South Beach thing (again successfully until I quit), I decided to do a more balanced approach. Not that Weight Watchers isn't balanced, because it really is. I simply need something that I spend a little less time THINKING about! It's fairly self-defeating to try to lose weight by thinking about food all the time, and the whole points thing was a lot like math (yuck).
So this time, I'm looking at the DASH diet -- DASH stands for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension. My doctor had indicated that if I lost some weight and got some exercise, there is a very real possibility that I can toss the meds -- helloooo -- that's enough to motivate me right there!!
So, essentially, this is an "exchanges" type diet as follows:
GRAINS - 7/8 servings a day
FRUITS - 4/5 servings a day
VEGGIES - 4/5 servings a day
DAIRY - 3 servings a day
LEAN MEATS - 2 servings a day
FATS & OILS - 2/3 servings a day
NUTS, SEEDS & LEGUMES - 4/5 servings a week
SWEETS - less than 5 servings a week
This looks so simple that even I can figure this out! Nothing's omitted, which I like, because inevitably, if you leave something you like out of your diet for too long, it's gonna come back.
So the journal plan is simple: I'm going to journal my days -- hopefully less than 365 of them to do the trick.
Today: Day 1
Weight: beyond belief, plus 3
Breakfast: I started my day with a bowl of cheerios with milk and a sliced banana. By my best guess, that's 2 grains (1/2 cup equals 1), 1 dairy (although I used whole milk), and 1 fruit.
Snack: I had 1/2 cup of baby carrots (raw -- love the crunch!) So there's 1 vegetable
Lunch: I had some (3 oz?) smoked Boston butt (oops -- I don't think that falls under the "lean" part of the equation, but this is a work in progress), some dill pickles (veggies? they start out as cucumbers!), and (uh-oh) some chips. I don't suppose we can call them potatoes really, can we? If we try, we also have to add the fats -- looks like today's fats are already gone!
no afternoon snack
Supper: Well, supper is going to be my struggle unless I do a little better planning ahead. Tonight we had hot dogs -- with cheese -- and chili - and chips. (but with Diet Dr. Pepper) So, given that they were angus beef dogs (not low fat, but meat, nonetheless), and I had two, that's 2 meats, 2 grains (buns), 1 dairy (1 slice of cheese divided), chips again -- what food group would those fall under? I'm thinking they need to be banished altogether. The hot dog chili is really just a bunch of artificial stuff, so it doesn't count.
Dessert: 1 York Peppermint Patty (miniature)
So not terribly shabby for the first day out of the gate --
4 grain
2 dairy
1 fruit
2 vegetable
3 meat
fats -- off the chart
questionable -- chips (they just don't have a categorical home!)
1 sweet (although 3 is a serving size, so technically I've only had 1/3 of a sweet)
Obviously it's going to take a little better planning, but I really think this is doable.
Oh, and I added WATER (gasp) to my world. Started out with a bottle as I left the house this morning and refilled it twice from the water fountain today, so that's about 48 ounces, plus 2 cups of coffee, and a couple of Diet Dr. Peppers.
Didn't work in any exercise today-- with the cooler weather though, it looks promising to get a little walking in either at lunch or after work for a few minutes every day. The Doc said if I would just walk 10 minutes a day every day for 6 weeks, I'd actually start to enjoy it and look forward to it. I'll have to test his theory on that one.
That's all for day. Thanks for reading (Mom? are you out there? Mom? Momma? Mommy?) ... sigh
