Dietics 101

So yesterday I had my evening appointment with my dietitian, Samantha. She's great! We took an hour going over my trials and tribulations when it comes to eating. Bottom line: I eat too many calories (especially empty calories) and don't exercise enough. With the amount of calories I'm consuming now, I'd have to work out 5 hours a day to burn it off and clearly that's insane. The logic step is to eat significantly less calories. We talked about how I can eat the foods I like, but with a healthy twist. For example, instead of a bacon,egg, and cheese on a roll, this morning I had one egg, tomato and provolone cheese on whole wheat toast. It was very good. I can also still enjoy coffee, but instead of two splendas and two half and half's, I'll have one splenda and 1% milk; still tastes like great coffee to me!

Also she pointed out that it's good that I snack (I've always snacked on fruits), but I should snack more and eat smaller meals. I should never go into a meal starving and ravenous (her words not mine). For example instead of just eating a tangerine at lunch, i should have nuts with it.

I also learned that I should only eat 1400-1500 calories/day with exercise 3-4 times/week. This was very good for me to hear because yesterday I ate at Applebee's (one of the only places to eat in our area) and the calories with my lunch were 1450. If you're doing the math, that's how many calories I should have in one day and I ate them all at one meal! That will not be happening again. But she told me that I can still eat out occasionally, even at places like Applebee's, but off of their weight watchers menu. Not because it's weight watchers necessarily, but because it's the only part of the menu that is calorie conscious. Other restaurants do that and I just have to make sure that I'm actively looking at that when I go out to restaurants. And speaking of going out - I should be doing that a lot less. So I'm making it my mission to bring my lunch more and cook dinner at least 3 times/week. This will be gradual. We talked about the fact that this is hard work. I've been eating the same way for so long and I'm about to do an overhaul of my diet! Not go on a diet, but completely change it, which is much harder; a diet will end, but this will be forever.

The worst part of the whole thing was to learn that Chinese food (and if you know me it's my favorite) is basically the worst takeout food for you. I'll get over it, it's just going to take some time.

I will meet with Samantha again next Thursday after keeping a food journal for a week. We also talked about cleansing. I am going to do participate in cleansing, but not quite yet. She's afraid that with the way I've been eating, it would be such a shock to my system it would not be productive, so i"m going to wait until after the first of the year. We'll start slowly wit a vegetable cleanse and then move up to the more intense cleanses every few months.

Needless to say, writing this blog, I am excited about this food journey I'm delving into for the first time. Stay tuned for my midnight hunger craves! Hopefully not....