Diet?
I'm fat. I know this. I don't mean in the "oh God I'm so bloated and hideous" neurotic way, but simply in the practical one. At coming up 15 stone which has been steadily gaining for the last five or so years, I am quite simply rather drastically overweight.
A week or so ago, I decided it was time to finally do something about this. Yes, I suppose I'm on a diet. Mostly, however, what I am is not eating like a moron anymore. I have serious impulse control issues with food, so I find the easiest way to do this is to know exactly what I'm going to be eating all day, and just remove food as a factor from my life. Most diets seem to spend a lot of time trying to keep food interesting despite the fact you're on a diet, but I work the other way. I make food boring, a non-event, so I don't think about it so much. I like routine, and a meals one makes life a lot simpler.
So, I decided what I was going to eat each day. I just picked what semed reasonable and healthy, on personal judgement, without checking up any actual diets. It occured to me recently this is, perhaps, not massively sensible, so for comparison I decided just for one day to weigh the stuff I was eating, and work out about how much would be in this self-made diet. the results weren't bad, but they were just a little disappointing.
Breakfast
Cereal, 167kcal, 1g fat
Milk, 37.5kcal, 1.35g fat
Lunch and snacks
Ham cheese salad and pickle sandwich, 473kcal, 18.1g fat
Go ahead bar, 136kcal, 4g fat
Pot of yoghurt, 72kcal, 0.1g fat
Two apples, 130kcal, 0g fat
Dinner
Grilled spiced chicken, 250kcal, 6.6g fat
Rice, 175kcal, 0.5g fat
Mixed vegatables, 79kcal, 1.3g fat
Blob pasta sauce, 23kcal, 0.3g fat
Dessert
Medium banana, 109kcal, 0.6g fat
Natural yoghurt, 105kcal, 2.25g fat
Honey, 30kcal, 0g fat
Totals, 1787kcal, 36.1g fat
According to most sources on the internet (none really agree), recommended normal intake for a female my age seems to be about 1900kcal and 60g of fat. So... I'm just a little under the calorie count, and quite a bit under the fat one. So. Er. That should mean if I stick to this I'll start losing weight, slowly, right?
... right?
I think I'm going to stick with it anyway, even if having broken it down it isn't very drastic. It's still a big improvement on all the junk I was eating before, and it satisfies me. I don't eat any of it grumbling how flavourless it is or how hungry I feel. The sandwich is so, er... substatial on the weighing in, because it's a fairly darn substantial sandwich. Homemade tomato bread, ham, grated cheeze, branston pickle. Nomnom. It's the obvious place to shave calories/fat off the daily diet sheet from the looks of things, and though I might look about for lower fat cheese (the main culprit of the high fat and calorie content), on the whole I think it's worth it.
I'm very happy with the main meal. It's mighty tasty, given I bought a bunch of spice mixes to sprinkle on it before I grill it (cajun, chinese, fajita etc), and the big bowl and banana yoghurt and honey does feel properly desserty. It's a meal I really enjoy and can make really easily. Oh, and I recommend Go Ahead yoghurt breaks as anyone looking for a genuinely tasty cake/chocolate substitute. They're really very very nice :)
A week or so ago, I decided it was time to finally do something about this. Yes, I suppose I'm on a diet. Mostly, however, what I am is not eating like a moron anymore. I have serious impulse control issues with food, so I find the easiest way to do this is to know exactly what I'm going to be eating all day, and just remove food as a factor from my life. Most diets seem to spend a lot of time trying to keep food interesting despite the fact you're on a diet, but I work the other way. I make food boring, a non-event, so I don't think about it so much. I like routine, and a meals one makes life a lot simpler.
So, I decided what I was going to eat each day. I just picked what semed reasonable and healthy, on personal judgement, without checking up any actual diets. It occured to me recently this is, perhaps, not massively sensible, so for comparison I decided just for one day to weigh the stuff I was eating, and work out about how much would be in this self-made diet. the results weren't bad, but they were just a little disappointing.
Breakfast
Cereal, 167kcal, 1g fat
Milk, 37.5kcal, 1.35g fat
Lunch and snacks
Ham cheese salad and pickle sandwich, 473kcal, 18.1g fat
Go ahead bar, 136kcal, 4g fat
Pot of yoghurt, 72kcal, 0.1g fat
Two apples, 130kcal, 0g fat
Dinner
Grilled spiced chicken, 250kcal, 6.6g fat
Rice, 175kcal, 0.5g fat
Mixed vegatables, 79kcal, 1.3g fat
Blob pasta sauce, 23kcal, 0.3g fat
Dessert
Medium banana, 109kcal, 0.6g fat
Natural yoghurt, 105kcal, 2.25g fat
Honey, 30kcal, 0g fat
Totals, 1787kcal, 36.1g fat
According to most sources on the internet (none really agree), recommended normal intake for a female my age seems to be about 1900kcal and 60g of fat. So... I'm just a little under the calorie count, and quite a bit under the fat one. So. Er. That should mean if I stick to this I'll start losing weight, slowly, right?
... right?
I think I'm going to stick with it anyway, even if having broken it down it isn't very drastic. It's still a big improvement on all the junk I was eating before, and it satisfies me. I don't eat any of it grumbling how flavourless it is or how hungry I feel. The sandwich is so, er... substatial on the weighing in, because it's a fairly darn substantial sandwich. Homemade tomato bread, ham, grated cheeze, branston pickle. Nomnom. It's the obvious place to shave calories/fat off the daily diet sheet from the looks of things, and though I might look about for lower fat cheese (the main culprit of the high fat and calorie content), on the whole I think it's worth it.
I'm very happy with the main meal. It's mighty tasty, given I bought a bunch of spice mixes to sprinkle on it before I grill it (cajun, chinese, fajita etc), and the big bowl and banana yoghurt and honey does feel properly desserty. It's a meal I really enjoy and can make really easily. Oh, and I recommend Go Ahead yoghurt breaks as anyone looking for a genuinely tasty cake/chocolate substitute. They're really very very nice :)