Details on 'my plan for the rest of the year'
So, I mentioned 'my plan for the rest of the year' in my previous post. I thought it would be good to actually put down my plan here. In case I lose the file I have it in, or the backup.... It is always good to have things stored in multiple places :)
I started counting kJ a month ago. I am really happy with the transition. It took me a little while to get the balence right between what I am eating and how much exercise I am doing but I have a better understanding of it now. (Although I think that I have overcompensated this week because of Easter Monday...)
I started out with a 8000kJ target (1900cal). That wasn't enough. So, over the next couple of weeks I increased that by having slightly more for breakfast, morning tea and lunch but not changing dinner. I was aiming for 8500kJ (2020cal). I made it work and it did work.
But I have lost more weight and I want to keep losing weight at about 1kg a week. I have spent some time working out how much I need to eat to keep losing weight at this rate, provided I keep the exercise up. So, from 115kg (253 lbs), which I hope to record officially on Monday, I will aim to eat 8200kJ a day (1950cal). Then, when I get to 110kg (242lbs) I will drop to 8000kJ (1900cal). Then there is another little adjustment at 100kg (220lbs). These little adjustments should keep keep my kJ intake at at the level to lose about 1kg a week - maybe a little bit more but not too much less. My hope is I will get to 100kg (220lbs) by mid October which is another 16kg (35lbs) in 22 weeks.
I know that life happens, hormones cycle back and forth, there are plans that get put on hold or changed without warning. I am not expecting that I will keep to this every day or that every week there will be a 1.0kg (2.2lb) loss. But I have managed to track my food for 16 weeks now and keep focussed. I believe that I can continue eating a healthy balanced diet and exercise most days in the week and that I will see the number on the scale going down.
So, once I worked out the numbers, and especially wanting to drop my food intake a little bit next week, I had to work out what to leave out from my weekday food. I usually have the same thing for breakfast, lunch and snacks 5 days a week. And the weekends are a mix of different foods and the normal foods. Working out how to tweak weekdays will give me confidence that it will be easy to go forward.
Dropping 200-300 kJ (about 50 cal) for next week is equivalent to not having 80g of grapes on my breakfast cereal. I was having 3 serves of fruit a day and I will just drop down to 2.5 serves of fruit to make this little adjustment. Then, when I drop another 200kJ (50 cal)down the track, that is equivalent to having 30g of cashew for morning tea instead of 40g. These individual changes are small and I can manage this.
Knowing how to adjust my food intake to get the results I want gives me confidence. Working all this out feels like I have made my own stepping stones to help me on the journey.
I started counting kJ a month ago. I am really happy with the transition. It took me a little while to get the balence right between what I am eating and how much exercise I am doing but I have a better understanding of it now. (Although I think that I have overcompensated this week because of Easter Monday...)
I started out with a 8000kJ target (1900cal). That wasn't enough. So, over the next couple of weeks I increased that by having slightly more for breakfast, morning tea and lunch but not changing dinner. I was aiming for 8500kJ (2020cal). I made it work and it did work.
But I have lost more weight and I want to keep losing weight at about 1kg a week. I have spent some time working out how much I need to eat to keep losing weight at this rate, provided I keep the exercise up. So, from 115kg (253 lbs), which I hope to record officially on Monday, I will aim to eat 8200kJ a day (1950cal). Then, when I get to 110kg (242lbs) I will drop to 8000kJ (1900cal). Then there is another little adjustment at 100kg (220lbs). These little adjustments should keep keep my kJ intake at at the level to lose about 1kg a week - maybe a little bit more but not too much less. My hope is I will get to 100kg (220lbs) by mid October which is another 16kg (35lbs) in 22 weeks.
I know that life happens, hormones cycle back and forth, there are plans that get put on hold or changed without warning. I am not expecting that I will keep to this every day or that every week there will be a 1.0kg (2.2lb) loss. But I have managed to track my food for 16 weeks now and keep focussed. I believe that I can continue eating a healthy balanced diet and exercise most days in the week and that I will see the number on the scale going down.
So, once I worked out the numbers, and especially wanting to drop my food intake a little bit next week, I had to work out what to leave out from my weekday food. I usually have the same thing for breakfast, lunch and snacks 5 days a week. And the weekends are a mix of different foods and the normal foods. Working out how to tweak weekdays will give me confidence that it will be easy to go forward.
Dropping 200-300 kJ (about 50 cal) for next week is equivalent to not having 80g of grapes on my breakfast cereal. I was having 3 serves of fruit a day and I will just drop down to 2.5 serves of fruit to make this little adjustment. Then, when I drop another 200kJ (50 cal)down the track, that is equivalent to having 30g of cashew for morning tea instead of 40g. These individual changes are small and I can manage this.
Knowing how to adjust my food intake to get the results I want gives me confidence. Working all this out feels like I have made my own stepping stones to help me on the journey.