eating healthy
Like so many other people this time of year, my efforts at losing some weight/getting in better shape have kicked off again.
I'm not using a specific diet plan, just trying to eat smarter and get off my duff more often. So my personal specifics are less junk food, more fruits/veggies and 10k steps per day.
My average day is about 4k steps. 2 30 min walks gets me the other 6k. So I'm trying to walk 30 min at lunch and 30 min with the dogs and thats easy and accomplished.
As for food - my biggest problem is with dining out. My cooking is pretty healthy, mostly lean meats, no sauces, a veggie and a carb. So its pretty solid, but boring for me (Joe loves it on the other hand) so I've been trying to come up with ways to expand the menu without also expanding the calories.
Green veggies are hard, I have a VERY short list of what I like, and mostly its salads and green beans. I'll tolerate a few others. A recent discussion on eschwa reminded me that a salad doesn't have to be the size of my head to count, and thats really helped me re-evaluate my meals.
Now I'm working on the perfect salad. I'm bringing a larger portion to work with me and eating a smaller one with dinner. I'm also bringing at least one fruit with me to work. Today for example I had a banana as my midmorning snack, the salad, and sliced strawberries. For dinner I'm making a roast, baked sweet potato and salad. So I'm getting up to 5 and they are actually different colors! I'm very proud of myself.
But really what this comes down to is the random things I'm adding to my salads to make them tasty and repeatable. At lunch I'm adding a protein (leftover chicked or diced turkey breast, something like that), crumbling a couple baked bagel chips (faux croutons), craisens, quinoa (cold) and dressing. I'm using a normal dressing, but portioning carefully - after all, I need some fat! I realize all this stuff adds calories, but I'm using it all in very limited amounts. Its enough to keep each bite interesting and tasty.
I also add cucumbers, hard boiled egg whites, carrots, etc if I have them handy.
Anyone have yummy stuff they add to salads to keep them tasty? I don't want to get bogged down and go back to eating out every day, so I need to keep it interesting.
And its 1pm and my pedo is at 6k already. YaY!
I'm not using a specific diet plan, just trying to eat smarter and get off my duff more often. So my personal specifics are less junk food, more fruits/veggies and 10k steps per day.
My average day is about 4k steps. 2 30 min walks gets me the other 6k. So I'm trying to walk 30 min at lunch and 30 min with the dogs and thats easy and accomplished.
As for food - my biggest problem is with dining out. My cooking is pretty healthy, mostly lean meats, no sauces, a veggie and a carb. So its pretty solid, but boring for me (Joe loves it on the other hand) so I've been trying to come up with ways to expand the menu without also expanding the calories.
Green veggies are hard, I have a VERY short list of what I like, and mostly its salads and green beans. I'll tolerate a few others. A recent discussion on eschwa reminded me that a salad doesn't have to be the size of my head to count, and thats really helped me re-evaluate my meals.
Now I'm working on the perfect salad. I'm bringing a larger portion to work with me and eating a smaller one with dinner. I'm also bringing at least one fruit with me to work. Today for example I had a banana as my midmorning snack, the salad, and sliced strawberries. For dinner I'm making a roast, baked sweet potato and salad. So I'm getting up to 5 and they are actually different colors! I'm very proud of myself.
But really what this comes down to is the random things I'm adding to my salads to make them tasty and repeatable. At lunch I'm adding a protein (leftover chicked or diced turkey breast, something like that), crumbling a couple baked bagel chips (faux croutons), craisens, quinoa (cold) and dressing. I'm using a normal dressing, but portioning carefully - after all, I need some fat! I realize all this stuff adds calories, but I'm using it all in very limited amounts. Its enough to keep each bite interesting and tasty.
I also add cucumbers, hard boiled egg whites, carrots, etc if I have them handy.
Anyone have yummy stuff they add to salads to keep them tasty? I don't want to get bogged down and go back to eating out every day, so I need to keep it interesting.
And its 1pm and my pedo is at 6k already. YaY!