Let’s set a goal of 1500 calories per day. The question then becomes, how much food is 1500 calories? It adds up pretty fast so keeping your food intake below 1500 calories requires good choices.
Let’s look at what we might perceive as a typical day
• Breakfast – Bagel with cream cheese and orange juice
• Lunch – Turkey sandwich with chips, soda
• Snack – Bag of cookies from the vending machine
• Dinner – Boneless skinless chicken breast, rice, green beans with butter. 2 bread rolls with butter,
Arnold Palmer to drink
Looks healthy, now let’s break down the calories.
• Bagel – 350
• Cream cheese (spread thin, not heaped on) - 115
• Orange Juice (1 cup) – 110 (Breakfast = 575)
• 2 slices of bread – 150
• Turkey – 100
• Mayonaise - 90
• Soda – 150
• Chips – 150 (Lunch = 640)
• Cookies - 200
• Chicken Breast (Average size 5 oz piece)– 230
• Rice (1 cup)- 205
• Green Beans with butter – 140
• Bread with butter – 300
• Arnold Palmer - 100 (Dinner = 975)
These calories assume you’re controlling portion size, but how often do we pile on the cream cheese on a bagel or the butter on a slice of bread? Or go to Starbucks or microwave some popcorn. It all counts toward our daily calorie intake? The grand total of this day would be about 2400 calories. From the last post, if you are a female burning 2100 calories per day you will gain 1 pound of fat in 10 days eating these things every day. When we go out to eat and get a soda we can consume anywhere from 1000 calories to 5000 calories in one meal. When I went out to eat I would get a soda with several refills, appetizer, full meal and maybe dessert of I was hungry. It not hard to see where all the calories I ate went. Now I am constantly eating but I am eating small healthy snacks. I typically eat between 1700 and 2000 calories in a day and I enjoy what I eat. My typical day looks like this
Breakfast –
• Fiber one 80 cereal (I eat 1½ servings) 120
• ¾ cup 1% milk 75
• Blueberries (½ cup) 42
• 2 cups Trop50 Orange Juice 100
(It has Calcium and lots of potassium so I drink an extra cup)
The total is 337 calories. Cut the cereal to one serving, the milk to ½ cup and the OJ to one cup and you’re are at 222
Morning snack –
• Banana 105
• Mixed Nuts (35g) 205
If you are trying to stay below 1500, don’t eat the nuts, or eat very few. People say to only eat a handful. Only if you have very small hands. I can hold 400-500 calories worth in my hand easily.
Lunch –
• 3 oz turkey 75
• Oro wheat sandwich thin, 100
• Lettuce tomato 10
• light Mayo (2 tsp) 30
• Snack bag of carrots 46
Total for lunch is 261
Afternoon snack –
• Apple – 100
• Celery- 30
Total snacks = 440 or 235 (no nuts)
Dinner-
I would eat the same dinner above but cut the chicken down to 3 oz, a little more than ½ a breast. No butter on the green beans, no bread, and water to drink
Dinner = 391
Total calories =1491 or if you eat a smaller breakfast and don’t eat nuts, 1109. You have enough left over for one of those 100 calorie desserts. Or a bowl or fiber one 80 Chocolate cereal, it’s a pretty good dessert when you are hungry. These are things I like, you need to find things you like, but be smart. Moderation and variety are good guidelines when it comes to food.
Three other guidelines:
1. Think about what you are eating – do I need it? Is it just empty calories?
2. Think about how much you are eating – Is it more than I really need?
3. Plan ahead – If you are planning to have a big dinner or go out to eat, eat less earlier. There is a danger here. If you starve yourself before a big meal you will probably gorge yourself at dinner. Don’t starve yourself! Stick to small, healthy, low-cal snacks and drink water before your meal. You won’t feel like you need to eat as much. I always consider my whole day when making meal or snack choices. If I am going out to lunch or I know dinner will be heavier I will cut back on snacks. The key is to know what I am eating and how much I can eat and plan ahead to make it all work
The other thing you need to know is: You will be hungry. These are small portions and your stomach and body will need to adjust. After 30 days it becomes a habit. You still feel hungry, but you get used to it.
This last weekend we went to multiple parties (graduation season). I had planned ahead to enjoy the great dessert I knew would be available. The weird part was that I was looking forward to getting back to my routine of eating healthy. My weight did spike up but it’s already back to my lowest level since I started all this. The weight was mostly water due to all the salt I ate.
I lost all this weight (51 lbs as of this writing) because I started eating better and paying attention to how much I ate. Now I can have extra dessert or get something sweet on occasion and go right back to my routine. I enjoy the food I eat and feel really good. I can keep this up the rest of my life because I enjoy it.
Next time I want to talk about: “Why is Exercise so Important?”
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