Hello! I am 32 years old and I have an almmost 4 year old and 16 mth old son. I have always been the girl who can eat anything, work out a little and never gain a pound. I am almost 5 ft 7 and always weighed around 128 lbs. I gained close to 40 lbs with both pregnancies but lost it quickly and was about 124 lbs while I nursed-a year for each boy.
Now I am eating the same, being active and taking walks with my kids, but not "working out" and it seems like I can't get below 131 lbs. I know that's not too heavy or anything, but I am realizing I need to actually pay attention to what I eat to stay in shape. Horrors! :)
Anyways, I need advice since I never paid too much attention to what I ate. I would eat a Fiber One bar and OJ for breakfast, have some crackers/cheese for snack, a microwave meal for lunch and a decent dinner. I also had pop and snacks (candy) during the day. I have cut put pop during the week but need your ideas on healthy breakfast, snack...I am a picky eater, way worse than my kids :(
Any hints, recipes, websites, etc to help me would be great. I am a teacher and go back to work in a week and I need to get back on track before I am busy and lose focus. Thanks!!!
I have dropped 20 lbs in the past 6 weeks by cutting out refined sugars and most processed foods.
One of my favorite filling snacks is an apple with peanut butter!! Rice cakes are also a good choice and you can top them with peanut butter or cream cheese. What about oatmeal? Pre packaging your snaks may help too so you don't eat more than ONE serving per sitting. I know that doesn't offer much, but hope it works for someone! Best of luck :)
ask your dr for a referral to a dietician & you'll be amazed at how much this helps!
One thing I noticed were the carbs in your diet. Breakfast: there are carbs in your bar & in the OJ. A better choice would be skim milk for the drink.
Your a.m. snack is more carbs...with some fat added in. Switch to a low-carb snack....or a spoonful of lowfat PB with some fruit or vegies...or some V8 juice.
Lunch is the microwave meal....which is okay, but not a total answer. Add some salad or fresh vegies, & you'll be better off. V8, diet soda, or skim milk to round it out.
Afternoon snack: go for low/no carb. Use vegies, small fruit, PB here too. By switching to "no sugar added", diet, or sugar-free products ....you will notice an immediate difference.
Another option might be to follow the diabetics diet. It's amazing how easy this is....& is quite helpful at breaking bad habits/developing new ones. Good luck......& Peace to you!
Try to incorporate more fruits and vegetable into your diet.
Maybe try a green smoothie for breakfast--one of my favs is Shaklee protein, organic baby spinach (which you cannot taste), and wild blueberries.
If you are like most teachers who have little time for lunch you could have th bar then if you really like it. Then have grilled chicken or fish for dinner with a couple more veggies.
I make up a pitcher full of flavored green tea to drink through out the day also.
One thing I like since I don't take time for breakfast is to spritz a coffee mug with Pam, mix an egg and whatever sounds good (spinach, olives, shredded cheese, peppers, bacon crumbles, etc.) with a fork, and microwave it. I flip it once and then put a whole wheat English muffin in the toaster, and have a perfect little egg hockey puck to put on it and eat in the car. I also have a yogurt every morning, or a bowl of vanilla yogurt with some frozen blueberries if I'm out of singles.
I drink a lot of milk (I like to pretend dairy covers all of my food groups--cows eat grass, milk has protein, etc.). I try to keep healthy snacks at work, but sometimes eat through a whole box of something before I realize it. I come and go liking Clif Bars, but they have a good amount of protein (helps if you're not a huge meat eater and work out a lot--I've been successfully running about 2 miles during my lunch hour almost every day and hate remembering to bring food). My husband often makes me a turkey sandwich on whole grain bread before he goes to bed and I like it with fresh spinach. I bring string cheese to work for snack, a piece of fruit, eat whole carrots during my drive to work. Basically, I'm a constant muncher so try to limit what's in reach for the day.
I also eat popcorn every night so try to time my dinner early enough that I'm slightly hungry and can justify the snack. (It is air popped, so much healthier than what's in the microwave.)
I have a 20 ounce water bottle and usually drink through it at least 3 times a day, sometimes up to 8 or 9 times. That helps me be less munchy I think, and definitely helps me feel better.
Cheerios are a great snack, too, if you throw some in a baggie and take them to work. Pretty healthy, boring, and easy. I like easy with my food.
That is all over the place, so I'm sorry. Good luck!!
Oh, and I'm 5'6 and have not weighed under 130 pounds since I was in 6th grade. I'm sure you are a super-hot mom!! :) It is also great that you want to show your kids healthy eating.
Look at ecopolitan.com for seriously hard core healthy eating and advice. It's not easy to eat healthy in our culture.
well instead of oj have ice tea-lots of calories in oj-eat an orange or 2 for vit.c-much healthier for you-instead of cheese n crackers-switch to fruit or fresh veggies-instead of a micro meal-loaded with sodium-make your own meals freeze n mico-drink lemon water-aquafina makes the best.start taking a good daily vitamin-i take one a day maximum-works great.oh an the fiber one bar-really is no different from a candy bar-try a tsp.of pnut butter on english muffin.good luck
Breakfast: so many choices. Whole grain cereal, oatmeal, a smoothie made with milk, fruit and yogurt is very filling and keeps me filled up until lunch..or craving less damaging snacks.
Snacks. You should really try snacks which combine a protein with a complex carb... like apple slices with peanut butter, yogurt and fruit parfait. It sounds like you like sweets though. I make great cupcakes with sugar free cake mix mixed with 12oz of diet soda. Beat for 2 mins and bake according to packet directions. I glaze them sometimes with a little powdered sugar and water but they are great with a dollop of fat free cream or cool whip...try it...sooo good.
You might try the "Eat This Not That" books..great for substitutions and "Hungry Girl" on the cooking channel has great swaps for higher calorie foods without loosing the flavor. It's an adventure but fun.
Eat clean! That statement won't make since till you read a book by Tosca Reno. She has several books out. My favorite is Your best body ever (or something to that effect. She also has one called Eating Clean. She makes since, her method's work, and her books are very easy to understand.
I don't think that it's as much about the food at this point as the muscle mass. Cardiovascular exercise is great for the heart. But weight lifting puts on muscle and combats what we are losing via the natural age progression. Each 5 pounds of muscle will burn 26 pounds per year worth of food we eat. Whether we eat that many calories or not will decide if we gain weight or stay the same. But we lose 5% of our muscle mass every year after age 30. So we have to increase 5% each year just to stay the same or eat less food every single year.
I've always hated exercise and weight lifting even more. But I do wish I had gotten myself in shape and weight lifted when I was much younger.
