How did I do on the first day of my new diet?

Sounds good to me. All good choices, low fat, low sugar, low carb. I am only 5’4 and try to stick to around 1,500 calories a day with low fat, sugar, and moderate carb intake and walking a few miles very other day. You are a very tall woman and 150–160ish is a good goal for you. I think you’re doing fine. Keep it up!

Thanks!

By my calculations I think I took in 1,500–1,700 calories today. According to most rough calorie calculators I’ve used, I can take in up to 2,500 cals and maintain my current weight. (seems like a lot but I’m guessing that’s how much I was eating before if I weighed this much and stayed that way)

I suppose if I keep it to around or less than 2,000 I should be able to lose a bit for beach season! ;)

Good. Can you keep that up for the rest of your life, or is this a temporary thing?

Hi @Dutchess_III

I’d like to make it a part of my general lifestyle to eat more whole foods and greatly reduce my gluten intake. I strongly suspect it’s partly responsible for some of the skin and digestive problems I’ve had for a while.

I’m glad to say that even though I had dinner at around 7pm it’s now 11pm and I’m still very satisfied. Previously I thought that I was naturally hungrier than average and needed to take in a lot of calories to feel good but I’m starting to see that the quality of what I eat makes a huge difference.

I’ve been in a love/hate with carbs/wheat as long as I can remember. I get hungry, eat something like bread or crackers (whole wheat but still…meh) with something like cheese or hummus and then repeat the cycle a couple of hours later.

Growing up in an Italian-American family, where pasta and bread are king, it became a staple of my diet from an early age. But now I realize that while those foods are satisfying at the time, they are also addictive and leave you wanting more very soon. The constant up-down of my blood sugar probably isn’t the greatest for my health/weight either.

So yeah, I guess you can say I’m trying to break a bad habit in a long term sense. That’s not to say I’ll never have a piece of bread or a baked good again but I’m going to look for wheat free alternatives when I can and try to make my ‘cheating’ times few and far between…

@LeavesNoTrace Protein is what sticks with you. I eat tons of Tuna fish, shrimp, chicken, some cheese, cottage cheese, yogurt, not much beef. A great snack/meal is chicken salad with lite mayo stuffed in celery stalks or shrimp salad, tuna salad on flat bread.
I also LOVE to bake a Salmon steak with fresh Asparagus….sooo good and extremely lowcal, lowfat.

You should add protein to your breakfast and you won’t feel as starved throughout the day. Maybe have a couple of scrambled eggs? Two scrambled eggs in the morning leaves me feeling full until noon.

Don’t forget, it’s Strawberry and Watermelon and Cantalope season. I could LIVE on Watermelon, and…get the Yoplait non-fat Strawberry Cheesecake yogurt 110 calories and slather it over fresh Strawberries…OMG! To die for! Also buy frozen Balckberries and mix with Vanilla low-non-fat yogurt. Bliss!

I would be starving! If you can stick with that regimen you should lose weight for sure.

Your diet seems to me well balanced with fruits, proteins and less carbohydrate. It will be great if you can add physical activity like swimming, aerobics, yoga or cardio vascular exercises any thing to keep yourself active will be great to make you feel more energetic.

It sounds like you’re not eating enough to me. You should never let yourself get to “starving.”
To maintain 155 you can eat a little more than 1500 calories a day before your exercise routine. Eat them! If you don’t, your metabolism will slow down because your body thinks it needs to conserve.

@Judi She said she figured she ate 1500 to 1700, and is going to keep it around 2000 a day.

@Judi I think I ate enough yesterday. I felt really good all day and ate when I was hungry. I’m just trying to cut the (empty) calorie dense and and wheat products from my diet and focus on complete nutrition and moderation.

But I think I may have already blown through a few too many calories today. I started with a banana early this morning then had a big cup of black coffee with some honey. A couple hours later I decided it was time for a snack and found a huge bag of raw unsalted walnuts in my desk. So I filled a standard size coffee mug ½–⅔ full with those and had a satisfying stack. The problem is I think my snack may have packed a whopping 400 calories. I’m hoping the fact that walnuts are full of good stuff compensates a bit for that decision. And at least I’m nut hungry now.

First rule…leave NO snacks in your desk! Don’t keep them in the house, either. If they aren’t there, you can’t eat them. If they’re there, and you catch sight of them, you might snag some just because you saw them.

Hey…mushrooms are an excellent source of protein and have almost virtually no calories.

“nut” hungry now! LOLL!

LOL Freudian slip! I totally forgot I even had those. But I guess if you have to eat 400 calories of something, you could do worse than plain raw walnuts. Amiright?

Well, sure but…that’s a lot of calories for no real reason.
You said you forgot that you even had them…you wouldn’t have “slipped up” to the tune of 400 calories if you HADN’T had them! Clean out your desk, Missy!

Yes ma’am. On a positive note, I still have about 1,000 calories left for the day and no sign of hunger in sight. :)

Cool. And you know what else? A lot of times “hunger” goes away if you ignore it for a while. When you’re really really hungry though, you know it! Then just eat slow. Someone who had lost a bunch of weight once said, “If I get up from the dinner table still feeling a bit hungry, then I know I’ve done well.” The body takes time to catch up to how much food it really just ingested.

Good luck!

Very true! I’ve heard a few times that it takes 20 minutes for the body to register satisfaction. I try to stop eating when I’m like 6–7/10 on the satisfaction scale and then wait a while to see how I feel.

You’ll be fine. If you keep it up long enough you won’t have to think about every little thing you put in your mouth. You’ll be counting calories without even realizing it. At that point you will have changed your eating habits and you’ll no longer be “on” a diet, which you’re bound to go “off” of sooner or later.

I lost 30 pounds 22 years ago, and never put it back on.

That’s awesome! I went from 210 (ov vey) to 165–170 about 3–4 years ago and have stayed the same ever since. I just wanna budge 10 more lbs from my 6ft tall frame to get me bikini ready. Maybe I’m overthinking this but it’s also more for general health reasons too. The weightloss will just be a welcome side effect :)

Right, there is a 20 minute delay between finishing a meal and the brain registering satiation.
This is why it’s easy to eat yourself into a food coma at Thanksgiving. haha
I think the psychological factors kick in and one goes overboard and then, 30 minutes later you’re on the floor unable to move. lolol

My evening routine is comical at times. Have a glass or two of wine or a couple of lite beers and then as soon as I eat I am falling asleep in about 30 minutes. lol

“Here’s what I ate today. How do you think I did?”

How long do you think you can continue eating like this?

What happens when you hit your goal of 155? Will you keep it off forever?

@Charles (I already asked that, and it was answered.)