Make A Good Deal
By Lynn Difley
So you are one of the millions struggling mightily to keep the New Year’s Resolution you made to lose some weight. You are walking every day and trying to stick to your healthy eating plan. Most nutritionists recommend that dieters consume between 1200 and 1800 calories per day, based on our current weight, desired weight and activity level. This amounts to about 300-400 calories for each of the three meals. So let’s talk about the choices we have if we assume that each meal will add up to 300- 400 calories. You will, of course want to get the most bang for your buck, the goal is to be able to eat food that is nutritious and satisfying as well as meet the calorie standards. So let’s take a look at an option for breakfast.
You can have 1 whole-wheat bagel, 3 tablespoons fat free cream cheese, one orange and 10 pineapple chunks all for the cost of 300 calories. This meal provides a sustaining whole grain, vitamin and mineral packed fruits, a protein that will keep your appetite at bay all morning–in short, a meal that will keep you firing on 10 cylinders all morning long.
If, however, you stop off at Starbucks and opt for a Blueberry Muffin, you can only have ¾ of the muffin. The whole muffin will take you over the top at 400 calories, 20 grams of fat, and 54 grams of carbohydrates. I don’t think the muffin fragment will keep you satisfied all morning long, as the fruit, whole grain and cream cheese breakfast will do.
How about your lunch? You have 350 calories to spend for your midday meal. You want something that will keep you feeling energetic and yet not stuffed, and provide energy for the afternoon activities. If you’re a pizza fan, you can have a lean cuisine spinach and mushroom pizza, accompanied by a green salad with low cal dressing, for only 350 calories, or you can have 1/2 slice of Personal Pan Pizza Italian Sausage pizza. Yes that’s one half of a slice, not one half of a pizza. The whole slice will set you back 740 calories.
If you’re typical, you enjoy a hearty dinner, or at least more generous than the other meals. If you combine a lower calorie protein and lots of vegetables, your plate will be full of nutritious satisfying dinner. On the other hand, eating out can leave you feeling deprived.
Let’s say you pick a lean cuisine glazed turkey tenderloins meal. And add a cup of steamed green beans and a whole-wheat dinner roll. Your plate is full of tasty, satisfying foods. On the other hand, if you go to Marie Callendar and decide to have Chicken Pot Pie, you can only have 1/3 of the pie. The whole pie will cost you 1060 calories, 62 of them fat, and that’s almost the whole day’s allowance. I doubt you will leave the table feeling full and satisfied as you would with our lean cuisine choice.
It’s plain to see that you can either feast or famine when it comes to meals. Make better choices, such as eating home prepared foods, emphasizing vegetables, lean protein, and grains–and watch calorie content readings like a hawk. You can fill your plate with healthy food choices, feel satisfied and keep energy levels high, while keeping your New Year’s Resolution.
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First off, it seems you miscalculated on the low end, making the effort more difficult than it would be. To have an intake of 1200-1800 calories, the amount per meal for three meals would be 400-600 calories, not 300-400. But that’s somewhat beside the point.
Dieting is a change of habits, not just a short-term, lose-the-weight-and-go-back-to-normal-eating routine. It doesn’t need to be difficult, but you do need to pay more attention to WHAT you eat more than HOW MUCH you eat. I have to tell you that going to your neighborhood fast-food restaurant is really not going to help you. I also have to point out that most TV-dinners and other heat-and-eat meals aren’t necessarily the best for you either.
This doesn’t mean that they’re all bad, but if you actually pay attention to what’s in the meal before you buy it and avoid pre-processed foods (for example, the “enriched wheat” found in most breads) then you’re likely to get a meal that’s healthy and still easy to fix and tasty.
Ok, I know that a huge proportion of what you eat is processed in one way or another. After all, we’re an on-the-run society today and we need our meals to be as easy and quick to prepare as possible. The problem is that these processed foods, while very easy to heat-and-eat also are too easy for our bodies to digest and reprocess. So easy, in fact, that the energy once used in digesting these foods is not used and the excess energy ends up being stored as fats and sugars in our own bodies.
I’m not going to name the diet-change system I’m currently using; but I will tell you that in one month I have lost 12 pounds and my wife has lost over 17, without changing any other activity in our lives as yet. As soon as the winter eases and we’re better able to get more active outside the house, I expect to see that weight loss increase until we reach our goals.
The nice thing about this system is that it doesn’t stop when you reach your goals. If you’ve changed your habits, then you will be able to eat as much as you want without regaining that weight. Again, it’s not the “plan” that’s important but rather what you eat. If you eat right, you’ll be healthier and happier.