My Daily Diet
So what have I done to cut 1050 calories per day out of my diet?
First, I started to eat breakfast which I haven't done in years. When I smoked breakfast was just coffee and a cigarette (well several actually) and that did just fine until a lunch at 12pm. Well since I gave up smoking I've been pretty hungry by the time lunch rolled around so I've been tempted to snack (ummm bagels) and have a large lunch especially if we went out. Well now I have a bowl of cereal in the morning before I go to work. It takes just a couple of minutes to eat, no cooking is required and the only major lifestyle change is I now have to go to the supermarket every so often to buy milk. I'm not a big sugar fiend so plain Corn Flakes, Rice Crispies or Cheerios is fine. I use whole fat milk because there really isn't a lot of calories difference from non-fat and I really hate non fat milk on cereal (it tastes like white colored water). So about 200 calories all together.
I drink lots of coffee, around 5 mugs a day. It is low in calories (as long as you don't load it up with half & half) and it is both a metabolism booster (i.e. stimulant) and appetite suppressant. Perfect diet food. Don't believe the BS about caffeine being bad for you. Note of caution, be careful with Starbucks and the like, a latte is not just coffee its mostly milk and that has a lot of calories. A tall non-fat latte has 120 calories which is way more than the 15 calories for a big cup of drip coffee with non dairy creamer.
Thank God for Subway! When it comes to a fast food joint where you can get good low calorie food for lunch they are great. I order a 6" on wheat of something on their 6grams of fat or less menu. Load it up with veggies, but no cheese or dressing, just black pepper. Between 250~350 calories. There is a Subway shop almost exactly a 1 mile round trip walk from my office, so I get a few minutes exercise and burn about 100 calories just walking to get lunch.
Around 3pm I have a piece of fruit, usually a banana or an apple. This gets me through the afternoon without feeling hungry. If I miss this snack then the pangs of hunger are really setting in by the time dinner rolls around at 6pm. Just 100 calories on average.
While I'm almost immune to caffeine at this point, since I gave up smoking I've found I really can't sleep well if I drank it in the evening. So I generally stop drinking coffee in the afternoon and start on water. I try to drank around 32oz.
After Subway, TOGOs Sandwiches is the other fast food joint that serves half decent low calorie food. For dinner I have either their Mediterranean Tuna Salad, the Farmers Market Salad or a half tuna sandwich and half salad. These options are about the only low calorie ones at TOGOs and they have plenty of bad stuff. My dinner is typically about 350 calories.
I have a final snack at 9pm, either a piece of fruit, a granola bar or a bowl of cereal. This means I don't go to bed hungry. Between 100~200 calories.
Once I settled into this routine I found that I'm eating around 1200 calories per day. I decided to make this my target rather than 1500 as long as its no hardship. That allows me to stay a little in front of my plan. I can exceed my 1200 calorie budget by 200~300 calories on a bad day and not feel too bad, because I know its is still inside the plan requirements. So far after 5 weeks this diet is working for me and it really hasn't been a huge hardship. In fact I'm a bit surprised at how easily I have resisted the bad stuff. Next article I'll talk about why I think that is the case.