missy's totally awesome diet plan
After much evolution, I finally have a plan that works for me. I wanted to share what I'm doing, just in case anyone out there needs some ideas.
Materials:
-- A scale that measures to the tenth of a pound. I have a HealthOMeter Weight Loss scale, and it is the best I have ever had. It remembers your start weight and does all the calculating for you as you lose weight, even gives you little stars as you progress.
-- A gym membership at a local gym that isn't too popular. There's a Gold's right around the corner from my little gym. Everyone goes over there to pick up on each other. Those of us at my little gym are a little older and fatter. I love it. Those are my people!
-- A camera cell phone. I'll explain that one in a minute.
-- A cheap DVD player.
-- A Netflix subscription.
-- The CalorieKing desktop software and (opt.) monthly membership.
-- Smart Start cereal, milk, and fruit
Okay, here's the plan.
-- Set your cell phone's alarm function (I think they all have it) to get you out of bed at 4:30, go to the gym at 5:30, start doing your hour on the elliptical at 5:50, and go to work at 7:15. Obviously, I don't know what time, if any, you need to leave for work, so adjust accordingly. The point is to get started earlier than you normally would. This is one of the small sacifices necessary to lose weight.
-- I choose to use the elliptical trainer because my knees are shot from having carried too much weight for too long. This apparently is a problem with many, many folks. The elliptical trainer burns more calories in a shorter amount of time than anything else at our gym and with very low impact. It is by far the best machine there.
-- In order to keep getting out of bed, I personally need a payoff, and the payoff in the long term of getting skinny just isn't enough. I need a reward for working out right now! So my payoff is I get to watch Netflix while I'm working out. Get at least 2 CDs so that you always have something new to watch. If you can position yourself near a plug, you don't have to worry about the battery running out. I've been working my way through "The Sopranos" to start with. It takes hours and hours to get through it all, and the characters are so interesting, you will find yourself really getting hung up in the story.
-- Try to eat at least one or two meals of Smart Start cereal every day. It is the most healthy cereal I can find that still tastes good. Total and Special K are also good. You want a cereal that has some fiber and protein but doesn't taste awful. If it tastes awful, you won't want to keep eating it, believe me.
-- If you eat at a restaurant during the day or do some generally unplanned eating, use your camera phone to take a picture before you dig in. That way you won't forget later what you need to log and the approximate amounts. It only takes a second to snap that picture. If you're quick about it, nobody will even notice!
-- In the evenings when I don't have anything else to do, I actually work out a second time and reward myself with more DVD watching. This time it's just a slow walk (2.5 mph) on the treadmill. It's surprising however how much that slow walk will burn after awhile. This is time I would ordinarily be sitting on my rear end watching TV anyway.
-- If you enter all your food in the CalorieKing software, you can estimate with some accuracy about how much weight you have lost that day. Go to reports --> daily summary, where it will say, "On an average person, these figures would lead to a loss of..." Divide that number by 31 days, and you will get some fraction of a pound. If you keep track over time, you will notice that that calculation is not far off from what you're actually losing. I find that so motivating, to know that I lost some fraction of a pound from all my efforts on a given day!
Well, there it is in a nutshell. I hope this helps someone. It helps me just to write it down. Happy losing! :D