Week 1

As I stated in the first post, I started counting calories last week.  Last Sunday, I not only decided to count calories, I also decided to give up Coca-Cola. I was an avid coke drinker, usually consuming 4-5 cans a day.  Now don't think you have to give up your favorite soft drink, just make sure you include it in your calorie intake amount for the day.

After some research on calorie intake and exercising, I came to the conclusion that I should not consume more than 1700 calories a day.  I never recorded what I ate before this diet but if I had to guess, I would say I consumed somewhere near 2500 calories a day.  This is even a low guess because on some days, I'm sure it was a lot higher than 2500 calories!

I went to the store and bought SmartOnes for my lunches. They have some really good choices and the ones I picked out are all under 400 calories.  I also bought apples and string cheese (snacks).

I will not lie, this first week was killer. I thought at times I was going to eat my arm; I was so hungry but I stuck to it- and I'm glad I did.  When I stepped on the scale last night, I had lost 6lbs!!

This may be a long post but here was a typical day for me:

8:15 am   SmartOne breakfast (usually about 260 calories)
10:00-10:30 am Apple or String cheese for snack (about 80 calories)
12:10pm  SmartOne lunch (290-350 calories)
2:00pm  string cheese snack (80 calories)
6:30 pm  Dinner

The times would vary of course depending on how busy I got in the office but I tried to at least stick to 3 meals a day and 2 snacks in between.  I don't think I ever really hit 1700 calories since deciding that was my limit.

My first concern when I decided to count calories was how would I determine how many calories was in my dinner since I was preparing it myself out of several ingredients.  It isn't that hard as long as you read the labels for each ingredient.  As long as you give yourself a little wiggle room on the calories, feel free to "guess" on how many you consumed...remember be honest with yourself about it though.  For example, the first night of my new diet, my husband cooked spaghetti and garlic toast.  I looked at the spaghetti package and decided how much I could have based on the serving size listed.  I then looked at the sauce itself and added that to my calories from the spaghetti.  I stayed within the serving size listed on the packages so it wasn't that hard to determine my calorie count. For the bread-well I just guessed. I would have normally eaten 2 or 3 pieces of the garlic bread but I only had one that night.

Remember it isn't just about calories but about portion control as well.  I've learned to not go back for seconds just because it's there.