Prior to changing my eating habits last year, I was not a person who snacked very often. I would eat larger meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and rarely ate snacks unless I was late eating a primary meal. This all changed when I started controlling my portions during my main meals. In the beginning, I felt like I was starving all the time. This lasted for approximately 2-3 months. I would bring snacks along with me to work but even then I still did not feel satisfied.
My number one problem that I realized was that I was choosing the wrong things as snacks. I was drawn to the low calorie packaged food because it was easy to log in my Lose It app and it had a long shelf life. I thought that eating 100 calorie packs during a snack time would be sufficient but I was very wrong. A lot of these products are just empty calories. Now I do not eat anything that is labeled 100 calories or any of the Weight Watchers or Special K (except the Red Berries cereal occasionally for breakfast) or South Beach diet products. If it has the word diet in it at all I stay away.
Finding snack foods that are healthy and high in fiber and/or protein is my main goal. My current snacks now consist of fruit (grapes, bananas, apples, strawberries), cheese, yogurt, peanut butter, applesauce, and other similar foods. I love vegetables but I do not care for raw vegetables unless they are in a salad but any raw vegetable would also be a good snack. I also try and buy organic or natural (no preservatives/dyes/artificial) snacks whenever possible. I try and stay away from high carb snacks during snack time since I am getting plenty of carbs during my main meals.
I started out taking 2 snacks with me to work but now I only take one. I would eat one snack in the morning and one in the afternoon. Now my body is used to the amount of calories I eat daily so I no longer feel like I'm starving all the time. Snacking definitely kept me on track during the hardest months last year.
Thursday, February 20, 2014
Saturday, February 8, 2014
Low Calorie Pizza Casserole Recipe
Here is one of our favorite low calorie recipes that I made many times last year. It is perfect for picky eaters (like my husband) and very filling.
Pizza Casserole
Ingredients:
1 lb 92% lean beef
15 oz spaghetti sauce
1 can of refrigerated pizza dough
1 1/2 cups part-skim mozzarella
Optional: Mushrooms
-Preheat oven to 425 degrees
-Grease a 9x13 casserole dish (I like glass)
-Cook beef in a skillet and drain excess fat
-Add spaghetti sauce to cooked beef
-Roll dough out into casserole dish pushing up the sides
-Pour meat mixture into dough
-Top with optional mushrooms
-Top with mozzarella cheese
-Bake in center of oven for 16 minutes
-Cut into 8ths
One eighth of the casserole is approximately 290 calories. If you decrease the leanness of the beef, you will increase your calories. This is a very hardy meal that is also kid friendly. I prefer the mushrooms while my husband does not so I only put them on half of the dish. This dish also reheats well for lunch the next day. I can make this meal for approximately $12-$14 depending on sale prices of beef.
I hope everyone has an awesome weekend!!
Pizza Casserole
Ingredients:
1 lb 92% lean beef
15 oz spaghetti sauce
1 can of refrigerated pizza dough
1 1/2 cups part-skim mozzarella
Optional: Mushrooms
-Preheat oven to 425 degrees
-Grease a 9x13 casserole dish (I like glass)
-Cook beef in a skillet and drain excess fat
-Add spaghetti sauce to cooked beef
-Roll dough out into casserole dish pushing up the sides
-Pour meat mixture into dough
-Top with optional mushrooms
-Top with mozzarella cheese
-Bake in center of oven for 16 minutes
-Cut into 8ths
One eighth of the casserole is approximately 290 calories. If you decrease the leanness of the beef, you will increase your calories. This is a very hardy meal that is also kid friendly. I prefer the mushrooms while my husband does not so I only put them on half of the dish. This dish also reheats well for lunch the next day. I can make this meal for approximately $12-$14 depending on sale prices of beef.
I hope everyone has an awesome weekend!!
Sunday, February 2, 2014
Lose it! app
The tool that has been most helpful in assisting in my weight loss is an app called Lose It! on my smart phone. With this app or on the www.loseit.com website, everything that I eat or drink is recorded. This is a very user friendly free app and is easy to set up on your phone. It is available on both android and iPhone.
When I created an account, I entered my height, age, current weight, and goal weight. Then told the app how quickly I wanted to lose weight. The options are 1/2 lb per week, 1 lb per week, 1 1/2 lbs per week, and 2 lbs per week. I chose 1 lb per week. Based on what I entered, the app calculated the number of calories I should consume in a day in order to lose one pound per week. As I lost weight, I entered my new weight into the app and the number of calories I should consume decreased gradually until I met my goal. The amount of calories that I began with was 1501 and when I met my goal it had reduced to 1396 per day. After I was finished losing weight, I went into maintain mode and my calories were increased to 1813 per day. I am still logging all calories that I consume until I am certain I can eat normally and not gain weight without the app. Here is what I have logged today so far.
Logging food into Lose It! is quite simple. If the food has a bar code on the package, just click scan bar code and the camera on your phone will activate and let you scan it and automatically add the food to your chosen meal. There is also a database where foods can be searched and selected from a list. In the food database most of the major restaurant chains are included and can be searched. I found that when we were eating out, it was beneficial look up the restaurant before going in to make sure that I knew the calories of the menu items. If the food you are eating is not in the database, then a custom food can be created and saved so that when you eat this food again, it is in the database.
The part of the app that was the most motivational for me was the community section. If you have friends who use the app, you can add them and follow their progress and they can follow yours. It keeps you accountable to multiple people every day. Others can see the amount of weight you have lost or gained (you can turn off your actual weight if you are not comfortable sharing and only the change will be visible) the last meal you ate, the number of calories you have consumed that day, and any exercise you have logged. Please feel free to friend me on Lose It! if you decide to join and I will try to assist in keeping you motivated! When Jordan and I joined we starting logging with another couple and it definitely made a difference in the food choices we made because we knew that they could see it.
Exercise can be logged to "earn" back calories for your day. Be careful not to over log your exercise or you will not see any weight loss. Before I enter any "earned" calories I should burn 2,149 calories in a day first. I track this with my Fitbit (which I will discuss in another post). The 2,149 calories are not only rigorous exercise, but calories burned during normal daily activities such as walking, sleeping, sitting, etc. The only days I usually log exercise are days in which I go out for a run.
If you decide to begin logging calories, don't forget your drinks! Sodas, milk, juice, and coffee additives all count too!
Disclaimer: I am not being paid by Lose It! to discuss this app.
When I created an account, I entered my height, age, current weight, and goal weight. Then told the app how quickly I wanted to lose weight. The options are 1/2 lb per week, 1 lb per week, 1 1/2 lbs per week, and 2 lbs per week. I chose 1 lb per week. Based on what I entered, the app calculated the number of calories I should consume in a day in order to lose one pound per week. As I lost weight, I entered my new weight into the app and the number of calories I should consume decreased gradually until I met my goal. The amount of calories that I began with was 1501 and when I met my goal it had reduced to 1396 per day. After I was finished losing weight, I went into maintain mode and my calories were increased to 1813 per day. I am still logging all calories that I consume until I am certain I can eat normally and not gain weight without the app. Here is what I have logged today so far.
Logging food into Lose It! is quite simple. If the food has a bar code on the package, just click scan bar code and the camera on your phone will activate and let you scan it and automatically add the food to your chosen meal. There is also a database where foods can be searched and selected from a list. In the food database most of the major restaurant chains are included and can be searched. I found that when we were eating out, it was beneficial look up the restaurant before going in to make sure that I knew the calories of the menu items. If the food you are eating is not in the database, then a custom food can be created and saved so that when you eat this food again, it is in the database.
The part of the app that was the most motivational for me was the community section. If you have friends who use the app, you can add them and follow their progress and they can follow yours. It keeps you accountable to multiple people every day. Others can see the amount of weight you have lost or gained (you can turn off your actual weight if you are not comfortable sharing and only the change will be visible) the last meal you ate, the number of calories you have consumed that day, and any exercise you have logged. Please feel free to friend me on Lose It! if you decide to join and I will try to assist in keeping you motivated! When Jordan and I joined we starting logging with another couple and it definitely made a difference in the food choices we made because we knew that they could see it.
Exercise can be logged to "earn" back calories for your day. Be careful not to over log your exercise or you will not see any weight loss. Before I enter any "earned" calories I should burn 2,149 calories in a day first. I track this with my Fitbit (which I will discuss in another post). The 2,149 calories are not only rigorous exercise, but calories burned during normal daily activities such as walking, sleeping, sitting, etc. The only days I usually log exercise are days in which I go out for a run.
If you decide to begin logging calories, don't forget your drinks! Sodas, milk, juice, and coffee additives all count too!
Disclaimer: I am not being paid by Lose It! to discuss this app.
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