Hi all,
I'm trying to get a head start on losing some weight and planning for it instead of just jumping in like in the past (and failing and failing...) I lost 30 pounds 2 years ago on lowcarbing but since then stress has pushed me to gain back 20 of those. I'm also now a vegetarian who aspires someday to be a vegan, so that makes things a bit different.
I picked up the Beck Diet Solution (glad to see there's a support thread here for it!) and I'm trying to follow it since I need to do more at this point than just diet. I have major emotional eating issues and I believe that CBT is a good way to deal with them.
So anyway, anyone familiar with the book knows that part of the preparation is to prepare 2 healthy diets (one main one and one Plan B in case the first doesn't work). I've been trying to find two that I think I can work with and that are partly based on what has worked for me in the past. I know, for instance, that eating whole foods as much as possible does me good, as well as keeping both the fiber and the protein grams at a fairly high level. I also know that eating 6 mini meals a day instead of 3 big ones and allowing myself some small snacks at night really helps crave the binge eating (which is my biggest problem).
So I've come up with 2 menus that I think I could work with but both are very different so I'm looking for what you all think in terms of how healthy they are and how balanced they are.
One is a vegetarian version of the kind of lowcarb menu I did 2 years ago when I lost weight. Let me point out that I was never a zero-carb-all-the-bacon-and-butter-you-can-eat type of person
(not to mention that that's a misconception of the typical lowcarber anyway). I've come up with the following general menu:
Morning: Morning Burrito (1 egg scrambled in a bit of butter, 1 oz cheese and salsa inside a lowcarb tortilla)
Mid-Morning: 1 oz cheese + 1 egg and salsa or 2-egg salad or Deviled Eggs
or 1 veggie burger or 2 veggie hot dogs rolled in lettuce leaves and spread with mayo/ mustard/horseradish dip
Afternoon:some kind of combo of veggies, veggie "crumble" or tofu and cheese or crustless quiche and steamed veggies
Mid-Afternoon: Chocolate Protein Shake (soy milk, tofu, protein powder, cocoa powder, a bit of nut butter, and sweetener, ice and water)
Evening:Salad with cheese and/or egg
Night: ½ cup Fiber One and Crustless Cheesecake (cream cheese, sour cream, sweetener, flavorings)
The Fitday totals came out like this:
Cals: 1236
Fat: 74 55%
Sat: 34 25%
Poly: 6 5%
Mono: 13 10%
Carbs: 80 160 13%
Fiber: 40 0 0%
Protein: 93 374 31%
The other one is a vegan diet based on the PCMR (Physician's Committee for Responsible Medicine) website. It's a whole foods, low fat diet plan that works on the basis of servings (i.e., 5 servings grains, 3 servings fruit, etc). I tweaked it a bit to get to a reasonable calorie level (the original they recommend is 1700 calories which is too high for me). Here's the plan:
Morning:Fruit Smoothie (similar to the one outlined above, except that I use frozen fruit instead of the cocoa and nut butter, less sweetener, and add 1/4 cup orange juice)
Soy Latte
Mid-Morning:Bean Dip (like hummus or black bean dip, homemade), 1 cup raw veggies (celery, cucumber, baby carrots), 1 whole grain pita or 1 whole grain tortillas
Afternoon:1 vegan burger or 2 veggie dogs in whole grain pita bread or whole grain roll or 2/3 cup veggie crumble with spices stuffed in pita or on top of whole grain roll, 2 cups steamed veggies with spices
Mid-Afternoon:2 slices light bread with 100% fruit jam
Evening:Salad with corn or peas and tortilla/bread/crackers/roll or
Homemade Tomato or Pumpkin Soup with corn or peas and tortilla/bread/crackers/roll or Baked sweet potato with Salsa and small spinach salad with lowfat vegan dressing
Evening Snacks:¾ cup high fiber cereal, ¼ cup dried fruit, 100 calories of sweet treat (this is part of the plan and will probably be a few squares of dark chocolate)
The Fitday totals for this plan are as follows:
Cal: 1415
Fat: 27 19%
Sat: 6 4%
Poly: 6 4%
Mono: 3 2%
Carbs: 243 55%
Fiber: 64 0%
Protein: 88 27%
I'm just wanting some opinions on what you think about these plans. I haven't decided yet which one I'd like to start with and have the other be as a backup. I've been doing more of a lowcarb type of plan the past week or so but I've had a lot of stress and have fallen off more days than I've stayed on
.
Tam