Tricks for staying consistent?
 

Hi all,

Last you heard from me I was having trouble keeping my calories down consistently. Using some of your suggestions and some of my own, I'm doing a sort of modified Body-For-Life eating plan with extra veggies and a 7th mini-meal. This keeps me under 2800 cal/day, which is my magic number for 1 lb/week weightloss. I've done it for three consecutive days now, which is great, but I'm worried that I'll slip off track again. Here are a couple of tricks I've found useful so far:

1) I'm trying to think one day (or one meal!) at a time and that's really helpful. It's a lot easier to say, "Oh I'll just get a sandwich and salad today" rather than "I can never get the burger, fries, and brownie again!"

2) Have lots of standard "mini-meals" which I can find easily or keep stocked up on - microwaveable chicken patties, frozen veggies, Subway chicken breast subs, protein bars, protein powder + skim milk, etc.


I was wondering, what are some other tricks you use to stay consistent?

I know you are trying to think one meal at a time, but for me if I didn't plan each day in advance I know I would go over my calories. I have a lot of things I consider each day. I want 1200/1300 calories, less than 30 grams of fat, about 50% of my food as carbs and at least 20g of fiber. If I didn't plan in advance I would never hit all of those goals consistently. I use fitday to plan my week out in advance. I try to plan out about 1000 calories and that leaves me room for 200/300 calories of snacks during the day. It also helps with grocery shopping too.

Besides mini meals ready to go, it also helps to have your snacks portioned. When I get home from grocery shopping I will go through the box of cereal, or bag of chips and weigh each portion and put it in small baggies back inside the box/bag. This also keeps me aware of exactly how many portions of something I am eating.

I am sort of "halfway" between your two strategies. I eat around 1500 calories a day, so I sort of "plan" to have my breakfast and lunch fall into the 350 calorie category each, my dinner in the 500 range, and a 300 calorie snack allowance on average. Obviously it is not an exact science, I may have a 300 calorie breakfast one day and a 400 calorie lunch, but the meals are planned out in a "range".

This way I can plan "meal by meal" but stay in my calorie range. I aim to eat a minimum of 20 grams of fiber a day, a certain amount of protein, and 100% RDA of calcium daily, and at least 5 servings of fruit and vegetables. I find that I can STILL reach all of those goals if I am making healthy choices. I choose to include fruit or a vegetable with both breakfast and lunch, as one of my snacks, and with dinner and I easily reach it without having to plan the entire day. Since I eat 5 produce servings, and I choose whole grain cereal/pasta/bread instead of white, I easily hit my fiber goals as well without having to plan the entire day in advance.