[kwinkle]

Well, based on the great tips I got here on 3fc, I have started a food diary. Yesterday was my first day, and I gotta say it really does give you pause before you eat something. You really DON'T want to write down that chocolate bar. I think if I can stick with this, it will help me eat healthier and drop the stubborn pounds. I am still shaky with calories, though. It gets too tough when cooking. For example, yesterday I made a veggie lasagna for dinner with fat free cottage cheese, 6 lasagna noodles, 2 zucchini, tomato sauce, one egg, and a bunch of spinach. It is too much work to figure out how much a slice of the lasagna had, but overall the rest of the day I ate very simple raw foods that went into the diary very easily.

Today for breakfast I had 1 cup greek yogurt and 1/4 granola. I have been full for 4 hours! In fact, I am uncomfortably full but the meal should have had only 200 calories. I figure this is much better than skipping breakfast altogether, like I used to, and then splurging on a big lunch.

[thesame7lbs]

Hi kwinkle,

So glad that brewhaha on the other board didn't scare you away. Sometimes people get feisty.

I use the sparkpeople recipe calculator to figure out recipes. It can't tell you how many calories are in a tablespoon of a recipe or a cup, but if you know how many servings you'll get, it can tell you that. I do a lot of cooking from Everyday Food magazine and that has the nutritional info in it.

Eating breakfast is definitely a good idea. Study after study shows that people who eat breakfast consume fewer calories over the course of a day compared with people who skip. Time and time again, my thinnest, fittest friends emphasize the importance of protein at breakfast (which you achieved with the yogurt). I know I LOVE cereal, but it always leaves me hungry well before lunch. Today I had an egg+egg white scramble on half a sandwich thin and that held me until lunch.

Some people have a rule that they have to record something in their food diary before they eat it. I bet that's a really good way to avoid going off-plan -- especially if you're using a program that shows the calories! I haven't done that yet, but part of my maintenance plan is to plan out my day's food in advance so I don't spend so much time thinking about what I'm going to eat next.

[SilverLife]

Kwinkle, congratulations on the food diary. I find it helps me tremendously.

Same7, thanks for the tip about writing down the food before it's eaten. It's always good to have another tool.

[EmmaD]

Hi, kwinkle! Welcome to the featherweights!

I second the idea of planning ahead with a journal. I use fitday, similar to sparkpeople, and I plot out what I will eat daily. It really helps to see the breakdown of fats, protein, carbs, fiber etc.

I'm not saying I always stick to my plan, but I keep trying... at least if I diverge from my plan, it is a conscious decision (a bad decision, maybe, but still a decision) rather than entering each day as a feeding free-for-all

Hope the planning/keeping a food journal help you drop the weight you put on recently. I can definitely relate to rapidly gaining weight and having it take forever to come off...