I've been away from the boards for a while...lurking some but haven't posted in a while. I'm hanging in there. Gained a few pounds after traveling 3 weekends in a row and eating too many bad carbs, but now I've lost a couple of them, so I'm up a few from my ticker but nothing too bad.
While trying to get back on better track, I found myself struggling some with hunger and no easy way to get more protein. It's so easy to eat 'quick' carb snacks, but harder for protein that isn't also high in calories. I found a couple of products at Walmart I thought I'd share.
1) When you get to add dairy/yogurt, try the Oikos organic Greek yogurt. It has 90 calories and 10 grams of protein. The Yoplait Lite's only have 5 grams of protein for 100 calories. The Oikos is definitely more of a 'real' yogurt taste...more tangy and less sweet than Yoplait. But when I add some fresh fruit (actually thawed frozen fruit like blueberries to the blueberry yogurt, strawberries with the strawberry yogurt), it's good. On it's own it doesn't have enough fruit for my liking.
2) I found a protein powder that's not too bad.
This is also at Walmart in the pharmacy area. It's called Body Fortress Super Advanced Whey Protein. They have Strawberry, Chocolate Peanut Butter and maybe Vanilla...not sure about Vanilla. I haven't had much luck liking Vanilla protein powders, so I tried the Strawberry first. One scoop has 140 calories and 26 grams of protein. The HNS are roughly 70 calories and 15 grams of protein, so this isn't quite as good of a protein to calorie ratio as the HNS but it's close and it's a lot cheaper. I've made smoothies using the yogurt mentioned above, plus frozen fuit, one scoop of the powder, plus just enough milk so it blends in the blender and ice if you want it. I've done strawberry yogurt with frozen strawberries, milk and powder. I've also used the strawberry powder with blueberry yogurt and frozen blueberries. Both were very good. Next I'll try frozen cherries with the strawberry yogurt and powder. I also tried just mixing the strawberry powder with milk, and it makes decent strawberry milk. I've also used the Chocolate Peanut Butter powder to make smoothies using 60 calorie fat free chocolate pudding along with ice and milk. I've also just mixed the chocolate powder with milk and that's okay, too. I wish they had just plain chocolate instead of chocolate peanut butter, but it's okay. The peanut butter adds a different flavor...almost a coffee flavor.
So, just FYI in case you're looking for something new in terms of bumping up the protein without a lot of fat and calories. I've been using this for a few days and have found my hunger more under control, and I've lost a couple of pounds, too. I have not been to my center in a long time and haven't run these products by them, so please let me know if someone finds a problem with using them on maintenance.
I will say as encouragement to others to stick with it, and really make the effort to LEARN as you go through this. I've realized how thankful I am that I learned what and how much to eat and how to cook many new things, and I have that to go back to when I started to put on weight. I also have the ability to look for new alternatives (and read labels!) and to identify what is going wrong and how to fix it. I can tell when I'm not drinking enough water, not getting enough protein, eating too many carbs, eating too man calories overall, etc. These aren't things I would have noticed before! And I didn't really understand what I was learning until I've had to maintain on my own. So, if you're struggling with a plateau or just being committed to the plan, please be encouraged to stick with it and learn through the struggle. I'm so glad I didn't do a plan that provided pre-made food...I wouldn't have learned anything other than to better identify portion size.
Something else I learned about myself during this process...I started exercising during the weight loss stage and have kept that up, which is really crucial for me. It gives me a bit more freedom it eat more foods without gaining weight, and I need that to be successful long term. I'm not someone who can eat perfectly all the time...I know people like that, but I'm not one of them! And now I've been exercising long enough that I can feel it (negatively!) if I miss too many days. Never thought I'd say that!!
So, sending warm wishes to all of you for a great week! And, I'd love to hear tips/tricks other maintainers have found to help keep them on track!
Thoughts for Stabilization and Maintainers
