Many of us here in the 100+ group get to eat a satisfying large amount of food each day and still lose weight. At my current weight I lose reasonably well at around 1700 calories per day. But I know there will come a time when I will have to shave that back to 1500 or perhaps even lower to get where I want to be.
So, often when I look at what I've eaten for the day, and where the calories came from, I think about what I can remove when the time comes for me to do so. So my questions for you are: are you thinking about what you will do when you have to drop calories? What will you remove? Or, will you try stepping up your exercise and leaving your calories alone? What will you cling to as long as you possibly can?
Here are a few of mine:
* Often I get a turkey sandwich for lunch at work. It comes with a bag of chips or pretzels. My usual turkey sandwich on multigrain bread, with some veggies, pickles, a little tabasco sauce, and the bag of pretzels is about 400 calories. Not an unreasonable lunch - but when the time comes to shave calories, I will ditch the pretzels (100 calories). Then eventually I'll lose one of the slices of bread.
* I eat a lot of fruit. A lot. Usually 4, sometimes 5 pieces of fruit a day. A banana, 1-2 oranges, 2-3 apples. When I have to shave calories, I'll probably drop a banana or one of the apples. Not that I got fat from eating too much fruit, but since I know my diet skews a little too high in carbs right now (see the item above), this is an easy place to shave 75-100 calories without sacrificing protein or other nutrients I want to have.
* A few of the dinners I prepare in regular rotation at home are larger in portion than is strictly necessary. For example, when I make myself fried rice, I allow a full cup of brown rice for a portion - when the protein, little bit of oil, and other ingredients are added in, it can be a 550 or even 600 calorie dinner. I have room for that in my calorie budget now, but when I don't, I can easily reduce the amount of rice I use in a portion.
* This is the one I'll cling to as long as I possibly can. I put whole milk in my coffee. Over the three mugs of coffee I drink most days, it comes out to about a cup of milk. That's 150 calories - not empty calories, but still an obvious place to shave some if I need to. Milk-fats have such nice chemistry with coffee - I really don't want to go to lower fat milk, but when I run out of other options I will grudgingly do it. Skim milk in coffee will not work for me - the chemistry just isn't there - but I have used 1% or 2% in coffee before, and I am sure I can get used to it again, if I have to.
Of course, some of these things are changes I can make now. But, as long as I am content with how things are going and in a reasonable routine, I'm not inclined to work even harder until I absolutely have to. So I'm keeping them in reserve, observations on room for improvement in my diet in the future.
What about you?