Hello everyone. Well I just jumped in this forum today. Haven't looked around too much. I have been successful with changing my eating patterns and exercising in the past and I feel I am doing very well. I hit a plateau in August and realized I needed to really watch my healthy portions and start counting cals with fitday. I did that and went from 238 August 28 down to 216 today. WHoohoo!!
So I know this cal counting and my walking is working. I do about 1600-1800 cals a day and I walk any where between 60 minutes to lately I have been upping my average to about 90 minutes a day.
This is my general menu:
Breakfast:
1 apple, 1 orange, half a grapefruit, 1 banana, sometimes I'll add strawberries or blueberries but I make this into a smoothie with Ice!
Lunch:
1 low carb slimfast, OR 2 oz of tuna(in water) w/ 1 tsp of light mayo, 1-2 slices of whole wheat bread. I only do tuna maybe 1-2 a week, you have to be careful w/ the mercury! Or I have 1 tbs of smuckers all natural peanut butter on the bread, lately I sometimes have low fat turkey or ham, maybe a slice of cheese.
snack: 1 yogurt or 1 serving of total(no milk) or honey bunches of oats(no milk) or if I had a sandwich at lunch I have a low carb slimfast
Dinner:
It varies. I try to do boneless skinless chicken breast(once in a while I will get the breast with te skin and have shake n bake) with 1 cup of rice (I have switched to brown more often than not)and brocolli and carrots 3 - 4 times a week. One nite, usually Sunday, I will have red meat like low fat roast or a steak with 1 cup of mashed potatos and a vegi and salad. The other nites I will have bean and cheese burritos(just recently picked up whole wheat tortillas and will try that soon) w/ spanish brown rice, go easy on the cheese, sometimes use mozarella(I just found a ff cheddar and mozarella shredded mix that I have used for my salads that I like, i am going to try it tonite on the burritos!). Or once a month we will have lasagna(in moderation) or 1-2 a month chicken enchiladas(in moderation) . I usually have to have tacos at least once a week or I freak! lol With chicken though. I use olive oil to fry the shells in, the last few times we just warm them up! Once a week I will go out to eat for lunch and I tell myself I can have whatever I want! Usually twice a month it is a nacho bell grande. Twice a month a burger and fries. I remember even last year that would mean a 1/4 cheeseburger with fries and onion rings and sugary soda and lots of ranch and thousand island! But I have since cut out sugary soda completely! It's just not worth it! If we go out to eat at a nice rest., I will have a salad w/ ranch, (which is like once a month) Plus a burger and fries. But I don't dip the fries in the ranch or thous. island no more and actaully seldom even get onion rings any more. Next time we go, I am going to see if hubby just wants to split the fries with me and our daughter who is 2. Last time when we went out to eat I gave her 1/4 of my burger and that shaves cals off right there!! Him and I and her had split one fry and 1 onion ring and even brought onion rings home for the other kids cause there were so many but next time I go I think the 3 of us will just share 1 fry.
Anyhow that is my general week. The bread is 100% whole wheat I drink water though I need to try to drink more, I have crystal light with dinner, once in a while I do have a diet soda.
But I have a small problem. I have done alot of research online to get to this point and have made alot of healthy changes. I have looked high and low for the perfect % match. You know, fats, carbs, protein.
What I had read somewhere is 30% fats, 50% carbs, and 20% protein. I had been roughly trying to follow that for a while. Some days the fat would be higher, some days lower but at the end of a week it usually averaged out to 30%
Both of my parents were diabetic and they are both dead now. Mom at 52 with cirrhosis of the liver and my dad at 65 from a heart attack while getting more of his foot chopped off. I hope I am not coming off sounding callous but this is a very grave situation. My biggest motivator in losing this weight is I don't want to wind up like that. That scares the heck out of me. I miss them both and never want my kids to feel abandoned the way I do. What I am also saying is that this isn't a cosmetic issue with me, I am concerned for my future health. I can't afford to be "wrong". I really wonder what the correct % are cause everywhere on line is different. I would not mind doing less carbs and more protein but then I hear you get too much protein and it could damage you organs too. Ugghhhhh. What to do? How much is too much? etc.
It just seems every time I turn around it is something new they throw at us! "You need to eat whole wheat bread, it can't say enriched, it has to be 100%, You need to eat brown rice, no potatos" etc. I used to eat potatos every nite so me cutting back to once a week is a victory. I don't mind switching to the whole wheat most of the time and the brown rice. But I did read something the other day that disturbed me:
Whole Wheat Bread
So here I am trucking along thinking I am doing great eating "whole wheat bread" and then I read this. So i switched to wheat from white and made sure it is whole grain or 100% whole wheat and it doesn't matter? I am really sick of all this. I feel like they don't want us to eat anything! They tell me that bananas are really high in sugar. Good lord!
I know the key thing is exercise which is why I have upped my 60 minutes to 90 minutes. But still. What is the deal? I know a low carb diet like atkins is not for me. I know some people at 3fc have been successful and I would not knock it and hurt theiur feelings but I really can't condone a "diet" that discourages fruits and veggies. I also thought that there were "good carbs" and "bad carbs" and I do feel the body needs them. When I was looking up the atkins stuff for a friend who said they did it, I ran across a little snippet about south beach. It said they encourage good carbs. I like that. It sounds like something similiar to what I am already doing. I am still searching for answers and would love a little advice here.
If someone has some great links to point me in the right direction? If I can try something similiar to the beach that might be nice. I am happy with my cal counting but wouldn't mind incorporating some stuff. Is it just a way of eating or what? What does everyone recommend for carbs %, fat % and protein %? I know not all fats are the same. I am just trying to do the right thing. WHy do you feel southbeach is the way to go?
Thanx for listening to me I know it was long. Any advice would be appreciated.