What’s what then?

So I’m breaking things down today. This could be long and boring or super illuminating depending on how into specifics you are… I'd gloss over most of it if you aren't.

Here goes... I’m on about 1350 calories a day based on the amount of weight I need to lose and how strict I want to go. Any one of the food tracker apps or websites should be able to work out your limit for you. Be sure to remember that ultimately it all comes to calories because 3500 calories makes a pound of weight. So each time you cut that much out after what your body burns, you lose a pound. It’s that simple. That doesn’t mean you obsessively count each calorie unless you want to. Just be aware. Have some knowledge on which foods are calorie dense and which ones aren’t and when you’re going calorie dense make sure those ones load you up on other nutrients.

A quick point must also be made about the human body being super efficient. It learns quickly how to manage on what it’s being given. So be sure not to cut down too much too soon. If you’re a no holds barred eater, don’t cut down to 1200 immediately. You’ll lose some weight quick and then plateau out and have a real hard time after that.

Now… What does an average day look like for me?

7/730 Breakfast/Tea (250-300 calories)

1030   Snack (125 calories)

100     Lunch (400 calories)

1600   Snack (125 calories)

1900   Dinner (400 calories)

So a decent day goes like this:

Breakfast (310 calories)

1 Whole wheat English muffin with 2 tbsps peanut butter

Morning snack (160 calories)

Protein shake – ready to drink

Lunch (367 calories)

Vegetable and nut whole-wheat couscous with 2 pieces of Laughing Cow cheese

Afternoon snack (100 calories)

3 ounces of hot chocolate made with dark chocolate and milk and 5 almonds

Dinner (260 calories)

Broccoli and cheese soup with 4 pieces of seed crackers

Desert (150 calories)

Protein chocolate desert - blended cottage cheese and protein powder with 1tbsp of unsweetened cocoa chilled and served with 4 small strawberries

That day gave me

Proteins: 109g – this formed 31% of my day’s calories

Carbs: 133g (of which 25g was fiber – important because fiber isn’t digested so doesn’t really count. This is especially true in low carb plans like Atkins. If you read the labels of their products you’ll see they do have carbs, just a lot of fiber too.) This formed 38% of my day’s calories

Fats: 49g – and this formed 31% of my day’s calories (this looks odd, that’s because fat grams account for 9 calories as opposed to proteins and carbs which are 4 calories each).

This is probably a lot of mathematics. But don’t worry yourselves too much with the numbers, I’m just trying to illustrate to you why this is a set of good choices even though it doesn’t look like a deprivation diet.

Now here’s what a fairly virtuous, no grain day looks like:

Breakfast (253 calories)

Skinny B ‘cereal’ (chia and hemp seeds) with 10 small strawberries and half a cup of 2% milk. 1 small skinny cappuccino.

Morning snack (180 calories)

Protein bar

Lunch (421 calories)

Pressed cottage cheese in a curry sauce with sautéed spinach (this is not paneer cheese BTW, much lower in fat and higher in protein and has a much chewier texture. Best eaten uncooked like ricotta or cooked and cooled to room temp.)

3 tbsp. pistachios

¼ cup of grapes

Afternoon snack (120 calories)

¼ cup soy nuts

Dinner (334 calories)

Mushroom, roasted Broccoli and Cheese Gratin (made with 95% fat free cream cheese and silken tofu folded in)

That day was a bit higher on the fats and went like this:

Protein: 95g

Carbs: 98g (29 fiber)

Fat: 70g

And here’s what a bad day looks like!

Breakfast (450 calories)

1 Tim Horton’s Jalapeno Asiago Bagel, toasted with cream cheese (the least I could do was eat it in two lots as breakfast and a morning snack ;))

Lunch (444 calories)

Chickpeas masala (threw half a cup of baby spinach into shop bought curry) with ½ a Methi Parata (fried bread with watercress type leafy greens) and a side of sautéed mushrooms

Afternoon snack (194 calories)

Protein shake with 5 almonds

Dinner (260 calories)

Baby spinach salad with carrots, cucumber white beans and bocconcini and a light lemon balsamic dressing I made

That day set me back!

Protein: 75g

Carbs: 149g (25 fiber)

Fat: 53g

Now here’s some magic numbers to remember. Rumor has it that the big number of grams of protein is 120. That’s the weigh loss mantra. However, in my opinion that’s extremely hard to reach within a sensible calorific value, and without hitting the carb roof, for a vegetarian. Not unless you do 2 or more meals as replacements with protein shakes. And that, again in my opinion, is just not sustainable. So… the alternative? From most sources I’ve looked at, the advice is to get 0.4g of protein for pound of body weight. 0.6g on average if you’re active. So if you’re about 140lb, that’s about 70g (if you go in the middle) and to classify as higher protein, you’d add about 10-20%. So that’s about 85g for a 140 pound, reasonably active person. That’s the formula I’d shoot for.

That’s a lot to digest. Maybe even literally ;). So I’ll stop there and try to explain more specifics as things go along. I’ll also post recipes shortly.

Alrighty…. You know the drill…

Think happy, thin thoughts. Kiss kiss.