Food Plan

I got this plan from my February 2005 issue of Fitness magazine. I was going through old magazines the other day and had dogeared this article so I decided to cut it out and try it.

J is on a trip for a few weeks so it should be easy to do this without having to worry about him starving to death.

Basically the strenuous calorie counting was getting on my nerves and I was never very sure that I was getting it right. This is a simpler plan that I hope to be adapt over time to my regular eating.

So here goes....

It is set up basically following the food pyramid but gives you more info and ideas on what qualifies and what serving sizes are. It comes out to be around 1400 calories a day (which is right on my BMR) and if I do my cardio like I am supposed to, I will be losing weight in no time.

Each day, you eat the following:

At least 3 servings of vegetables: a serving is 1/2 cup cooked or 1 cup raw. Stay light on the potatoes and peas as they are a bit more caloric than others. You can eat veggies almost anytime you want, if you are feeling really hungry.

At least 3 servings of fruit: a serving is 1 whole piece raw, 1/2 cup canned, 1/4 a cup dried, or 3/4 cup for berries or grapes. Raisins are two tablespoons.

4 servings of whole or enriched grains (but don't let the enriched grains go over 2 servings): a serving is one slice of bread, 1 small tortilla, 1/2 cup of cereal, 1/2 cup cooked pasta, or rice, or 2 cups of popped popcorn.

5 servings of protein: a serving is 1 ounce of lean meat, fish, beans, or nuts, 1 egg, 1/2 cup of beans, 1 tbsp peanut butter.

3 servings of lowfat/nonfat dairy: a serving is 1 cup of milk or yogurt, 1 ounce of cheese.

5 servings of healthy oils/spreads: a serving is 1 tsp of any vegetable oil, salad dressing, mayo, 1/5 avocado, or 10 olives.

6 servings of added sugar or sweets: a serving is 1 tsp of sugar or honey, up to 100 calories a day of other sweets.

So I write on my dry erase board, that I keep on the refridgerator, a little slash for each serving for each category for that day. As the day progresses, I erase a slash for each thing I eat, and should have no slashes left by the end of the day. For example, this morning I had cereal with milk, a banana, and two coffees with 1 tsp of sugar in each. So I marked off 2 sugar slashes, 1 dairy slash, 1 fruit slash and 1 grain slash.

With about 500 calories of burn in workouts each day, I should start losing weight in no time. This is much easier than all the calorie counting and such I had to do before and hopefully, I will not get discouraged. I still will check the calories on things as I am logging my slashes because I want to make sure on some things that will be harder to measure (like when I made full dishes) but this just gives me another option to work with.