Sunday, January 6, 2013

Days left until my 1 year anniversary: 88

Last night I made enough chicken to last for a couple of days so you'll notice that chicken is the name of the game this week. I'm sick of turkey burger so for awhile I'll be sticking with chicken. Today I'm trying to decide if I want to spend the carbs in my carb allowance to include a glass of orange juice. A 15.2 oz bottle of Minute Maid Orange Juice, which is what we have available in the food machines at work and is currently calling my name has the following nutrition facts:

Minute Maid Orange Juice
Serving size: 8 fl. oz.
Servings per container: 2

Calories: 110
Total Fat: 0
Total Carbs: 24 g
Total Protein: 2 g

So in order to know if I can have this for a snack I need to know what else is going into my body today. Remember, everything that goes in this mouth has to be weighed and measured! It's a pain but necessary.

Breakfast: Dannon Light and Fit Greek Strawberry Yogurt
Calories: 80, Total Fat (g): 0, Total Carbs (g): 8, Protein (g): 12

Lunch: 4 oz. Chicken
Calories: 140, Total Fat (g): 2.5, Total Carbs (g): 0, Protein (g): 23
           1/2 tbs. of Country Crock Butter
Calories: 25, Total Fat (g): 2.5, Total Carbs (g): 0, Protein (g): 0
            1 tbs. of Lawry's Teriyaki with Pineapple Juice Marinade
Calories: 20, Total Fat (g): 0, Total Carbs (g): 5, Protein: 0

Dinner: Same as lunch only with 3 oz. of Chicken
Calories: 105, Total Fat (g): 1.9, Total Carbs (g): 0, Protein: 17.2

Daily Totals:
Calories: 415
Total Fat (g): 9
Total Carbs (g): 18
Protein (g): 52

So here are the totals for each meal today. In order to know what I can eat I absolutely must plan out each daily meal. Normally I do this the night before when I work mornings. From looking at these totals I can see that I'm doing ok but my protein isn't falling within the 60-75 g range that it's supposed to so I'm going to add:

Snack: Aria Chocolate Women's Protein Powder with 8 oz. of water
Calories: 80, Total Fat (g): 1, Total Carbs (g): 4, Protein (g): 14

Updated Daily Totals:
Calories: 495
Total Fat (g): 10
Total Carbs (g): 22
Protein (g): 66

So now my protein is where I want it to be and my carbs and fat are still low. But can I have that Orange Juice?

Minute Maid Orange Juice
Serving size: 8 fl. oz.
Servings per container: 2

Calories: 110
Total Fat: 0
Total Carbs: 24 g
Total Protein: 2 g

The answer is that I can have it if I can stop at 8 oz. but I honestly don't know if I could not drink the whole bottle if I had it sitting beside me at work all day so I'm going to choose to save my extra carb allowance for something else later in the day. After all, I could have 4 sugar free popsicles later today with the amount of carbs I'm still allowed to have today!

So, in my opinion, this is one of the hardest parts of losing weight. No one wants to actually sit down and measure out every single thing that goes into their bodies. Who wants to buy a food scale? To cut and weigh and then keep track of those numbers in a food journal! Preposterous! We're busy! We don't have time for that. Let alone be expected to ignore those late night cravings if we've met our allowance for the day!

All I can say is...it works. It's annoying and tedious and I hate doing it. But...it works. I wouldn't expect anyone to go by the severe numbers that I have to due to the surgery but if you want to try it then I would definitely say look up the numbers that go alone with that 1500 calorie or 1200 calorie diet and give it a try. Maybe you could track the amounts that you already eat daily and just lower that number by 25% or even 50% and see what happens.

Unfortunately, this whole obesity monster can't be overcome by one thing alone. It's takes the combination of both following a reasonable diet and exercise to successfully meet your goals. After work I'll also be doing my new aerobics video that came in the mail yesterday! Jeanette Jenkins Cardio Kickboxing, which is 86 minutes long, I've never used a work out video with this instructor before so  I'll tell you tomorrow how it goes!