How I Did It (The Meals)

So in this blog I will describe how I changed my diet to get this done.

Road Trip breaks... healthy snacks. 

Like I mentioned in the original blog (Why I Did It), a large part of my problem was carbs. Working and eating in a Latino neighborhood lends itself to eating lots of carbs... tortillas, beans, tortillas, rice, tortillas, and lots of salt and tortilla chips (which are made out of tortillas).

So my first step, reduce carbs. Not eliminate carbs, but cut them, and I cut them more and more as I went. My usual order for lunch was three tacos, so I started ordering three, but taking the third taco and emptying it into the other two tacos. Still meaty, still filling, and just 1/3 the carbs. I also then reduced eating the chips... somedays I would ask the waitress not to bring chips to the table. Yeah I got the side eye... but I already got street cred and she didn't judge me. Ha. Now I rarely get tacos, I usually get a food plate instead, and ask for it without beans and without tortillas. Thats way less carbs, and I usually ask for some extra lettuce and tomato instead.

So I still ate some carbs, I was grabbing a beer at South Bend Brew Werks during the week, and eating normal everywhere else.

After those results were coming in, I realized I could cut carbs more to keep it going. So I started cutting carbs in other meals. No toast with breakfast, open face sandwiches, no more Chicory muffins (yogurt instead) but yes an occasional donut with my kids. Eventually I cut out hash browns, and potatoes from most meals as well... I have slowly started to do like a half order of hash browns, or just not eat it all (which is super hard for me, I am the former president of the clean plate club).

Other small things I did... yogurt. I would have yogurt for breakfast and I started healthy snacking. The snacking is where I realized I was sabotaging myself. So now I try to keep cucumbers, bananas, cuties, apples and other things for me to snack on instead of grabbing chips or other junk. At work I keep a box of healthy granola bars (Cliff Bars and similar) in my drawer, and one in my car for days I have to skip a meal.

My final step was reducing sugar intake. Four years ago I ordered a coffee with 2 creams and 4 sugars. Yep... Latino coffee, light and sweet. Well now I order: no sugar, skim milk and the sugar free caramel flavoring. Based on Dunkin' labels... it saves me over 300 calories per cup. Also when I splurge and get a drink drink, I order a macchiato... it is half the calories of a latte (saves about 150-200 cals).

I did eliminate a few things from my diet.

NO FRENCH FRIES. I did that last time I lost weight and its still my mantra.
No more baked potatoes, I get broccoli or asparagus instead.
No toast or bagels, unless it is a Panera cinnamon one, I am only human people!

What I still eat... I have ice cream at night with my kids (but less) and I like rice no matter what healthier people say about it. I still snack on tortilla chips at lunch, but just a couple chips, not the whole basket!

I just think about my food more. Especially when out to eat, read the labels, and in my work I eat out a lot so it is important.

So thats it... 6 months, 40 pounds, you can do it to! Still 6 months until I turn 40...