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). Did I mention the 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 cut 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 rice 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 on Fridays. 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 laptop bag 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/mashed 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 can still snack on tortilla chips at lunch (but not everyday), 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...