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Taking Control

I've been contemplating how I want to go about dealing with my eating habits the last few days and I feel like I may have a solution.
Here's what I know about what doesn't work with regards to diets:

  1. I hate counting calories/points/carbs/whatever I have to count. It's time consuming and I end up just eating stuff that I know is terrible because I am rebelling against the system!
  2. I am a foodie. I like to try things, I like to eat a variety of things, I don't like sameness. This is why pre-packaged meals, restrictive diet plans that rule out food groups, and diets that make restaurants difficult never work for me.
  3. Meetings, counsellors, and diet buddies tend to cause me to rebel. The only buddy that's worked is Paul. Getting him to do things with me doesn't really work because he doesn't care to participate most of the time.


Now, here is what does work:

  1. Small meals through the day. Even if I just eat some of my big meal and save the rest for later it tends to help me lose and I don't binge.
  2. Focus on certain specific foods to try to make sure I eat regularly. When I was pregnant I had a list of 30 foods to try to make sure to eat for each trimester. If I have a list of things to make sure I have in my meals each week I'm much more likely to make sure I eat what I'm supposed to. 




So here's what I'm thinking I'm going to do.

  • Rule 1: I'm going to preplan the same breakfast, lunch, and two snacks for the week. I'll have two options for each. For example, some mornings I have time to cook steel cut oats (it takes about 25 minutes) and that works fine, but for the mornings I don't have time I can make quinoa flakes in the microwave in about 2 minutes. This way I'm making sure I eat foods I should be eating regularly.
  • Rule 2: If I eat out, I eat salad. Given restaurant salads can have just as many calories as a double cheeseburger, but at least I'm getting some nutrition from the lettuce and vegetables and I'll be more full. No desserts!
  • Rule 3: Once every two weeks I can eat anything I want when I go out. 
  • Rule 4: Dinners at home are fair game. I just need to add salad or a vegetable to whatever we're having. 
We'll see how this goes. I have some planning to do to make this work, but I think if I can do this it would be really good.

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