My Journey With Weight Loss – Meal Planning

I have to say it was a beautiful morning to do my training, the sun was out and it was the perfect temperature. A year ago I never would thought I would wake up at the trailer and be excited that it was a running day. Every time I successfully complete my training I just feel I have done a major accomplishment. I hope that feeling lasts.

I confess when I am at the trailer I do eat things that are a bit outside of what I eat at home (yes I’ve had a few corn chips) but I try as best I can to keep things balanced. For example, yesterday I really wanted a grilled cheese sandwich, I hadn’t had one in months. So, an egg for breakfast and a salad with grilled chicken for dinner. I made sure to keep my carbs low for those 2 meals so that I could enjoy my sandwich without guilt and yes it was good.

Before I started on this journey my meals were pretty ad hoc. There was no thought of balance nor carb intake. And remember, more often than not those meals came from a restaurant. Today that has all changed and now restaurant meals are once a week and that is only because we are trying to help our local restaurants. If it wasn’t for this pandemic I probably would rarely have a restaurant meal.

Now I want to be clear, I do not count calories nor carbs. I do have a great digital kitchen scale but it is used for measuring food for recipes. The reason I stay away from ‘counting’ my food is I just believe if I make this lifestyle onerous I won’t be able to stick to it and trust me I want to stay this way for the rest of my life.

What I have found that works for me is planning what my meals for the day will look like. Now this is made somewhat simpler by the fact that my sister cooks most of our dinners and she plans them a week at a time. I think of my meals in terms of am I getting enough fruits and veggies, what types of carbs will I be having, what type of protein. I have become very cognizant of the food groups and the proportions that I will be having each day. It is easier in that I love fruit and veggies so I doubt I am deficient there (note asparagus was never one of my favourites but I attended so many events where it was the only veggie served that I came to like it). Much to my brother’s frustration we only eat red meat once a week trying to stick to leaner proteins. One area I’m trying to work on is adding more seafood into our meals but we are getting there.

The bottom line is I have just become far more cognizant of what I am eating. I do read labels on food packages but it is to check sodium, sugar and potassium levels so that I am making better choices. Planning ahead for what you will be eating can help ensure you have well balanced, healthy meals each day. That has sure worked for me and made this an easy path to stay on.