Jul
20
10 steps to getting healthy and losing weight. #2, cut out those junk snacks
Filed Under Eating Healthy, Snacks
- 10 steps to getting healthy and losing weight
- 10 steps to getting healthy and losing weight. #1, walking.
- 10 steps to getting healthy and losing weight. #2, cut out those junk snacks
- 10 steps to getting healthy and losing weight. #3, cutting out the sodas.
- 10 steps to getting healthy and losing weight. #4, weight training.
- 10 steps to getting healthy and losing weight. #5, cardio.
- 10 steps to getting healthy and losing weight. #6, an active life.
- 10 steps to getting healthy and losing weight. #7, healthy breakfast.
- 10 steps to getting healthy and losing weight. #8, sleep.
- 10 steps to getting healthy and losing weight. #9, smaller and more frequent meals.
- 10 steps to getting healthy and losing weight. #10, eating less meat.
One of my readers asked for a list of 10 steps to good health. I provided it, but now I want to break each of these items down and give you more useful details. So here’s step 2, cutting out the junk snacks.
My first month after my realization that I needed to get back in shape went something like this:
- Walk 30 minutes
- Get on scale
- Be disappointed that my weight didn’t change
- Get frustrated
- Consider quitting the whole thing
Sound familiar? A lot of people go through it when they first start getting back in shape. We do one little thing and expect it to have an immediate and noticeable affect. I shared this feeling with a friend who was a physical trainer. She gently explained to me that walking is great, but I may also want to look at what I was eating as well. I had no clue what she was talking about. I mean, my diet was healthy. I knew it was healthy because there was no way it could be otherwise. I didn’t go to fast food places that often so how could my diet be bad? This is another problem for beginners, a sense of denial about our bad habits.
The sad truth
She very politely suggested that I keep a food journal for a week and see what I learn from it, which I did. The end of the week was an incredible eye opener for me. My meals were in fact ok. I did eat a bit too much at lunch but I made up for it by eating almost nothing at breakfast and dinner. Not exactly the healthiest pattern but if you added up the calories from meals alone, I was eating around 2500 calories a day. Not too bad although a little high for someone who didn’t exercise at all. The problem was snacks. More specifically, the problem was junk snacks. From candy bars and ice cream to microwaved pizza pockets and convenience store burritos, I was snacking on junk all through the day. When we added up the calorie totals from these snacks, they were an additional 2000 calories a day. All together, I was eating 4500 calories a day, and that’s not even include the sodas I was drinking.
Sounds unrealistic? Well, a single small container of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream can have 800 to 900 calories in it. Add a couple of candy bars, a small 7-11 burrito and a bag of chips and you’re easily at 2000 calories. That’s 2000 calories of crap. It has almost zero nutritional value and it wasn’t coming instead of my meals, it was coming in addition to my meals.
Cutting out the junk
So I knew I had to get rid of this bad habit, but I didn’t quite know how. I loved snacking and I loved the snacks, so how was I going to get rid of them? Well, my plan involved several parts, each of which was implemented gradually and slowly. By the way, this is where I adopted the philosophy of slow and gradual is better than fast and sudden. I figured that cutting out the snacks all at once would never work, I just didn’t have the willpower. If you do, then that’s great for you, but those of us who have struggled for years with overeating know how difficult it is to walk by a fridge and ignore its calling. So yes, slow and steady was the plan.
Basically, I started either cutting out the unhealthy snacks completely, or replacing them with a healthy snack in the form of a piece of fruit. By the way, fruit is not the only options here, there are a variety of healthy snacks you can eat that are under 100 calories, but I chose fruit because I enjoyed it the most. I needed something I really liked in order to not feel the craving for the unhealthy snacks. If you can do the same thing with vegetables, a small handful of nuts or some other small and healthy snack then by all means, enjoy.
You’ll note that I kept one unhealthy snack as a part of my diet. That usually means a candy bar of some kind. Yes, I realize they’re bad for me but I like them too much to give them up completely. So I adjust my diet accordingly and make sure I don’t overindulge. That’s another lesson I learned from all this, it’s ok to have some bad habits, as long as you are aware of them and adjust your behavior accordingly. Don’t ignore your bad habits, that won’t make them go away. Instead, you need to recognize them and find a way to work around them or compensate for them if you can’t eliminate them completely. By recognizing the fact that I enjoy an occasional piece of candy, I can use it as a reward to myself. I’ve taken a bad habit and turned it into something acceptable, if still not good.
Plan Details
- Starting Point - 5 unhealthy snacks a day. About 2000 calories a day.
- 1 to 3 months - 4 unhealthy snacks a day and 1 piece of fruit. About 1700 calories a day.
- 4 to 6 months - 3 unhealthy snacks a day and 1 piece of fruit. About 1300 calories a day.
- 7 to 9 months - 2 unhealthy snacks a day and 2 piece of fruit. About 1000 calories a day.
- 10 to 12 months - 1 unhealthy snack a day and 2 pieces of fruit. About 600 calories a day.
Summary
So a year after I started, I had cut out 1400 calories a day from my daily intake. Not too bad. The best part about this was my realization that slow and gradual changes meant I barely even noticed them. I stopped getting on the scale every morning and expecting to see some kind of magical weightloss has taken place overnight. Instead, I simply settled in for the long haul. I realized that this was something I was committing to for the rest of my life and if so, then I could live with smaller results as long as they kept on coming.
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[...] to getting healthy and losing weight10 steps to getting healthy and losing weight. #1, walking.10 steps to getting healthy and losing weight. #2, cut out those junk snacks This entry is part 1 of 3 in the series, 10 steps to getting fit and losing weight. I got an [...]
[...] not the only options here, there are a variety of healthy snacks you … article continues at Gal brought to you by diet.medtrials.info and [...]
[...] week I talked about cutting out junk snacks and replacing them with healthier snacks. So I thought this article from eDiets is very timely. It [...]
Check out bars for your “unhealthy” snack - whether meant specifically for diet/health and possibly more healthy as well as lower in calorie than regular candy bars or bars that are just getting in on the “bar” kick and have no health benefits like Hershey’s Sweet & Salty bars which are about half the calories of a candy bar while tasting just as good.
this is realy helpful because im only twelve and my love one realy is preshering me to the point to suicide