Foodie in trouble

Rice, potatoes, pasta, and ice cream are all perfectly acceptable foods. Portion control and preparation make a difference. Here's what my husband and I are eating this week (each meal indicates what one person would be eating):

Monday: "junk food day" -- leftover pulled pork (2-3 oz), 1 tbsp BBQ sauce, 1.5 oz cheddar, and sliced jalapeno on 2 small flour tortillas (90 cals each). If we had wanted to make things more well-rounded, our favorite vegetables are spinach, broccoli, green beans, and bell peppers. We steam or saute for a side (if sauteing, use 1-2 tsp of olive oil in a nonstick pan).

Tuesday: 2 oz spaghetti, 5 oz shrimp, and half a bag of spinach sauteed with garlic, 1 tsp olive oil, and red pepper flakes. Tossed pasta with an extra 3/4 tbsp of olive oil

Wednesday: 4 oz tilapia and 1/2 avocado mashed with garlic and lime, served on 1 small flour tortilla; gazpacho made with tomatoes, celery, cucumber, lime, hot sauce, olive oil, and vegetable juice

Thursday: 4 oz venison meatballs, about 3/4 cup potatoes roasted with olive oil and rosemary, broccoli

Friday: 5 oz chicken breast cooked in 1 tbsp butter, with 3/4 cup couscous and a pile of string beans with lemon juice and sliced almonds

Saturday: wedding--he's eating steak, I'm eating salmon. Will probably leave half the starch on the plate so I can enjoy cake.

Sunday: mussels cooked in white wine, french fries (will probably have about 4-5 oz of fries instead of a restaurant serving, which can be more than twice that), salad.

Tips for veggies: roasting, sauteing with a smidge of oil, and making soups or chilis is typically more flavorful than salads
To make salad more flavorful, add peach, grapefruit, avocado, or an ounce of feta or blue cheese
Bulk up noodles/rice/couscous with veggies. A zucchini and a pint of tomatoes sliced into couscous still gives you starch in every bite, but you can spread a small serving much further.

For ice cream, I like the slow-churned, lower fat stuff, but the main thing is I always measure a serving into my cup and just eat that. The knowledge that I can do that every day if I want (and if I am willing to give up an afternoon snack to make it fit) helps me limit my serving.

I've gone to frozen lunches, the "Healthy Choice" ones are high in protein, low sodium. That helps me diminish my calories at one meal, so I can be more frivolous on another, say, family dinner. Adding in more exercise will increase how much food you can eat in a day and still lose weight. You can eat that steak and cheesy potato if you just jogged and lifted weights for an hour.

I go for high-protein breakfast (lots of scrambled eggs with a little bit of gravy for more flavor), high-protein snack (pineapple greek yogurt is my current favorite), and don't drink your calories. Meaning, drink water or unsweetened beverages (like iced tea). Protein keeps you feeling full; calories in sugary drinks don't usually do anything to satiate hunger (not for me, anyway).

Basically, if you don't want to change your eating habits, you are going to have to change something else... in this case, it comes down to getting a lot more exercise. If you don't want to do more exercise, then you are going to have to change your eating habits. If you don't want to do that, then you are going to have to be fat. I hope that doesn't sound mean, because I do not intend it to be. That is the internal dialogue I had when I had to cut out some foods, and add in a lot more exercise to keep the foods I want.

Thanks guys. Lots of great ideas.

Definitely going to start meal planning, which I think is the most important step... harder to give in and order pizza if you already had something planned that day.

So true!