What One Small Change Made the Biggest Difference?

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  • eihcir1
    eihcir1 Posts: 11 Member
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    Eating a big breakfast. Makibg it the biggest meal of the day.
  • fr3smyl
    fr3smyl Posts: 1,418 Member
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    BioQueen wrote: »
    The biggest thing for me was to stay on track. I can be an all-or-nothing type of person with my eating and exercise, so if I stop logging then it will be a while until I come back, and I would come back having gained weight. I tended to stop logging during stressful times or during big life changes. This time around the biggest change was that I log ALL days, even the bad ones (I wouldn't do this before). Even if I wasn't 100% accurate or forgot to log everything, I logged on every day. This way, I quickly see when there is a problem and I am able to fix it quickly with minimal, if any, damage to my progress. It also reminds me that just because I have a bad day (or couple of days), I won't ruin everything I've worked for.

    Oh yeah, definitely this ^
  • maryjo1104
    maryjo1104 Posts: 1 Member
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    Having fresh vegetables cleaned, cut and ready to use for my meals. Cooking vegetables I never tried and loving them.

    Trying very hard to bring my protein up. Have a lot of difficulty with incorporating protein
    Into my meals.Have started using beans, nuts and seeds to raise my macros but keeping amounts small. The thing I am happy about is that I do not feel hungry as I did before. The hunger pangs between meals made me grab carbs and never get off the roller coaster. I love being in control (been here just 3 weeks). Thanks for all the community help and suggestions I have found here.

  • SherryTeach
    SherryTeach Posts: 2,836 Member
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    Batch cooking and single-serve packaging of what I make.
  • SherryTeach
    SherryTeach Posts: 2,836 Member
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    DuckReconMajor wrote: »
    Chewing each bite 30 times, or until it's just not feasible to chew it any longer.
    Not letting my water cup sit empty.

    You count all your chews? How can you converse with people over meals? Or even really enjoy food? I'm genuinely curious about how that works.
  • fr3smyl
    fr3smyl Posts: 1,418 Member
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    SherryTeach wrote: »
    DuckReconMajor wrote: »
    Chewing each bite 30 times, or until it's just not feasible to chew it any longer.
    Not letting my water cup sit empty.

    You count all your chews? How can you converse with people over meals? Or even really enjoy food? I'm genuinely curious about how that works.

    My father used to make me do this growing up?
  • cairnsmom
    cairnsmom Posts: 93 Member
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    Logging every bite, every day...If I'm not willing to write it down, I don't eat it.
    Cut out diet soda; I don't want to waste calories on regular soda.
    Drink lots of water.
    But the biggest: "Cheating" is not a word I use in conjunction with food.

  • karenalyssa9
    karenalyssa9 Posts: 5 Member
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    Measuring my food portions has helped me tremendously! I never know how much I was eating until I started measuring it. It has made all the difference in the world in my wellness journey.
  • breezyfitness
    breezyfitness Posts: 49 Member
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    Counting calories has made the biggest difference for me. Without using myfitnesspal I gained weight, but now I am using it again, getting back on track and eating healthier. :smile:
  • bubaluboo
    bubaluboo Posts: 2,098 Member
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    Logging all my food...even when I know that it's not going to be pretty!
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,867 Member
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    using a food scale to portion my servings...just as an example, before I started using a food scale I was eyeballing my serving of almonds that I snack on most day...someone had told me a serving was a handful so I was throwing a handful of almonds in a baggie to take to work and that was usually my afternoon snack.

    When I actually weighed out what I thought was a serving (1 ounce) it was actually about 2 ounces...so I was logging my 160 calories but I was really eating 320. Thought I was doing everything right, but I wasn't...I was substantially underestimating my intake.
  • DuckReconMajor
    DuckReconMajor Posts: 434 Member
    edited June 2015
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    SherryTeach wrote: »
    DuckReconMajor wrote: »
    Chewing each bite 30 times, or until it's just not feasible to chew it any longer.
    Not letting my water cup sit empty.

    You count all your chews? How can you converse with people over meals? Or even really enjoy food? I'm genuinely curious about how that works.

    Yeah that is annoying. You get better at sort of multitasking it where you don't really need to concentrate on it much, and eventually the habit forms and you don't really have to think about it at all.

    If eating during a conversation you need to focus on you'll end up waiting to take a bite which in itself makes you end up eating less which can help. Or you just take a break from counting since the conversation is going to slow down your eating anyway.

    As for enjoying I found i enjoyed the food much more when i chewed longer because i took more time to savor it instead of just swallowing after several bites.
  • Jeff_is_Mr_Incredible
    Jeff_is_Mr_Incredible Posts: 82 Member
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    Measuring & weighing, reading labels for calories, logging what was eaten, setting early goals, telling myself I can do this, and having others who were trying to do it too. Even though some of those stalled, having support makes all the difference. Remember to return the favor.
  • kimberlyjoy159
    kimberlyjoy159 Posts: 23 Member
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    1. Focusing on the journey, not the goal. When I have stumbles, I do the next right thing and remember how far I have come on the journey of healthy living! 2. Being mindful of the difference between true physical hunger and a desire to use food to meet needs that would be better met a different way.
  • las07s
    las07s Posts: 150 Member
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    I started using my lunch hour to walk to the gym (13 min each way) and going on the elliptical or stair master. It really built up my leg strength. Now I use my lunch hour to jog at the gym :) I've not been jogging for long, but the small bit of back fat I had left is suddenly gone and I am dropping weight like crazy!
  • fr3smyl
    fr3smyl Posts: 1,418 Member
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    karenalyssa9 wrote: »
    Measuring my food portions has helped me tremendously! I never know how much I was eating until I started measuring it. It has made all the difference in the world in my wellness journey.

    It does!
  • fr3smyl
    fr3smyl Posts: 1,418 Member
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    las07s wrote: »
    I started using my lunch hour to walk to the gym (13 min each way) and going on the elliptical or stair master. It really built up my leg strength. Now I use my lunch hour to jog at the gym :) I've not been jogging for long, but the small bit of back fat I had left is suddenly gone and I am dropping weight like crazy!

    Right on!
  • fr3smyl
    fr3smyl Posts: 1,418 Member
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    e4057852 wrote: »
    Measuring & weighing, reading labels for calories, logging what was eaten, setting early goals, telling myself I can do this, and having others who were trying to do it too. Even though some of those stalled, having support makes all the difference. Remember to return the favor.

    :)
  • fr3smyl
    fr3smyl Posts: 1,418 Member
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    SherryTeach wrote: »
    Batch cooking and single-serve packaging of what I make.

    Yes! I have started doing this.
  • madpiratebippy
    madpiratebippy Posts: 20 Member
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    Meat salads. Salad + meat + dressing gives me enough food to feel full (mmm, veggies), low enough in carbs I don't have to worry about it (recovering from pancreatic organ failure, my response to carbs is crazy, not a low carb nazi in general, I have specific health issues around digesting carbs), and high enough in fat to keep me feeling full. I think I'm down a good 80 lbs from having a meat salad for lunch or dinner most nights. From a lovely hand crafted seared steak with beautiful farmers market veggies, to oil packed tuna dumped on a pre-mixed Marketside salad. It's been awesome.

    Also, they're about half the calories of what I was doing before, so there's that, as well.

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