Victory at Dr office today

HOW did you do it?

After starting and then getting away from MFP earlier this year, I really picked it up again in September. All the success from the early trial was gone, I was starting over from my previous high weight plus a few pounds. A few months of summer and eating way too much fast food was the problem.

The solution was to start using MFP again, not once in awhile, but EVERY DAY.
I learned I needed to modify the values it was tracking, originally it didn't track sodium for me but now it does. I'm trying to stay under 1800mg sodium per day but I rarely hit that goal. But more important, by watching and monitoring it I'm no longer doing 3500 - 4500 per day anymore.

I walk a mile at a brisk pace, usually about 4-5 times week. As I got comfortable with it I would occasionally do 2 miles. Sometimes with hand weights and sometimes with ankle weights. No other workouts...yet..but I have plans to px90.

Trading bad snacks for either no snacks or at least better snacks. Pretty much cut out Coke, Mountain Dew, etc. No more sweet tooth so I don't keep candy in the house. Maybe 5-10 m&m's for the occasional binge.

No more honey-roasted peanuts by the handful (and repeat) all night while watching something mindless on tv. Spend time on MFP instead!

Lots of home cooking, especially crockpot soups and stews. Take a regular recipe and start playing mad scientist with it...take out the salt and use salt substiture. Take out the canned ingredients and use fresh (especially beans and tomato). You'd be surprised how much crap you can leave out of a standard recipe and make it just as palatable with half the calories and 1/10 of the sodium.

My big challenge comes from working 6 days a week and not having regular meal times. I drive around all day going to customer's homes to write estimates on home improvement projects. Running late from a morning appointment means skipping lunch so I can get to my afternoon appointments on time. Or doing drive-thru dining which was my downfall before. I still do it once in awhile but I make better choices. No sides, no sugared beverage, and portion sizes are smaller. I don't mind hitting taco bell and doing their drive-thru diet. A basic Subway turkey on wheat (no cheese) is another.

Not having too much trouble staying at 1800 calories or less, sometimtes I only do 1300-1400. That's a big change for someone who was accustomed to 3000+.

In summary, its really quite simple. Watch what you eat. Track it to make sure. Do it everyday. Exercise if and when you can.