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| // Image taken by me on an evening walk this week |
In November I read Rosemary Conley's Amazing Inch Loss Plan. It states that you can lose 14lbs in a month on this plan and gives real world accounts of men and women of varying ages with varying amounts to lose who have all lost between 10 and 14 lbs in 4 weeks.
Back in the UK Rosemary Conley had a number of slimming club franchises and each followed a calorie controlled diet and after weigh-in there was a 45 minutes aerobics class. Rosemary Conley's slimming empire went into receivership a few years ago, but the dieting principles remains.
The foundation of the diet is that you follow a calorie controlled diet and keep to under 5% fat with the exception of one high fat snack per day. You're also expected to undertake 30 minutes of activity per day like walking and the book has daily body weight exercises that you should do for muscle toning.
In the first 2 weeks you stick with 1200 calories per day broken down like this:
200 cals - Dairy allowance
200 cals - Breakfast
50 cals - Morning snack
300 cals - Lunch
50 cals - Afternoon snack
400 cals - Dinner
Then in the following 2 weeks you go up to 1400 calories which gives you the following in addition to the above:
100 cals - low fat snack (less that 5%)
100 cals - high fat snack or alcohol
After the 4 weeks there are sex/age charts in the back of the book with the corresponding calorie intakes for continuing to lose weight at 1lb per week and for maintaining weight.
I chose this plan because heart health is important to me and this fits with the heart foundation guidelines. It's calorie counting so it's easy to workout since most foods have those labels and especially easy using an app like MyFitnessPal. I use the meal plans as inspiration rather than following then exactly so that way I can still make our favourites and try out some new things too.
For the first 2 weeks I stuck with the 1200 calories and tried out some of the suggested meals, but I don't eat yoghurt or have much soya milk so on some days my calories would fall closer to 1000 but on other days my meals would be slightly more or I'd have extra fruit and that would bring me to 1200. One of the downsides of using MyFitnessPal is that calorie balance doesn't roll over to the next day so you need to keep a track of it yourself.
Over Christmas and New Year my calorie intake increased, exercise took a little break and my weight wobbled a little up and down but I wasn't depriving myself, and at no point did I feel like I was undoing my good work nor did I feel like giving up. It was a positive experience where I could eat and drink what I wanted, enjoy it and then pick up the diet again the next day.
Last week Kane wanted to try making one of those boxed cake mixes. The result was a beautiful strawberry cake with strawberry flavoured frosting - 400 calories per slice! We just make sure that we get good filling meals that fit with the calorie allowance and I save all my snack calories for a delicious slice of cake in the evening. So cake every evening AND I lost 5lbs!
Last night I had mushroom stroganoff with rice for dinner which came to 320 calories and I certainly felt full and satisfied with it. I would not have felt that way if I'd had the 400 calorie cake slice for dinner - I would certainly have been hungry again soon after. So whilst losing weight is definitely a numbers game, the type of food you spend your calories on influences how satisfied you feel and can either make you eat more or less.
I have a lot more weight to lose and this journey is going to take a while so I'm glad to know that I can have celebratory treats and indulgences without stalling progress.
What is your favourite treat food or drink? Do you have any hints or tips for weight loss?
That's awesome that you are seeing results from the changes you are making - and that you lost weight despite eating cake every day! I lost about 40 lbs back in 2009 by going on Weight Watchers. What I loved about that program was that you could have anything you wanted so long as you stayed within the points allowed. So it was all about trade-offs, which works better for me than a really restrictive diet. Also going on WW taught me that my portion sizes were WAY bigger than they should be. It was an adjustment at first to eat less food but ultimately my body adjusted and I started to lose weight.
My favorite treats are these salted caramel chocolates that Phil has at his house. It's best for him to keep him because I have less self-control than he does! Besides that I am a sucker for things that are salty, like potato chips or chips (and salsa).
I've never actively tried to lose a lot of weight, but using the fitbit app and the food tracker has helped me to see if I can see results buy just staying under a certain amount of calories and it worked like a charm. It also really motivated me to exercise more. My most important suggestion is: don't deprive yourself, but chose your food wisely. It needs to be nutritious and filling. As you said, a 400 calorie slice of cake might be ok calorie-wise, but if you still feel hungry afterwards, it's not the right choice.