Yesterday was another good day in this fight for a smaller me, I came in at 1645 total calories total for the day, I drank 1 gallon of green tea and 3/4 of a gallon of straight H2O. For exercise I did 50 push ups and did some light weight lifting with some dumb bells and my shoulders are sore today for my efforts.
I think that part of the problem with losing weight and keeping it off is that it takes more effort than not doing it and when you are heavy a lot of times effort equals bad, less work equals good. Someone left a comment on my post yesterday where I posted a photo of some grilled trout with potatoes and green beans that said "If only people knew that you could eat delicious food like that and lose weight - I think everyone would do it!" I thought to myself about how it really is that easy, I then started thinking about why people don't and came up with effort, in the case of the trout dinner I caught the trout, cleaned it then I seasoned it and grilled it along with making red potatoes and green beans on the side and it did take some effort to achieve that meal. In all honesty that particular meal took me roughly 30 minutes to completely prepare and cook from start to finish and cost me roughly 530 calories, imagine that, grilled trout with baked red potatoes and green beans, 30 minutes time minus the catching and cleaning of the fish and getting a meal that you would pay top dollar for in a restaurant. the difference between that and a pre packaged calorie and sodium heavy meal is a little bit of effort in the kitchen.
which brings me to another point, cost of food like that. In all honesty that entire meal cost me roughly $4.50 plus what ever amount of spices and the olive oil cost me so lets say an extra $1.00 which is probably high, so $5.50 (including spices etc which I already had in the kitchen) and a morning out on a lake fishing with my son to get the trout, which I will also add can count as some exercise because of the walking around the lake and 4 hours fishing that we did so more than one good thing comes from this. I want to mention that for that $5.50 worth of food I fed myself, my wife, my two kids and Wifys step father, for $5.50? Yes for $5.50 and 4 Rainbow trout that I caught, figure about $7.00 to $8.00 per pound extra for the trout if you were to buy it at a market we cooked about 2 pounds worth. Lets compare that to ordering a pizza, I would guess that an average large pizza is in the $10.00 range delivered ie: no effort required besides dialing the phone and lets be honest, though a large pizza could probably feed 3-4 people until they are full it never goes quite that way. A quick google search came up with 290 calories per slice of a Pizza Hut 14 inch regular crust pepperoni pizza, so for less than 2 slices of pizza you could have the same calories as the trout dinner. It took less effort, but cost more (even if you break it down per person if buying the trout, the pizza cost more for a full meal of pizza) and it does not have that "bang for your buck" where nutrition that the trout does, now I picked pizza because it was an easy comparison but do it with anything that takes no effort and it usually works out that the more effort that goes into our meal planning the more we can get out of our food where nutrition, taste, calories and even cost is concerned.
A little bit of effort can go a long way where our food choices and preparation is concerned, grill instead of frying, bake instead of frying, yes it takes a little more work but the difference in taste is marginal and the nutritional benefits are huge. cooking your own meals and seasoning them yourself also means that you can eat it how you like it every time, why order something that some 16 year old pimple faced kid that is sweating all over himself prepared hastily in a kitchen that has probably not been properly cleaned in 4 months when you can make it yourself? Have you ever seen a 16 year olds bedroom? and you are cool with them preparing food that you plan on eating? I can honestly say that I enjoy being the one that chooses how and what I eat, I would not consider myself a chef by any means of the word but I can say that I get lots of compliments on my cooking, and more so now than when I was 534 pounds and frying everything (though I make a mean eggplant parm that is probably not too low in calories) but putting the effort into our food preparation really can make the difference in how nutritional and tasty it is, everything does NOT have to be deep fried and slathered in butter.
I do not feel deprived of good food and I have lost more than 190 pounds to date so I am in the mindset that if I can drop more than an entire person and still eat well and feel that I have eaten very satisfying food that anyone can do the same. I used the trout dinner as an example here but I have made just about all of my old recipes into new recipes by changing some of the ingredients or cooking methods and have a slew of recipes that I regularly make that are all low calorie highly nutritional meals from meatballs, hamburgers (Turkey burgers), grilled chicken, faux fried chicken, rice dishes, mashed fauxtatoes (cauliflower), a few different soups and the list goes on and on. I am working on an eggplant parm recipe but the old one is just too good so I have not tried too hard to change it yet. So you can see that with just a bit of effort we can eat all of the things that we enjoy and still lose weight, if I am not proof of that I don't know who is!
I am saving money, getting healthier and eating great home prepared meals all while dropping weight pretty consistently at the cost of a little bit of discipline and effort, still think you can't do it?
I think that part of the problem with losing weight and keeping it off is that it takes more effort than not doing it and when you are heavy a lot of times effort equals bad, less work equals good. Someone left a comment on my post yesterday where I posted a photo of some grilled trout with potatoes and green beans that said "If only people knew that you could eat delicious food like that and lose weight - I think everyone would do it!" I thought to myself about how it really is that easy, I then started thinking about why people don't and came up with effort, in the case of the trout dinner I caught the trout, cleaned it then I seasoned it and grilled it along with making red potatoes and green beans on the side and it did take some effort to achieve that meal. In all honesty that particular meal took me roughly 30 minutes to completely prepare and cook from start to finish and cost me roughly 530 calories, imagine that, grilled trout with baked red potatoes and green beans, 30 minutes time minus the catching and cleaning of the fish and getting a meal that you would pay top dollar for in a restaurant. the difference between that and a pre packaged calorie and sodium heavy meal is a little bit of effort in the kitchen.
which brings me to another point, cost of food like that. In all honesty that entire meal cost me roughly $4.50 plus what ever amount of spices and the olive oil cost me so lets say an extra $1.00 which is probably high, so $5.50 (including spices etc which I already had in the kitchen) and a morning out on a lake fishing with my son to get the trout, which I will also add can count as some exercise because of the walking around the lake and 4 hours fishing that we did so more than one good thing comes from this. I want to mention that for that $5.50 worth of food I fed myself, my wife, my two kids and Wifys step father, for $5.50? Yes for $5.50 and 4 Rainbow trout that I caught, figure about $7.00 to $8.00 per pound extra for the trout if you were to buy it at a market we cooked about 2 pounds worth. Lets compare that to ordering a pizza, I would guess that an average large pizza is in the $10.00 range delivered ie: no effort required besides dialing the phone and lets be honest, though a large pizza could probably feed 3-4 people until they are full it never goes quite that way. A quick google search came up with 290 calories per slice of a Pizza Hut 14 inch regular crust pepperoni pizza, so for less than 2 slices of pizza you could have the same calories as the trout dinner. It took less effort, but cost more (even if you break it down per person if buying the trout, the pizza cost more for a full meal of pizza) and it does not have that "bang for your buck" where nutrition that the trout does, now I picked pizza because it was an easy comparison but do it with anything that takes no effort and it usually works out that the more effort that goes into our meal planning the more we can get out of our food where nutrition, taste, calories and even cost is concerned.
A little bit of effort can go a long way where our food choices and preparation is concerned, grill instead of frying, bake instead of frying, yes it takes a little more work but the difference in taste is marginal and the nutritional benefits are huge. cooking your own meals and seasoning them yourself also means that you can eat it how you like it every time, why order something that some 16 year old pimple faced kid that is sweating all over himself prepared hastily in a kitchen that has probably not been properly cleaned in 4 months when you can make it yourself? Have you ever seen a 16 year olds bedroom? and you are cool with them preparing food that you plan on eating? I can honestly say that I enjoy being the one that chooses how and what I eat, I would not consider myself a chef by any means of the word but I can say that I get lots of compliments on my cooking, and more so now than when I was 534 pounds and frying everything (though I make a mean eggplant parm that is probably not too low in calories) but putting the effort into our food preparation really can make the difference in how nutritional and tasty it is, everything does NOT have to be deep fried and slathered in butter.
I do not feel deprived of good food and I have lost more than 190 pounds to date so I am in the mindset that if I can drop more than an entire person and still eat well and feel that I have eaten very satisfying food that anyone can do the same. I used the trout dinner as an example here but I have made just about all of my old recipes into new recipes by changing some of the ingredients or cooking methods and have a slew of recipes that I regularly make that are all low calorie highly nutritional meals from meatballs, hamburgers (Turkey burgers), grilled chicken, faux fried chicken, rice dishes, mashed fauxtatoes (cauliflower), a few different soups and the list goes on and on. I am working on an eggplant parm recipe but the old one is just too good so I have not tried too hard to change it yet. So you can see that with just a bit of effort we can eat all of the things that we enjoy and still lose weight, if I am not proof of that I don't know who is!
I am saving money, getting healthier and eating great home prepared meals all while dropping weight pretty consistently at the cost of a little bit of discipline and effort, still think you can't do it?
As Ever
Me
You are exactly right. People want to perpetuate the myth that eating healthy is expensive. It justifies being lazy.It does take more effort and the pay off is a better life.
ReplyDeletecheers
you are so right and yet it isnt what people wanna hear and, Ill bet, many still read your post and think:
ReplyDeleteBUTBUTBUT it is TOTALLY different for ME :)
I heard that all the time as a trainer.