Weddingbee Blog

At the end of last year, I wrote about my nutrition overhaul - well, I’m back for the update! For the past 2 months, I’ve been eating (relatively) healthier and regularly seeing a nutritionist. And here are the results!

My results aren’t majorly dramatic - but that was my danger. I don’t have a lot of weight to lose, so I usually hide behind my soft and squishy figure. But thanks to healthier eating habits, portion control, and semi-sporadic working out, I’m 5 lbs lighter and much firmer. I see the most dramatic results in my arms - my usual “problem spot”. Yay!

Here’s what I did for the past 2 months:

1. Had a diet built around resistant starches

You can read more about resistant starches here. My friends laughed at my amazement over this new eating plan that had “real” food, but I was skeptical that sensible eating would do the trick. I’ll leave the whole science behind resistant starches to the professionals; however, I do know that they made me feel full for longer and didn’t have too many calories. Here are some resistant starches I ate a lot of:

1. Bananas (the less ripe the better)
2. Beans/Nuts (chick peas, almond butter, walnuts, sliced almonds, black beans)
3. Rye Bread
4. Brown Rice
5. Corn (flakes, tortillas, etc.)

I also had tons of shrimp, lean ground beef, turkey, chicken breast (purchased pre-cooked for maximum laziness!) and eggs.

2. Exercised portion control, and lots of it.

When I told my nutritionist about my typical eating choices, the biggest culprit was portion control. Despite my penchant for junk food and eating out, my diet was actually not so bad. The issue was portions - why have 1 brownie when I can have 6! This was difficult, but I to learned how to eat so that I was no longer hungry, but not stuffed-turkey full.

So what exactly do I eat? A typical day looks like this:

• Breakfast: 1 slice of rye bread with almond butter and a slightly ripened banana
• Lunch: Mixed greens with chick peas, carrots, walnuts, cranberries, Parmesan cheese and fat free balsamic vinaigrette
• Dinner: Shrimp stir fry with veggies and brown rice
• Snack: “Trail mix” of cornflakes, sliced almonds and dried cranberries

That’s not a huge amount of food, right? At least that’s what I thought. But the starches keep me surprisingly satiated. If I still feel hungry (let’s say if I have a good workout), I’ll have another snack, aiming to keep it under 150 calories. The key is listening to your body.

3. Learned that falling off the wagon is okay

I love In-N-Out burger. I’m jealous of all you West Coast people who drive by In-N-Out on a daily basis. So when I was in Vegas 2 weeks ago, what did I do? Made a little stop to my favorite burger joint, of course.

Not on my eating plan

In fact, the whole weekend was a food-stravaganza - buffets, champagne brunch, more buffets, Andy Capp Hot Fries, the list goes on. I previously would look at such a weekend as the beginning of the end - as in, why bother going back to healthy eating? But I realized that the weekend was just a weekend (albeit a weekend of awesome foodie goodness), and it *was* possible to return to healthier options and portion control. This mentality gets me through dinner with friends or last week, when I forgot to go grocery shopping and had to rely on pre-made foods. Just because I took a step off the wagon didn’t mean I was forever off it.

This plan may not be optimal for everyone, but it’s turned out great for me thus far. I love that it is built around common sense and “normal” food. My weight loss has slowed down a bit, but for me, I think it’s now a matter of working out more and toning up. But I’m really grateful for this jump start to a healthier, less squishy Hamster!

Are you changing any eating habits in preparation for the big day?