Weddingbee Blog

Shedding the Stretch Pants: Intro, The Before and Nutrition Counseling, Seven Weeks to On Track, Road Blocks and Results (So Far), Cost

You’re a bride. You’re on a budget. You want to tighten up.

We didn’t say lose weight… I might say tighten. Tighter. (Name that movie!)

So here’s how I keep myself in check—I use Loseit.com for calorie/fiber/protein counting (Lose It is available as an iPhone app as well, but I have an Android…I do hear that Lose It Android is coming to Beta soon!). Calorie counting is tedious to some. To me it’s a game, and it’s all about planning your day so that you can live your life, have that glass of wine (or 3), or just generally be accountable to your fitness plan.

I was out of town on Monday. Clearly. I will never give up McDonalds at the airport. NEVARRRRRRRR.

How I do it:

I enter my plan for my biggest meal at the beginning of the day. I KNOW it SHOULD be lunch but in my house it’s dinner—I eat with my husband and it’s the only time we’re able to connect (I assume this is true for everyone else in the entire world, so whatever). So, tonight I’m making minestrone from this recipe (note: it wasn’t that good, don’t make it). It makes 4 servings—I’m planning on eating 2 (because I am a piggie, and because that’s all we’re eating). Chances are I’ll eat less than 2 servings (LIES), but that’s my guess. So, I take 1/2 of that recipe and put it in to my loseit.com calculator:

TADA!

OK, so WTF? Minestrone soup is 561 calories??!?!?!? Granted, that’s 2 servings…OK, so it’s not that bad per serving. Ugh, pasta. Go eff yourself. I love you. But, for someone that has never counted calories before, you can see how this is eye opening—in the past, I’d just assume that making a broth based, vegetarian-ish soup would mean that I could eat like 10 servings if I wanted. Not so.

Note: I have this inner monologue running in my head every time I input calories into the tracker. It’s ridiculous.

I’ll still plan on eating 2 servings tonight, so I’ll just leave it like that. Sometimes I’ll input a recipe and be unhappy with the calories (I was SO FREAKING shocked at how many calories firm tofu has (4 oz=144 calories)). It just shows my under-education when it comes to food—so many meals, like tofu broccoli, I just assumed I could eat a truckload with no consequence. Wrong.

From there, I can plan out the rest of my day and stick to it.

Oatmeal breakfast, 1/2 leftover turkey burger w/ cheese for lunch (no bun), cheese, crackers, carrots snack. I’ll probably eat an apple somewhere in there too but forgot to add it.

I try to plan the day 200 calories under my calorie target so I can “cheat” (like, eat the apple I mentioned. Did I just say eating an apple is “cheating”? Freaking shoot me.). Plus, unless you’re actually weighing your food, chances are you’re eating more than you’re accounting for (like I don’t EXACTLY know that I’m going to eat 3 oz of turkey burger, but it’s my guess, and I probably guess under more often than over on weight).

Even if you’re not dieting, it’s super interesting to track your calories for a week. I was so surprised by how high some of my favorite “healthy” meals are, and conversely, how low some of the foods that I considered “cheat” foods are. I’ve gained a lot of guilt over some foods, lost the guilt over others…

Alright, this has gotten too long. But I ask you: do you have any online tools for weight loss/exercise you love to use? Have you used loseit.com but use something else because you like it better? Why? I’d love to know what everyone’s using out there!

All screen shots via Lose It online