From a young age, I made food choices that were not always good. As life got busier and I got older, my choices became worse and worse. Many small choices, day after day, led to gradual weight gain. Along with the bad food choices, I became less and less active. The two coupled together were a recipe for disaster.
When I reached my heaviest point of 350 lbs, I could no longer deny I had a weight problem. It was time to start looking at my food choices.
A typical breakfast back then looked like:
- 3 egg omelet with bacon, ham, and cheese
- 2 pcs of toast with butter
- Pop
As mentioned in last week’s post Lose weight – Get healthy – Feel Good – Live longer – …. What is your desire when it comes to health?, my plan was simple and short: a 4 point, one day plan.
This is my plan:
- Start the day with a quiet time and read something spiritual for myself.
- Educate myself and make a better food choice today than the previous day.
- Be more active today than I was yesterday.
- Surround myself with a healthy, like-minded community.
For today let’s look at the second item in the plan.
Educate myself and make better food choice today than the previous day.
Now with that in mind, let’s look at the breakfast above and see how we can put this part of the plan into action.
- Breakfast – originally 1,150 calories / 600 calories from fat (52% fat)
- 3 egg omelet with 2 strips of bacon, 2 oz of ham, and 1/2 cup shredded cheese
- 2 pcs of toast with 1 tbsb of butter
- Pop
The above breakfast is about 1,150 calories and roughly 50-55% of the calories are from fat. This is about half of the total calorie intake I should be eating in a day, all consumed in my first meal.
On my new plan let’s look at how this meal would look making some small changes.
- Breakfast – 680 calories / 342 calories from fat (50% fat)
- 2 egg omelet / 1 egg whites with 1 strip of bacon, 1/4 cup shredded cheese, and add broccoli
- 2 pcs of toast with 1 tbsb of butter
- Water
Ok, so some people would view this and think that is not healthy for you. Your fat content is still at 50%, and your calorie count is still a little high. Guess what? You’re right. However, we need to look at did we improve upon the initial meal? Did we follow the second step of the plan?
Educate myself and make a better food choice today than the previous day.
Yes
Remember, this was a one day plan. Just like the last line of directions on the shampoo bottles state, we need to “Repeat”. This is what I did the next day.
Let’s take a look at the improvements to this meal the next time we eat it.
- Breakfast – 500 calories / 160 calories from fat (32% fat)
- 1 egg omelet / 3 egg whites, 1/4 cup shredded cheese, mushrooms, and broccoli
- 1 pc of toast with 1/4 tbsb of butter
- Orange juice
Notice the meal portion above when looking at the amount of food, it remained about the same as the original meal. However, now this meal is starting to take shape toward a person who eats healthy. Hey that could be you!
In this example, we got to a much healthier meal by making small changes over the course of 2 times eating it. Make the changes at your pace. Each day keep making small adjustments. If you do, eventually you will be eating like a healthy person. And because you’re eating healthy, you will become more healthy. The more you become healthy, the more you will desire to maintain a healthy lifestyle.
Image credit: anticiclo / 123RF Stock Photo