30 Day Healthy Meals Weight Loss Diet 2: Day 15

April 19, 2009 by Trevor Watkinson · No Comments »»

I thought that the official halfway point of this 30 Day Healthy Meals Weight Loss Diet would be an excellent time to really shake up my meal a bit and eat something a little out of the ordinary that would not sabotage my weight loss and weight maintenance efforts.

It is hard to eat basically the same thing day after day without eventually branching out and trying to include more variety in your meals. Nobody knows that better than my wife Lyann and I do because we ate nothing but lean meat and vegetables for over two years.

Lyann and I have been doing our best to come up with fun ideas for our meals so that we can feel like we are cheating a bit, but without having to worry that we are going to exceed our daily calorie intake limit. It does not really matter what you eat to lose weight, but it sure does matter what you eat in order to be successful at weight loss while still maintaining proper nutrition and optimal health.

That is why all of our healthy meals include fresh homemade vegetable soup and a lot of other vegetables and fruit. These are the foods that should make up the majority of the diet for anyone who is serious about achieving quick weight loss and long-term weight maintenance.

Up until a little while ago, we never ate much red meat, bread, rice, pasta or potatoes. We actually stayed away from having these foods in our regular diet for over 24 months in an effort to maintain our weight. I could not remember the last time I ate some of these items until we decided to relax our diet rules a little and allow these items back into the rotation recently.

We both wanted to have something tonight that would be fun to eat, taste great and not contain so many calories that we would feel guilty after dinner was over. This brought us around to discussing whether or not to have red meat for dinner tonight, which we did.

We managed to find some frozen burger patties with a surprisingly low calorie count that we could include in our meal with no regrets. We knew that we had some bread in the freezer still, so we were able to very quickly jump to the conclusion of having hamburgers.

Now, I could not have my burger fully loaded with all kinds of condiments, but it was nice to see that I could include a food like this in my diet while still sticking to my personal development goal of not exceeding 1000 calories of food on any given day. It was also fun to think about having a hamburger during this 30 Day Healthy Meals Weight Loss Diet. Hamburgers are a fun food for everyone and they are not necessarily bad for people who are trying to lose weight and keep it off.

It is all the other things we usually end up having with our hamburgers that make our weight get out of control. Making responsible choices about and taking personal responsibility for the other items you will include in your meal allows you to enjoy a hamburger or two while knowing that you are still doing the right things to maintain your weight.

Today’s Healthy Meal

I have to say that I really enjoyed getting my healthy meal ready tonight because it was so different from what I usually end up eating each day. I really got excited when Lyann mentioned the idea of making hamburgers out of our beef patties and white bread. There are many different ways that you can combine healthy foods to make up a 1000 calorie daily food intake. I made sure to make some responsible choices about what else to include in my meal tonight, as you can see in the picture of my healthy meal below:

With the exception of the condiments you can see in the picture above, the only calories I consumed other than those I got from my hamburger came from my Wagon Wheel dessert. I did take in calories from the Miracle Whip, salad dressing and cheese that you see here (mustard has no calories), but the majority of my calorie intake for the day came from my two burger patties, the bread and the Wagon Wheel.

In the picture of my healthy meal from this evening, we have 2 cups of Homemade Vegetable Soup with Knorr OXO Beef Bouillon, 2 slices of Valuplus Enriched White Bread, 2 Presidents Choice Angus Thick and Juicy Lean Beef Burgers, 2 tablespoons of Kraft Miracle Whip Dressing, Mustard, Tossed Salad, 3 tablespoons of Kraft Roasted Red Pepper with Parmesan Dressing, 30 grams of Kraft Cracker Barrel Old Style Cheddar Cheese, Tomato, Olives, Dill Pickles, Green Seedless Grapes, Red Seedless Grapes, Ruby Red Grapefruit and a Choco Cherry Wagon Wheel.

The calorie content associated with the meal in the picture above is as follows:

2 cups of Homemade Vegetable Soup – zero calories. This is a great food to fill up on. That is why we eat it with every meal.
2 pieces of Toasted Valuplus Enriched White Bread – 150 calories
2 Presidents Choice Angus Thick and Juicy Lean Beef Burgers (4.5 oz each) – 400 calories
2 tablespoons of Kraft Miracle Whip Dressing – 80 calories
3 tablespoons of Kraft Roasted Red Pepper with Parmesan Dressing – 60 calories
30 grams of Kraft Cracker Barrel Old Style Cheddar Cheese – 120 calories
Tomato, Olives, Dill Pickles, Green Seedless Grapes, Red Seedless Grapes and Ruby Red Grapefruit – zero calories
1 Choco Cherry Wagon Wheel – 160 calories

The total calorie content associated with my healthy meals from tonight is 970 calories. This again was my total calorie intake for the day because Lyann and I only eat once per day. Maybe we will change this practice some time in the future, but for now, we like sharing just the one big meal together. We prefer to be light on our feet during the day.

My favourite part of this meal was obviously the fact that I got to have a hamburger while still sticking to my weight loss plan and to my daily calorie intake limit. I want you to take notice of just how much of my meal is made up of fresh fruit and vegetables though. Practically the only things in my meal that did not fit into the fruit or vegetable category were my hamburger and my Wagon Wheel.

But since those two items made up over half of my allowable calorie limit for the day, I exercised my personal responsibility muscles by making good decisions about what side dishes to have along with my burger. Personal development in any area means making some hard choices and sticking with them. It was hard to not think about a big heap of french fries tonight, but that is the discipline my friend. You must learn to say no to your body. You must keep your mind in control of your actions.

New To Me Foods

There was only one food included in my healthy meal tonight that was new to me. Tonight was the first time during this second 30 Day Healthy Meals Weight Loss Diet of the year that Lyann and I decided to eat red meat. The last time we had any was on our Nachos and Chili Free Day which was over two weeks ago now. That should give you a good idea of how often to include red meat in your diet if you are really serious about weight loss and your own personal development plan. Once or twice per month for red meat meals is enough.

The new to me food that I had with my meal tonight was Presidents Choice Angus Thick and Juicy Lean Beef Burgers. I picked these up when Lyann and I went grocery shopping at our local Atlantic Superstore. There were lots of different kinds of beef patties to choose from, but these ones got my attention for one special reason. Here is a picture of these burgers, along with their nutritional information:

Presidents Choice Angus Thick and Juicy Lean Beef Burgers and Nutritional Information

The thing that struck me the most about these burger patties above all the other available kinds was that they were so low in calories. I have become used to seeing low calorie counts on the Blue Menu items at the Atlantic Superstore, but these burgers really made an impression.

Most of the other burger patties in the freezer section had calorie counts of at least 350 calories per patty. There is no way that I would try to include red meat of any kind in my diet if such a small serving was going to take up so much of my allowable calorie intake limit for the day. Times when I eat very little but still reach my calorie limit for the day are reserved for when I am conducting my 30 Day Substandard Weight Loss Diets.

Weight and Body Fat

Today was a banner day for me with both my weight and body fat percentage. My body has been doing somersaults ever since I finished my 30 Day Swanson Hungry Man TV Dinners Weight Loss Diet and began eating healthy meals again. I have been having a hard time getting back down below 150.0 lbs like I was last month despite only eating 1000 calories per day and eating very healthy food.

I took a step in the right direction when I got on the scale today. My Salter body fat percentage scale showed me weighing in at 151.0 lbs this morning with a body fat percentage reading of 20.4% to boot. This is the closest I have come to getting back under 150.0 lbs since this 30 Day Healthy Meals Weight Loss Diet began. Part of my own personal development plan for this year was a commitment to get below 150.0 lbs and maintain my weight between 145.0 lbs and 155.0 lbs forever after reaching my original goal.

I lost 14.0 lbs in January of this year to get under the 150.0 lb mark. I have maintained my weight between 146.6 lbs and 152.8 lbs since reaching my original weight loss goal. I do not intend to quit on my lifelong commitment to keeping my weight under control. I am hoping to see another smaller number when I get back on the scale tomorrow morning.

Summary

The two best parts of this day for me were the very early morning and the late afternoon. I got to see a really low weight reading on the scale when I got up this morning and I got to have a hamburger at supper time tonight. Life does not get too much more exciting for a Christian guy! I think I better sit down because all this excitement is making me dizzy.

Today’s healthy meal may have been the strangest variance so far from my usual fare during a 30 Day Healthy Meals Weight Loss Diet, but with good reason. Eating responsibly without excluding any food groups from my diet while also maintaining a set calorie intake limit each day are actions that reinforce what I preach about weight loss, personal responsibility and personal development all the time here on my weight loss blog.

If you are overweight, unhappy with your appearance and want things to change, then you have to change them. The easiest way to motivate yourself to change is by reading about, watching and hanging out with successful people who have been down the weight loss road you are thinking about travelling. I recommend getting some personal development and life coaching books as well as reading up on all of my healthy meals posts.

Taking these two actions may well set you on a course for permanent weight loss. You can do it. And you do not have to exercise. Here’s hoping you put all the information offered through my blog and my quick weight loss ebook to good use. When you are successful in weight loss by eating the SaveYourSweat.com way, feel free to send me your success story and maybe you’ll be featured on my blog sidebar along with Lyann and my friend Mike.

Technorati Tags: 30 Day Weight Loss Diet, Healthy Meals Weight Loss Diet, 1000 Calorie Limit, Healthy Meals, Weight Loss, Food, Personal Development

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 19th, 2009 at 10:44 pm and is filed under 30 Day Healthy Meals Weight Loss Diet 2, 30 Day Weight Loss Diets. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Leave a Reply

Donations

If you find that anything here has been tremendously helpful to you, I would appreciate a donation in any amount. Thanks for visiting and God bless you!

Amazon.ca Widgets

Achieving Permanent Weight Loss WITHOUT Exercise!