30 Day Healthy Meals Weight Loss Diet 2: Day 23

April 27, 2009 by Trevor Watkinson · No Comments »»

I am really glad that my personal development plan for 2009 required doing a lot of specific weight loss goal setting in advance of the start of the year or I might not have started or stuck to my 30 Day Healthy Meals Weight Loss Diets.

With no personal development plan in place and no specific goals set ahead of time, it is no wonder that most people have trouble sticking to a diet of healthy meals.

It is this lack of motivation and an overabundance of apathy that has allowed the fast food industry to take over North America.

The price of procrastination is high when we put off setting specific, quantifiable goals regarding our own diet and weight loss plans. Fast food restaurants have a lot of motivation to sell you their products and they go through goal setting sessions in order to increase their own productivity and effectiveness.

How can you expect to be well-armed against the fast food giants of the world when you walk out your front door with no clear plan for personal growth and personal responsibility when it comes to controlling your daily diet?

You are just like the guy who thinks it will help his personal development cause to climb into the polar bear cage at the local zoo. You are helpless to defend yourself against such a formidable enemy unless you have prepared for the battle, physical or mental, by writing down your goals for quick weight loss and weight maintenance.

Your first personal development plan does not have to be complicated. It may consist of only a single goal if you wish. The important part of getting started in the area of personal growth is to take consistent action in at least one area. Setting a specific weight loss goal can be as simple as learning how to calculate your body fat percentage before a certain calendar date passes.

The important part in setting any goal is to make it specific and measurable. Learning how to calculate your body fat percentage is a specific goal. You make a goal measurable by setting a calendar date by which you will have accomplished your objective.

Simply saying that you will learn to calculate your body fat percentage is not a good way of stating a personal development goal. It is far better to say “I will learn to calculate my body fat percentage by May 30, 2009.” There are plenty of great self-help books that can assist you in setting goals properly.

This is why when I formulated my own personal plan for growth prior to the beginning of 2009, I determined to make all of my goals for the year both specific and measurable. I specifically stated that I would conduct twelve different diets of thirty days duration each and that I would only take one day off in-between those diets to celebrate my free days where I got to eat whatever I wanted.

In order to ensure the effectiveness of my goal setting and my plan for my own personal growth, I also specifically stated the amount of calories I would be allowed to eat each day during my 30 Day Weight Loss Diets. I set myself up for quick weight loss success by committing to some measurable goals ahead of time.

Most people who never experience success in their weight loss efforts fail to plan ahead. They go from day to day with no clear direction or plan for what foods they will include in their diet. They have done no investigation ahead of time into specific calorie counts of different food items so that they could calculate accurate calorie totals for healthy meals they planned to consume.

Even I would have an arduous time living up to my own personal development plan for weight loss if I waited until each individual day arrived before deciding what to eat. My weight would soon get out of control if I had no specific calorie intake limit to follow and my motivation to stick to my plan for self-improvement would quickly wane as my weight increased. Neglecting to set goals is the number one cause of weight loss failure. As someone once said, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

Today’s Healthy Meal

I mentioned earlier that goal setting can be a really simple process. Setting a goal can be as easy as deciding that you will know what you are having for dinner tomorrow night by the time you go to bed tonight. This goal is specific and measurable. I am in the fortunate position of not having to know exactly what will be in each of my healthy meals ahead of when I actually prepare them.

Since my personal development plan for the year included setting an 800 – 1000 calorie daily intake limit, I only need to worry about how many calories are in what I decide to eat for the day. My motivation to get to dinner time drops off when I know exactly what I am going to have each day. I like to leave my meals to chance just a bit and have faith that God will direct me to the foods which will allow me to attain my 1000 calorie limit for the day. Here is the meal I ate tonight which helped me realize that very goal:

In the picture of this healthy meal I ate tonight, we have 2 cups of Homemade Mushroom and Onion Soup with Knorr OXO Beef Bouillon, 2 slices of Ben’s Raisin Bread, 2 tablespoons of Kraft Reduced Fat Smooth Peanut Butter, 2 tablespoons of Presidents Choice Twice The Fruit Blackcurrant and Pomegranate Jam, 2 High Liner Wild Pacific Salmon Fillets, 30 grams of Kraft Cracker Barrel Old Style Cheddar Cheese, Tossed Salad, Cucumber, Tomato, Olives, Dill Pickles, Red Seedless Grapes, Ruby Red Grapefruit, Clementines, 3 tablespoons of Kraft Roasted Red Pepper with Parmesan Dressing, one Compliments Value Ice Cream Sundae Cup and an Original Wagon Wheel.

The calorie content associated with this healthy meal is as follows:

2 cups of Homemade Mushroom and Onion Soup with Knorr OXO Beef Bouillon – zero calories. Lyann and I never count calories from our vegetable soup because we only use water for the broth.
2 slices of Ben’s Raisin Bread – 140 calories
2 tablespoons of Kraft Reduced Fat Smooth Peanut Butter – 160 calories
2 tablespoons of Presidents Choice Twice The Fruit Blackcurrant and Pomegranate Jam – 50 calories
2 High Liner Wild Pacific Salmon Fillets (with a bit of Shake ‘n Bake coating) – 220 calories
30 grams of Kraft Cracker Barrel Old Style Cheddar Cheese – 120 calories
Tossed Salad, Cucumber, Tomato, Olives, Dill Pickles, Red Seedless Grapes, Ruby Red Grapefruit and Clementines - zero calories. Never ever count calories from your fruits and vegetables (with the exception of bananas and potatoes).
3 tablespoons of Kraft Roasted Red Pepper with Parmesan Dressing – 60 calories
1 Compliments Value Ice Cream Sundae Cup – 120 calories
1 Original Wagon Wheel – 150 calories

The total calorie content associated with the healthy meal pictured above is 1020 calories, which was my entire calorie intake for the day. The only part of this healthy meal that was somewhat disgusting was eating the raisin bread with the peanut butter and jam on it.

Two tablespoons of peanut butter or jam may not sound like a lot, but it sure is when you try to apply that amount of topping to a small piece of bread. There was no way I could have made a sandwich out of my bread tonight because half of the condiments would have been in my lap.

The bonus I got with this healthy meal was that I had enough room within my personal goal of 1000 calories to have two desserts for the first time during this second 30 Day Healthy Meals Weight Loss Diet of the year. I figured I would take advantage of this while I could. It is a good thing I had room within my total allowable calorie intake limit to have these two desserts, because if I had not, I may have given a whole new meaning to the term “personal growth.”

New To Me Foods

Lyann and I decided a short time ago that it would be a good idea to expand our dietary choices given that we manage our weight mostly by calorie counting. We also manage our weight by eating healthy foods, but we never exceed our calorie limit for the day.

In the spirit of expanding our menu choices and keeping our interest in our own personal development objectives high, we picked up a loaf of Ben’s Raisin Bread last time we went to the Atlantic Superstore. Here is a picture of the bread we bought, along with its associated calorie count:

Ben's Raisin Bread and Nutritional Information

I have always loved raisin bread and I am very grateful that my own plan for personal growth can include such a product. I used to work with a guy back when I was dieting for bodybuilding competitions who would bring raisin bread to work every day.

All I could eat was lean meat and vegetables at the time. This guy would eat his toasted raisin bread and peanut butter every day and I would salivate the whole time. I consider this little addition to my meal tonight my revenge for having to put up with that guy’s indulgence for so long. This raisin bread was delicious, but I think I will use a little less peanut butter and jam next time.

Weight and Body Fat

There has been absolutely no change in my weight or body fat since yesterday. I weighed in at 151.6 lbs on my Salter body fat percentage scale this morning. My scale showed me a body fat percentage reading of 20.6%, which of course is not entirely accurate. One of my personal development goals for the near future is to obtain a better scale that will give me a more realistic reading for my body fat percentage.

For now, at least I can use this reading as an indicator of sorts. My body fat reading at the beginning of January this year 23.0% according to my current scale. So at least I can state with some degree of confidence that I have lowered my body fat percentage by 2.4% since the year started. It will probably never get any lower than 19.0% when read from my scale, but as long as my weight stays low I am okay with the body fat percentage reading being off a bit.

Summary

I suppose that I can count today as a success where my own personal development goals are concerned. My weight stayed even with what it was yesterday, so surely not gaining any weight can be counted as a victory in the weight loss arena. I also managed to get some personal errands out of the way including meeting with a new prospective employer.

I set a goal of becoming gainfully employed in the Halifax, Nova Scotia area within a month after moving here from Campbellton, New Brunswick. This goal had already been achieved if you want to count my most recent employment experience, but I knew that job was not going to be a good fit for me and would do nothing to help my personal growth agenda.

Everything looks good for me to be back working full time very soon. I was able to accomplish my goal of gaining full time employment within a month of arriving in Halifax because I set a specific, measurable goal to do so before Lyann and I made the move to this city. I was able to take the lessons I learned and the personal growth I experienced from my successful weight loss experience and use that knowledge and motivation to find employment quickly.

The lessons you learn from becoming personally responsible for your weight can be applied in any area of life. All that is required on your part is to set some specific, measurable goals and success can be yours. Decide on a goal, decide on your plan to get there and make your future what you want it to be.

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

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