I have been holding at or around my goal weight for quite a while now (Since December 12, 2020 actually). My goal was to be somewhere around 245 walking around weight. If I dipped below, cool. If I went up, that was OK, but I would make sure that was not the trend. Ideally, being around 240-245 has felt pretty good for me. I feel great in my clothes and I am moving much better in the gym.
While I am doing well with the WW program and like the concept, there are some changes that I think will help. Typically, I have a snack in the morning and then another in the afternoon. The snack in the afternoon has morphed into a smoothie under the premise of getting more protein in. The catch here is that I toss in peanut butter and do not measure it. This is a small thing in the big picture, but if I don’t keep an eye on stuff like this it could easily manifest into something else. For example, I am famished when I get home from the gym. My stomach is growling and I want to eat food while I am making food. That is not good at all.
I am going to do the protein shake right when I get home. Instead of the normal smoothie, this is just a shake, with 1 cup of unsweetened vanilla almond milk, water, and 2 scoops of protein. I went and picked up some ISO100 flavor that I love. It isn’t as good as the peanut butter and jelly flavored stuff I had before, but under the WW system, this is only 1 point per scoop compared to 2 points per scoop of the other stuff. It is only 2 points but when you have 26 in a day, those points add up quickly. I also added creatine back into the mix today and will have that in the morning with the protein. What was nice this morning was that the protein shake held off my appetite until it was time to make breakfast. I didn’t feel the need to eat a ton of food while I was cooking.
My wife had an idea of having egg whites and some fruit for a morning snack if I got hungry. I tried that today as well and was happy that filled me up. Under WW, I don’t have to track eggs or a banana so it was pretty much “free” food for me. This also gave me something in my stomach before I rode the Peloton at lunch. When I was done, I made my regular lunch.
I have had moments today when I felt like I was hungry and tempted to go in the cabinet and grab something, but I am trying to see if I am really that hungry or if I am just bored. Not all adjustments will be super comfortable so I am waiting to see what happens and trying to give this an honest shot. With the exercise that I am doing, I feel that cleaning up my diet, even more, will be a good thing. I realized over the weekend that I need to be eating more. If I am lifting, walking, and riding the bike in the same day, I feel as if I need more calories, but I don’t want to just turn into a dumpster.
I had noticed a few pounds uptick on the scale and my wife suggested that I was not eating enough. I told her I didn’t want to cook breakfast and was just tired of the same ole thing. She suggested I went to Chick-Fil-A, something I rarely do, and I went. I had Jimmy John’s sub for lunch and then spaghetti for dinner with probably an entire loaf of garlic bread. I never eat out that much in a single week, much less in a day. But sure enough, I got on the scale the next day and I was down a bit. I don’t want to make eating like that a habit, however. So we brainstormed some ways to take in more food, just healthy versions of it.