The Eat Less, Move More "diet"

Nope. No big weight loss plan. No calorie counting. No carb counting. No fat counting. No specific exercise plan. What am I doing to lose weight/get healthy so far? Eating less and moving more. It's that simple. It really is.

I've done a lot of different diets before. I've tried Nutri System, Weight Watchers, Atkins, South Beach and even a cabbage soup diet (I think, I might have blocked that one from my memory.) The most success I had before was with Atkins. 6 months after having Jenna, I had lost 50 pounds. As I hit the 5o pound mark, I immediately started putting it back on. I definitely can't stick on low carb forever.

So what I'm doing now is trying to be lower carb, but not crazy about it. If I'm going to have carbs, I try to make sure they have a decent amount of fiber, for the most part. But sometimes I just have what I want. I'm trying to eat more often, every 3-4 hours. I'm trying to eat less processed food and to stay away from high amounts of sodium. And as I mentioned, I'm drinking a lot of water.

For example, it's now almost 3pm. For breakfast today I had an "oatmeal casserole" I made...oats, milk, brown sugar, cinnamon, raisins, pecans, dried cherries and apples, then baked. I had about 3/4 cup of that, along with 2 sausage links (I love sausage and usually have it at breakfast to make sure I do get a good amount of protein to start) and some fresh pineapple. Oh, and two cups of coffee with cream and sweet n low. For a snack I had 4 townhouse crackers with a little peanut butter and a couple of handfuls of dried fruit. For lunch I had a turkey/bacon/american cheese grilled sandwich on a whole wheat English muffin with a little mayo. I also had an apple with that. And right now I'm having iced coffee (coffee, a little milk and sugar free vanilla syrup.) And I've already drank 104 oz of water today (that's a lot, even for me!)

Dinner is going to be salisbury steak, mac n cheese, mashed potatoes, green beans and dinner rolls. Dinner is unusually carb heavy but I'll just have small amounts, probably 1/2 cup of mashed potatoes and 1/4 cup of mac n cheese (all these measurements are just guesses, I don't really measure it). And then I have Breyer's low fat/low cal ice cream bars for dessert. Yum!

I'm also making sure I exercise every day. I work 2 7a-7p shifts a week, occasionally 3, and on those days, I walk at work. I'm lucky that my hospital has a long skywalk that connects 3 buildings, and one round trip is at least half a mile. So I make sure I walk that round trip once before work and once at lunch. Add that to my normal walking at work and I get a lot of walking done. On the days I don't work, I walk 1.5 miles on the treadmill (I started at 1 mile and am working my way up to 2 miles.) I change the speed and change the incline every couple of minutes. And twice a week I do some light arm weights for about 5-10 minutes.

That's it so far. The good thing about having a lot to lose is that you don't have to be perfect right away, and you can still lose. I figure every few months I'll have to change what I do and/or eat, just to keep the loss going.