30 Lessons from 30 Pounds of Weight Loss: Part 3- Nutrition Strategies
Boom pow, part three here we are!
For those just joining, here’s a quick recap…
Part one was 10 all around lessons learned
*You can read part one by clicking here
Part two was 5 strategies used to stay consistent for long-term weight loos
*You can read part two by clicking here)
Part three is going to be all about the nutritional aspects that I used to reach my goal of losing 30 pounds.
Full disclosure- this article isn’t going to tell you how much or what to eat. Those elements of nutrition are super-dooper individualized. However, this article will absolutely help share the strategies that you can implement for your own weight loss goals.
1) I set up my kitchen to cater to my goals.
I’m a believer that your environment should support your goals. So, I made sure my kitchen - the place where I eat 95% of my meals- was set up for my success. This means I left a cooking pan on top of the oven, the cooking spray was always full, a digital scale was on our island, and I always had a bowl of fruit ready to eat for snacks.
2) I bought an electric food scale for $10 on Amazon.
I touched on this in the first point. One of my goals with this weight loss was to eat whatever the hell I wanted. In order to do that, I needed to be able to weight and measure my food to make sure i was eating in the correct portions to stay within my daily calorie range. Some people think weighing and tracking calories is very laborious, but I found it to be very educational, and something that I really only needed to do for a few weeks before I learned what to do.
3) I ordered groceries for pick up and/or delivery twice a week.
In part one of this series I suggested to automate everything you could so that decision fatigue was lowered. Ordering groceries for pick up or delivery ensured that I had quality food and foods that I enjoyed in the house at all times- especially for the weekends. This helped keep eating out to a minimum, and actually ended up saving me money!
4) I made ordering out and alcohol special.
Don’t be fooled by the point above. We still ate out probably 2-3 times a month, which is pretty normal for our family. I still enjoyed 1-4 beers a week as well. The key here is that I made these events special. I made a point to go to the brewery and pick out fresh beers. My wife and I also scheduled our ‘date nights’ and would check out the menus in advance to oogle over the food choices. By making it special, it made it more enjoyable.
5) I focused on just hitting calorie goals instead of ‘swapping’ foods
Does this sound familiar? “instead of eating two slices of pizza, I am going to order a salad and have 1 slice”
There are plenty of variations of that ‘swap’ story above, but what many don’t realize is sometimes the ‘healthy’ swap is more calories than the food that is viewed as ‘unhealthy’. The name of the game with weight loss is to be in a calorie deficit. Give me the 180 calorie IPA instead of the 200 calorie protein shake any day.
6) I followed the fat-loss strategies I wrote about in this article
Nothing sexy here. These strategies have worked for me and my personal training clients. I recommend you read that article if you haven’t yet!
7) I made sure my go-to snacks were always in the house
This is a take off of ordering groceries twice a week. It’s so nice I had to say it twice!
8) I always started my day off with something I enjoyed and something easy to make.
6 out of 7 mornings my breakfast was greek yogurt with berries, greek yogurt with protein powder, or just good ‘ol fashion yogurt. It was easy and it was a food item I enjoy eating. Chances are if you’re looking to lose weight, if you can start your day with something easy and something you enjoy, it’s something you can do often- that’s pretty important for those trying to stay consistent!
9) Ingredient prepping is better than meal prepping.
I was talking to an online personal training client about this during our coaching call this past month. She asked me what a few go-to meals were for meal prepping. The conversation ended up going down the route of ingredient prepping instead. If you were to open our family’s refrigerator at any given point, you would see the following
Shredded chicken or grilled chicken
A container of another protein source like ground beef or salmon
A couple big tubs of greek yogurt
A pound or so of deli meat
Two different kinds of fruit cut up
Two different kinds of vegetables cut up
A tupperware of spinach
A freezer with some frozen berries, a few high protein frozen microwave dinners, and bags of steamer veggies.
By always having ingredients ready to go we can make a variety of different meals that fit our needs and still give variety in food choices. Some people can eat the same meal 8 times in a row, I could, but I’d prefer not to.
10) I utilized cookbooks and google searches for recipes I could cook in appliances I own (and know how to use).
This might be the best tip, saved for last, of course.
When a client asks how they prioritize high protein in their diet, wants to cook using their new ____ appliance, or needs to make simple to-go meals, I guarantee there is a cookbook for that or someone has a blog covering that very topic.
Sometimes the answer is, quite literally, that simple.
5 more lessons learned to go! The final part, part four, will be up in a few days. The last hurrah is going to cover 5 workout-specific strategies I used and considered alongside a weight loss goal.
I hope you’ve found this series helpful and enjoyable to read! Like the other two parts I am going to leave the comment section open…if you have any questions or want me to explain any of these points further, sound off and lets get it going!