Katarina's Diary

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ilovethesims98

ilovethesims98

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Introduction
I am 22 with a height of 5'6 and a waist circumference of 33 inches. While I do not weigh myself, I know from recent visits to the doctor that I weigh close to 200 pounds. My goal is to reach a waist circumference of 27 inches.

To do this, I am modeling a diet based on the meal structure I followed when studying abroad in France, which initially helped me lose a lot of weight. The structure is based on portion control and predetermined meal times. Since, I have a hard time assessing proper portion size with my eyes, I am going to count bites. I am basing this on not only my experience with portions in France but also on a research study conducted by Clemson University that found consuming 100 bites of food per day aided subjects in weight loss.

Basic Food Plan
Breakfast: 12 bites of food
Drink with Meal (once a day): 12 sips
Lunch: 30 bites of food
Dinner: 30 bites of food
Dessert (on occasion): 6 bites

Additional Guidelines
Meals will generally take place at 8 am, 12 pm, and 7 pm.
There is no snacking between meals.
I will eat no more than 6 bites of high fat food at each meal.
I take 2 tablespoons of MCT oil per day as advised by my nutritionist, which will not be included in my bite counting.
I will exercise for at least 20 minutes each day.
I will meditate for 10 minutes each day.

Posting Schedule
I will post daily to update you on what I ate. I will measure my waist on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to share my results. In my experience, it can take time to lose inches, so I will not know if the diet plan is working until a few weeks in.

I hope that this approach to portion control will be useful. As someone who struggles with binge eating, I think that this plan will benefit me more than calorie counting, which only added problems to my disordered eating behavior during past weight loss attempts. By counting bites, I will hopefully have a strategy to control my food intake without stressing about unknown calorie counts. Thank you in advance for any support or critiques you may provide. Wish me luck!
 
Hi, Katarina & welcome to the forum. I think most of us follow different methods of getting healthy (keto, calorie counting, IF etc) & it's important we find what works for us. The main thing is eating healthily & ensuring we get sound nutrition. It sounds like you have a sound plan, incorporating exercise & meditation as well. I hope it works well for you, cheers, Cate.
 
I read this last night and intended to count my bites this morning to see how many it took for my breakfast. I forgot though . Would be interesting to see .
Good luck with the plan
 
Food Log
7:30 am - 12 bites Special K cereal with skim milk; 1 tablespoon MCT oil
9:30 am - 12 sips iced chai tea latte with nonfat milk
11:30 am - 12 bites egg white omelette with spinach, mushroom, and onion; 12 bites turkey bacon; 6 bites whole wheat English muffin with jam; Diet Coke
3:00 pm - Lays BBQ baked chips and Diet Dr. Pepper
4:30 pm - Lays BBQ baked chips and ANOTHER Diet Dr. Pepper
5:30 pm - salad with no dressing, grilled chicken, and two servings of homemade, low fat mac n cheese; 1 tablespoon MCT oil

Reflection
So, not a great day. I obviously did not stick to the no snacking thing and even stopped counting my bites after lunch. I blame this partly on having my blood drawn today, which made me feel shaky and want to eat something. With that said, this is not an excuse, and I still take responsibility for overeating. I definitely have an addiction to food. In the past, I have tried to cut out trigger foods. Once, it was pretzels, so I no longer eat pretzels. Unfortunately, it seems that once I eliminate a trigger food from my diet, I just find something else unhealthy to replace it. I have always feared that cutting out processed food entirely would create more cravings and cause me to fail, but I am starting to wonder if I just need to eliminate the temptation entirely. Has anyone cut out processed food entirely? If so, did you do it at once, or did you do it in stages? Also, how do you avoid certain trigger foods when you have people in your house who like them and always keeps them around?

I should note that I am on a low fat diet because of a medical condition I have. I am unable to break down certain fatty acid chains, and eating too much fat can be life threatening. I take MCT oil as a supplement because it is one of the few fats my body can process for energy. My nutritionist requires me to eat a diet high in carbs and lean protein. If I do cut out processed food, I will still most likely consume bread and pasta, since these are good sources of energy for me. I also do not crave these items or lose control in the same way that I do with most junk food.
 
New Plan
Breakfast: 1o bites
Drink: 15 sips
Lunch: 30 bites
Snack: 10 bites
Dinner: 30 bites
Dessert (occasional): 5 bites

Reflection
I added 10 more bites to better follow the 100 bites study conducted by Clemson University. Now, I will eat 95 bites per day, and if I have dessert, that will be a total of 100 bites. I had intended to eat fewer than 100 bites initially because the study found that women have an average of 11 calories per bite, but I feel like I take bigger bites than most people. However, I feel that adding a snack in the afternoon may help me control my cravings. That way, I can maybe sometimes have something like chips but still have a little more control by eating only 10 of them. Some of my French friends also ate a snack around 4 pm, so I may try to eat my snack at this time too. I may also push breakfast back a bit, since I am usually not hungry in the mornings and would like to give intermittent fasting a try. Maybe I can start by fasting for 14 hours most days, which will be pretty easy to do on evenings when I eat dinner early. I will report back tomorrow with a nw food log. If this fails again, I may try one of the other diet plans discussed in these forums.
 
COUNTING BITES DOES NOT WORK
I am not really surprised. It is a good idea in theory, but I find that it encourages me to eat too quickly. This is not good as someone who is an emotional eater and tries to relieve stress by cramming as much food into their mouth as fast as possible. I think that counting your bites could work in some situations, but it shouldn't be how you approach every meal. For example, if you really want dessert but are worried about overeating, just promise yourself five bites of it. Otherwise, I think counting bites can be too restrictive and doesn't make sense for all foods.

Even Newer Plan - IF and Portion Control
I have been reading a bit more about intermittent fasting, and this is definitely something I would like to try. It would be ideal to have a 16-hour fasting period, but I will give myself some wiggle room.

I like the idea of portion control, but I think that there may be a better way of doing it than counting bites. It can be more difficult to eyeball portion size, but that is what I want to try. If I can look up the appropriate portion size, that is the amount of food I will eat. If I am not in a position to find the actual portion size, I will use my palm as a measurement. I think that two palms of food minimum should be appropriate for morst meals. If I am faced with multiple food items, I will have no more than one palm size of each food. The only exception will be greens, for which I will allow two palm sizes.

I will chew my food 32 times to encourage slower eating and better digestion. I did this today and found myself feeling full with less food and actually savoring my meal.

Meal structure will continue as planned. The average day will still include breakfast, lunch, and dinner with the potential for one small drink and one small snack. Dessert should be rare and probably no more than once every other week, if that. I almost never eat dessert, but I figure I should still prepare for it. I do think that this is where I may still implement the bite thing and just take 3 to 5 bites of dessert depending on how unhealthy it is.

Anyone reading this forum probably thinks I'm crazy for changing my diet strategy so much in just a few days. Let's hope this one sticks! I am going to a concert tomorrow night, so I probably will not post again until the following morning. :)
 
No I don't think you're crazy for changing diets so quickly. I do the same thing. The important thing to consider is that a diet should not be temporary but permanent. I am struggling to come up with a diet myself and sometimes after a day I realize it won't be sustainable. Right now money is an issue so I'm trying to follow my diet plan when possible. I'm not eating nearly enough vegetables right now because they are so damn expensive.
 
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