90/10 Rule Part 2

WELCOME BACK!!!! 

Let me share with you another portion of the 90/10 rule. We covered exercise in the last blog,  this one involves your diet.  Since this journey is meant to last a lifetime, it is completely unreasonable to think you will NEVER have another piece of birthday cake, NEVER go out with the family for ice cream, NEVER participate in the work party - you get my drift.  Life really DOES need to go on, and it's not about being miserable and depriving yourself of the things you love.  Seriously, what would be the point of getting healthy and prolonging our life of misery with no treats!!!   That's where the percentages come to play.   And this one is a little easier to drop down to 80/20, even, if you're just maintaining your weight or don't care about a quick weight loss.   But if you eat healthy 80 or 90 percent of the time - it's not going to hurt you to go "off plan" or indulge in the treats you love 10-20 percent of the time.

Life is too short not to have a little treat every now and then! Enjoy life and life will enjoy you!

The trick is knowing the REALITY of what is healthy and how many calories you are actually consuming.  So many times we think we're eating healthy - and while the actual food may contain very healthful ingredients, the overall calorie count could still push us over the limit. So you really have to know your food well, know exactly what you're putting into your body and what the calorie amounts are. Here's where it gets us into trouble if we don't keep track of our food and live by the 90/10 rule.     You think, well, I had a protein shake for breakfast, an apple and string cheese for snack, a salad for lunch, a protein bar for afternoon snack - it will be ok if I have a fast food cheeseburger and fries for supper. This is where you have to know what's going in your mouth. 


Protein shakes vary A LOT in calories.   It could be a good 190-250 calorie protein shake, or it could be a 500-600 calorie shake.   Let's say you use a protein powder, fruit, vanilla low fat yogurt, orange juice, and a little oatmeal for fiber in that shake.  And we'll even go with a low calorie protein powder - we'll assume it's 110 calories for just the powder.  Here's what it would look like in the end:


Protein powder                                                                                              110
1/2  cup strawberries frozen (you accidentally got the sweetened, but
           it's ok because it's still fruit, so it's healthy)                                           124
8 oz  vanilla low fat yogurt                                                                              193
8 oz orange juice                                                                                            112
1/4 cup oatmeal                                                                                               77


PROTEIN SHAKE TOTAL CALORIES = 616


An apple and string cheese for a morning snack because  you only had a shake for breakfast, you really didn't eat anything - CALORIES  = 167.


Lunch is a salad - so lunch is perfectly healthy!  


Lettuce                                            12 calories
1/8 cup cheese                                 50 calories
1/2 boiled egg                                  40 calories 
1/2 cup low fat  cottage cheese         97 calories
2 tbsp diced ham                              51 calories
croutons                                           40 calories
reduced fat ranch dressing               120 calories
bacon bits                                         25 calories
      
Assuming you only had one plate of salad - lunch totals 435 calories.   And that's a pretty small salad. 




Afternoon protein bar - usually around 200 calories. 


So that brings us to supper and we feel like we have been good all day so it's ok to have a McDonalds Cheeseburger - 313 calories and fries - 360 for a total supper of  673 calories.  (Thats without a soda). 


 At the end of the day that we felt like we followed the 90/10 rule and had mostly good meals and snacks, in reality we consumed  2,091 calories.  A good healthy weight loss calorie goal for the day is 1,200 AT THE VERY LEAST up to 1,500 or 1,800 if you're really active. 


Can you have a healthy day with these menu items?  Absolutely.  You just have to break it down and track the calories to make each of the meals a little bit lower in calories.  It's all good healthy food - but unfortunately we can overeat the good food, too. 

Tracking what you eat is an easy way to make sure you know what  and how much is going in your mouth!
Think: Stop! Write! Bite!

Take control of your mouth!!!  Know what's going in it - keep track of how many calories your body is consuming - and give your body that treat it wants occasionally because you know it's ok!!!