I’m 38F and my first experience doing CICO was last December. SW: 76 GW: 63. It had never appealed to me before that, it just didn’t seem sustainable to have to weigh all my food and log it. Now I can see how effective it’s been, although I’m nowhere near gaining the confidence to go about it without my food scale and calorie counting app (I use Cronometer).
I went on a 500-calorie deficit in December and was able to reach my goal weight in March (much faster rate than the app predicted so my TDEE was probably higher than I thought but I didn’t adjust). I was so mentally exhausted from how meticulous I was being plus the huge deficit I was in towards the end, that I stopped CICO the day I hit my goal weight to take a “break.” I then gained back 7 of the 13 kgs by August, eating all the snacks I wanted and more.
So I decided I needed a plan. I needed to stop dieting and start maintaining. I set up the app to fixed calorie and macro settings. I set it to be my GW of 63 not CW of 70, so I began eating at maintenance of my goal weight.
Now I needed to figure out how to meal prep sustainably. I’ve always been an intricate recipe kind of person and I just needed to simplify the cooking process. I also believe in eating as healthy as possible, which to me means plant-based, and keeping in mind the 30 plants a week target.
Another issue I had was when I would log random foods, even if healthy, my macros were all over the place, not enough protein, too much fat, just skewed levels and I’d end up having to eat unrealistic portions just to level out as best I can.
So I set up an excel sheet with lists of foods under
- veg (25 kcal)
- dark leafy greens (25kcal)
- fat (100kcal)
- legumes (100 kcal)
- animal protein (100 kcal)
- grains (100 kcal)
- starchy veg (100 kcal)
- fruit (100 kcal)
Now I meal prep these ingredients individually and I create macro bowls that contain one of each of these eight subcategories. What’s in my bowl varies from meal to meal depending on what’s run out and what’s next on my list to meal prep (I shuffle each of these lists randomly once I go through them to take the mental work out of deciding what to choose). This meal adds up to a whopping 650 kcals and is mostly eaten in the order I gave above, based on advice I received to start with fiber, end with carbs, and have fruit after a meal to avoid a glucose spike.
I eat this 650 kcal meal twice per day for breakfast and dinner (yes I eat chicken and brown rice for breakfast now), and I have a cup of milk for the added calcium (doctor’s orders) with protein powder for lunch (255 kcal).
Inputting this daily helps me get very close to my needs for the day (maintenance of 1,670), then I tweak by adding portions of starchy veg/legumes, depending on macro need. Many times I need to decrease my second portion of fat (this comes from nuts, seeds, oils or avocado). My rule is not to add additional animal protein or dairy, as I’m trying to limit them and stick to mostly plant-based.
Because I’m the sort of person who likes specificity, it seemed daunting to learn the calorie count of different foods, so I flipped it and now I’m teaching my brain what 100 kcal of each food looks like every time I serve myself. I have a cheat sheet with the number of grams I need of each food in my catalog list to amount to 100 kcal (25 kcal for veg). For foods that need to be cooked in oil for example, I create a recipe on Cronometer so that 100 kcal of chicken includes the oil.
I’m losing weight at a much slower pace now but I’m tuning in to what it means to live like this and eat like this. I feel great, and full and energized from the healthy eating. Today, I incorporated two chocolate biscuits from a box my husband brought back from abroad, in an attempt to be realistic about the process not having to be 100% clean eating, 100% of the time.
I love this community, you guys have been here for me for almost a year now and you don’t even know it since I’m a serial lurker on reddit. So I wanted to share my approach, even though it’s a work in progress, in an attempt to give back to this wonderful space!
[link] [comments]
from loseit - Lose the Fat https://www.reddit.com/r/loseit/comments/1nj5mw7/cico_food_diversity_and_my_daily_template_to/
Comments
Post a Comment