It's not a diet.

I recently lost 40 pounds and would like to share with you how I did it. Not only did I want to lose weight, I wanted to be healthy as well. Much thought went into this because if you are on a diet you are not necessarily being healthy. For me and most people the word diet has a negative connotation and I wanted to do this right. First thing was first, I decided not to call it a diet. This would be a life changing process and I knew I would have to completely change the way I eat and even the way I think about food. It's not a diet, it's a new way of eating.

I talked to my husband, Brian, about my idea and he was up for it. To be honest, doing this by myself was really not going to work for me for I have tried in the past and failed. He wanted to be healthy as well and so we both did a lot of research on different diets to help us create good eating habits that fit our life. The first thing was to make sure I was eating. I thought in the past by skipping breakfast I was able to cut some calories. I was so wrong. Skipping meals slows your metabolism down and then when you do eat, your body will store the fat instead of burning it. I made sure I ate about every four hours. It is best to eat four or five small meals than to eat two or three big meals. This was a challenge to implement. I started with adding breakfast to my diet. After about a week I started adding snacks throughout the day. It was challenging to find healthy snacks and dinner recipes. Breakfast and lunch were easy for me. They are still easy and my favorite meals of the day.

Dinner was the most difficult challenge. I wanted to eat more vegetarian meals because meat is high in calories. I already didn't eat to much beef. I would only eat beef maybe once a month. I ate a lot of chicken so to replace that I eat salmon and tuna two times a week. I am not saying that chicken isn't healthy but I want to eat a more healthy meat for my needs. Finding veggie based recipes that were quick and easy were and still are difficult. My husband and I had to find recipes that we liked and that fit our lifestyle and schedule.

With that being said, the purpose of this blog is to share my ideas on food, specifically what has (and hasn't) worked for me as far as being healthy. Right now I envision my blog entries being about specific food topics, like metabolism, that might be helpful to interested readers. At the least, I'll have fun documenting my thoughts!