Last week, I found out Lil' Bean had Colic. I then got a long list of what I had to cut from my diet since I am solely breastfeeding. No dairy, broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce, wheat, caffeine, chocolate, garlic, spicy food, citrus fruit, cherries, and some other things I am sure I am leaving out. So, there went my diet. Once his colic is gone, I plan on going back to it. For now, I do plan on remaining healthy because I do want to lose maybe 10lbs and trim up my thighs, stomach, and waist.
So, I found one way to find out how many calories I should be taking in. Apparently, you start at 100 for 5ft. Then you add 5 for each additional inch. I'm 5'2, so that brings me to 110. If you're small-boned you add 5 more, if you're average you add nothing, and if you're large-boned you add five. I'm small boned, so that brings me to 115. If you don't exercise much, you multiply that number by 12. If you exercise 2-3 times a week, you multiply by 14. If you exercise 6 times a week, you multiply by 16. I go on walks, so I'll say I exercise 2-3 times a week. So multiplying 115 by 14 gives me 1610. Then, if you're under 5'7 you add 200. If you're over 5'7 you add 300. I'm short, so I add 200. That leaves me at 1810. I should be taking in 1810 calories a day.
After finding that out, I went off to find a calorie counter of some kind online. Well, I came across
this website. I learned a lot from that link. I've never had to lose weight before, so this is all new to me. I have always been skin and bones. Basically, I need to eat less calories than my body burns to lose weight. So, I followed their link to
this calorie deficit calculator. There's a bunch of different options for how much of a calorie deficit you want. I think I'll stick with 500, so that means I should only take in 1310.
Going back to the whole losing weight thing, I found out that my diet should consist of 50% carbs, 30% protein, and 20% fat. In doing this, I do still plan on being smarter about what fats I choose to take in. That I learned with the Mediterranean Diet. Unfortunately, I can't have wheat. So, being smarter about my carbs is a little more difficult right now.
Now, I am someone who needs to keep track of things in order to stick to it. I need it in front of my face, though. So, online things really don't help me. So, I printed out
this food diary. I selected carbs, protein, total fat, calcium, and iron for the nutrients I am most concerned about. I printed out my diary and now I am going to utilize it. I can write down what I eat throughout the day and mark the values for my nutrients. Then each night I can come
here to find out how many calories I ate that day.
So, I'm going to give this a try. I'm also going to keep track of my measurements each week to see what my progress is. I really hope this works because if not I'm going to be really disappointed. We all try to lose weight at some point in our life, what have you tried? Any success?
