here's MY motivation

Today a very good friend of mine suggested i log a typical pre-healthy lifestyle week of food to compare with my current week's choices. I figured, SURE! how bad could it be? I had always convinced myself i didn't eat much so my weigh had to be from low metabolism and thyroid. Well let's just say this blew that out of the water.I have to admit to being absolutely appalled. I'm appalled i used to eat that and i'm appalled i fed my kids like that. I swear it is a type of child abuse, I was killing them one mcnugget at a time. Now mind you, I dont think what i used to eat was any different from how a lot of people eat; fast food, take out, packaged meals, anything easy, big portions of home cooked foods.

You know what i noticed? very little fiber, fruits, or vegetables in my pre week. Basically my only vegetable was corn. Looking at the numbers for that week, I'm amazed i didn't have a heart attack or worse.

44 grams of sat fats average per day? are you kidding me? Now i average 10-12 a day. i've cut my total fats eaten per day from 40% to 20%. My pre week i had 907 grams of fat total for the week. My post week i had only 266 grams.

protein-I've increased my protein from 12% to over 20%. I still need to increase my protein but i'm eating so much healthier than i was.

Grams of food-My total grams of food per day is closer to what i ate in calories. My pre-healthy week gave me a lot less food for the calories.

Fiber- My fiber has increased from an average of 15 grams to an average of 37 with some days as high as 50+

Sodium- I was eating over 5000 grams and that didnt include my friend the salt grinder. Now i'm down where i should be around 2400 grams.

Grades- my pre week i didnt get above a B- with most being below a C. Now i get upset if i get below an A lol.

Calories- average of 2902 pre week. post week- 1490 per week( above my healthy weight bmr with a 700 calorie per day deficit)

Vegetables and fruits- pre week, almost non existent, I had a beige diet. Current week- colors galore, broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, sprouts, berries!

And although this doesn't affect my diet per se, we have so much less TRASH to take out every week which is great for the environment.

I apologize for the length of this but I think that a lot of people, myself included, get really hung up on losing the pounds. How about what we are doing for our bodies and for our children? If that isn't motivation I don't know what is. Next time i'm annoyed i didnt lose my 2 pounds per week, i'm re-reading this and reminding myself that what happens on the inside is just as, maybe more, important, than what happens on the outside.

It's amazing how easy it is to eat badly, after you've been eating well for a while, especially with prepackaged food. Prepackaged food tends to have higher fat content, and it almost always has more sodium (they add salt to increase flavor).

And I do love the amount of trash we don't throw out now. My fiance and I have been very good with the trash anyway - we recycle 3-4x times the volume of what we throw away - but now we throw away even less. When we have a house, we'll compost and that amount will go down again. :D

"very little fiber, fruits, or vegetables in my pre week."

Yep, I never counted fiber.  I've always loved meat and cheese, so I wasn't lacking in protein before but I was certainly lacking in lean protein.  When I cut out the chicken fried steak, the 3 egg omelettes (loaded with cheese and/or ham), the drive thru burgers-I realized that lean proteins take a lot of preplanning. 

One of the demotivators for me was that I've always had great cholesterol, blood pressure and metabolism.  So, it's hard to change eating habits when nothing "seems broken".  I was eating 3 and 4 times my daily cholesterol limits, yet my bad cholesterol was low and good cholesterol was high.  go figure. 

I binged for the first time in months today.  I bought a precooked roasted chicken at the grocery store, intending to just pick some of the breast.  Well, I ate almost half the chicken in one sitting.  I fed most of the skin to my dog, lol.  I didn't get enough fiber and so here I am and having "digestive problems". 

So, now I know what my motivator is-healthy stomach, not going to the toilet 6 times in one day. 

Although I didn't do all those comparisons, I did a similar thing a couple weeks into this journey. I was eating an average of 2,500 - 3,000 calories a day!!! I was completely floored when I saw that. I always knew I didn't eat healthy, but I had no idea how bad it was. No wonder the scale said 185...

The eating habits of my children have been a great motivator for me.  They think you should eat every time you are in the car (don't know why lol).  Fortunately for me they love veggies, fruit, yogurt, chicken and fish.  However I have given them a love of McAnything.  That is my current biggest parenting regret.  They are young (5&7) so hopefully we can overcome this - probably harder for me at 33! 

So in a way would you say it's really helpful for a person just starting out to analyze what they're eating...it can be shocking but also in a way it makes the task of losing weight seem much more do-able. As in, oh!, I'm eating 3000 calories a day, no wonder!, I can fix that.

I don't think that the exact thing works for every person. Everyone is different. For me personally, it was very re-affirming to see what i was doing compared to what i'm doing now. Even when my weightloss isnt as fast as i would hope, i'm still getting healthier which is better in the long run as well! I would definitely try analyzing what you ate before if you think it would help you. Just make sure to be honest about what you really ate in terms of portions and junk food!

And although this doesn't affect my diet per se, we have so much less TRASH to take out every week which is great for the environment.

I noticed immediately the change in trash amount once we cut down on junk food. Also buying fruits my kids love in Costco and recycling all the containers made a huge difference. One good thing goes with another.

Great post!!!