The "week two" diet

So now that my season is over (yes, expect a season recap soon!), it's time to really buckle down on the diet. I know I was using FitDay fairly faithfully for a few weeks in October, but I let that fall down when the NY marathon approached, and now it's time to get back to being serious about my diet.

So I'm going back to "Week 2" of the 20/20 Lifestyles program, the diet and exercise plan on which I lost 60 pounds two and a half years ago. Here's what the diet entails:

I am allowed to eat the following things:

Berries
Protein (preferably lean; white chicken and turkey, fish, and lean cuts of pork and beef)
Vegetables (except potatoes, peas, and beets)
Healthy fats (nuts, olive oil, peanut butter)
Sauces/dressings where the sugar content is less than 4g/serving

I need to eat these things in the following distribution. Each meal has to contain protein, fat, and carbs.

Breakfast: 300 calories (approx 14 grams of protein; 30 grams of carbs; 10 grams of fat)
Lunch: 400 calories (approx 35 grams of protein; 40 grams of carbs; 10 grams of fat)
Snack: 100 calories (approx 5 grams of protein; 15 grams of carbs; 3 grams of fat)
Dinner: 400 calories (approx 35 grams of protein; 40 grams of carbs; 10 grams of fat)

This gives me 1200 calories per day. I can go up to 1400 calories if I'm hungry and need to increase at a meal, but pretty much if I'm this limited in what I can eat, I'm going to end up eating much higher volume foods - so I'm less likely to be hungry than if I were eating, say, banana bread and candy. :-) Seriously - if you have to get a majority of your calories from vegetables and berries, you have to eat A LOT. So your tummy stays full. It's a great trick. Too bad it's more fun to eat banana bread.

So here goes! The plan is to do this until Thanksgiving, then enjoy Thanksgiving, then go back to this diet until the end of the year (with reprieves for parties and Christmas Eve and Day). In January, we'll see how I did. I do have a Caribbean vacation coming up in January...gotta look good in a bikini!

Oh, one other thing: Halloween was insane for my kids. They got a ton of candy from trick-or-treating at Microsoft and in the neighborhood. So Wednesday night, before we left for New York, I made an offer: I'd pay them 25 cents for each Halloween-sized candy bar they turned in to me, and for smaller items, two for .25. I figured I'd owe each kid $10 or so.

Well, instead, each child made piles worth $1 with all of their candy, then proceeded to take out 8 or 9 pieces each, and turn in the rest to me. I owed each child $27.25!!! That means each one turned in 109 pieces of candy. (This was after whatever they ate Tuesday night and Wednesday before we made the deal.)

The moral of the story: My kids have learned something. Toys are more permanent than candy, and candy is unhealthy anyway. Just a little bit is enough! Yay!

And I learned something too: Next time, offer .25 for two or four pieces, not just one!