On Wednesday I had my first Nutrition Counseling session for the year with Danielle, my dietitian. Over the past year, I have been chronicling our time together and all that I’ve learned, and it’s been a great experience that has truly changed my life! Check out my “nutrition” tags to read about my past experiences with Danielle.
One of the first things we did was the full body assessment. The first time I did this was in August. I stood on the fancy scale barefoot and held the handlebars while the machine did its magic.
So lots of good news to share:
What a relief! I feel that since the New Year, I haven’t been as aggressive about keeping my food logs, and I know that I’ve been slipping in certain areas. Fortunately, no harm was done!
But everything wasn’t perfect. We walked through a typical day of eating and Danielle noted that while I’m doing great with my regular eating intervals of every 2-4 hours, and that I’m getting plenty of proteins, I need to have more veggies and fewer carbs!
The only problem is that I don’t have a Vitamix or other superpowered juicer, so I’m not sure how I’m going to be able to pull off the green smoothies until I make that investment!
When it comes to carbs, I need to make sure I stick to the 4 carb limit, and omit a starch from one of my snacks during the day. After working out, I like to grab a Clif bar/Luna bar, so we talked about calculating the total calories from carbohydrates consumed.
Thus, if I have a Clif bar with 41 grams of carbs and 11 grams of protein, I’d have consumed: 164 calories from carbs (i.e. 1 1/4 bread/starch servings) and 44 calories from protein (i.e. 1/2 meat serving). So this is definitely something to keep in mind with my calculations and tracking!
And when it comes to tracking my meals, I’ve completed fallen off in this regard. So Danielle recommended keeping track by creating a spreadsheet that I can track on my phone.
I downloaded the free Quickoffice app on my phone which gives me access to Google Drive. From there, I can open up my spreadsheet and get back into daily charting of my servings throughout the day and ensure that I stay on my 1900-2100 calorie per day intake. Here’s a look at one of my charts:
2/13/2014 | Bread | Fruit | Veggie | Dairy | Meat | Fat |
B | 1 | 0.5 | ||||
S1 | 1 | |||||
L | 1 | 1.5 | 2 | 1 | ||
S2 | 2 | |||||
D | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 | ||
S3 | ||||||
Totals | 4 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 5 | 0 |
Goals | 4 | 3 | ‘4+ | 3 | 6 | <2 |
Any suggestions on how to make green smoothies with a regular blender (if it can be done)? Have you been sticking to your goals when it comes to nutrition and weight loss?