Since I’ve had a few requests for what I ate when I lost 7 pounds in a week, I thought I’d share what I did and a few examples of what I ate.
First of all, the “plan” was to do low carb/high fat diet, basically the Atkins diet. Just fyi, I do not think this is a healthy way to live long term. I’m super impatient when it comes to weight loss and knew the first few pounds could come off quick since I gained them very quickly (thank you Christmas season).
This is why the Atkins diet works (at least for me initially): Your body needs to burn energy to survive. It looks for carbs first and burns those first. If you have a lot of those, your body never burns the fat. It just keeps eating the carbs for energy. If you lower your carbs, when your body goes looking for energy to burn, it won’t find enough and will then go to your fat reserve. Therefore, you lose fat/weight. It’s way more scientific than that, but that is how it works in a nutshell.Atkins allows for 20-40 grams of NET carbs per day (I stuck with closer to 40). Carbs are in pretty much everything so this is really tough. If you can stick with eggs, meat, cheese, and veggies, you will do great. My mindset was to do it for 2 weeks and see how my body was feeling.
Here was the basis of my diet each day:
Breakfast – Eggs and bacon
Lunch – Salad
Dinner – Meat and veggies
Atkins bars (these were good for my sweet tooth, snacks, and meals if I was in a rush)
If you know me well, you know that diet does not appeal to me whatsoever (except the breakfast), so this was quite the adjustment. Bacon saved me. I love bacon and pretty much ate that everyday. I’ll show you some of my favorite meals and then explain how I did/felt overall.
Eggs with cut up ham topped with cheese and coffee (I’ll explain how I made coffee below)
Cobb Salad – lettuce, tomato (pico cause I was lazy), feta cheese, Ranch, and chopped bacon
Chicken sausage, broccoli, eggs. I was trying different mustard sauces 🙂
Eggs and bacon
Grilled chicken topped with bacon and cheese and sauteed zucchini/squash
Eggs and Morning Star veggie sausage patties (got from Costco)
Hard boiled eggs (one with yolks, one without) and Boars Head Everoast chicken deli
Coffee is okay on this diet, but the creamer I like has 5 carbs in it per Tbsp so I had to be very mindful how I made my coffee. This is how I made it.
Cup of coffee + 1Tbsp Coffeemate Caramel Macchiato creamer (5g carbs) + 1Tbsp Half n Half (1g carb) + 1/2 packet Truvia (1g carb)
And this is what it looks like (sorry I couldn’t get the coffee to focus)
Speaking of favorites, this is my favorite mug right now. I found it at Tuesday Morning. I just love it.
Through all of this I used MyFitnessPal to calculate everything I was eating. After 1 week, I was down 7 pounds. I was feeling good. I decided to continue doing it and pretty much stayed at that weight. I also started working out. After some research online, I realized I needed to add carbs, but limit myself to a certain amount of carbs, proteins, and fats.
I decided to do something called flexible dieting. You can read THIS article to undeItrstand it and THIS to calculate what your macros should be based on your personal information. This is a great article and great for those who don’t want to bring a tupperware of broccoli and chicken to a social gathering. 🙂 If your food intake fits within your macros, you can eat it. This website is also a great source to calculate how much your body needs to survive and how much it needs to lose weight. It also explains what types of food you should eat and why.
I knew with working out that I needed carbs and this is a much more balanced diet. I’m really liking it so far. I’m using MyFitnessPal to calculate everything I eat right now. I’m sure as time goes on, I won’t need to use this as much, but I would not be doing well without this app. It takes some time getting used to but is amazing. Every now and then I won’t be able to find a food on there or it’s just too complicated to find something so I’ll have to use my best judgement and just do well with my other foods for the day. For example, I got fro-yo with the kids yesterday (my first dessert in 2.5 weeks) and couldn’t look it up so I did a “Quick Add” of 250 calories and just kept on with other eating. It is what it is. I’ve lost 2 pounds since last Monday.
My macros are 1537 calories, 165g carbs, 124g protein, and 43g fat. I’m aiming for closer to 1300 calories and adjusted my other macros accordingly on MFP app. That website I linked above tells you what percentage of your diet should be carbs, protein, and fats so I imputed that into MFP as well.
It really sounds confusing but it’s not once you start messing around with it. Bottom line, I just became aware of what I was eating. Some days I go over, sometimes I don’t reach the protein (this is hard for me), but I’m learning. I also listen to my body and see how it reacts…I think that is important. Two things I’m working on is water consumption and adequate sleep. I can tell those two things are affecting my progress.
I’ve added this protein powder to my diet after my workouts (just mix with water) and the flavor is SO good.
Another favorite of mine this week was this chicken enchilada casserole (there’s a video). I calculated the macros and it’s only 305 calories per serving if you cut it up into 8 pieces per casserole pan.
Lastly, two more sneak peeks of favorites that I’ll be sharing soon…
BIG NEWS: I’m in the process of migrating my blog over to my own domain, so if things get interrupted, this is why. I will give you a heads up though beforehand so you know where to go. If you search this blog name though, it will automatically take you there. I’ll be sure to share this process as well. And the big news is, my name is changing! The new blog will be called…
Y’all this was like changing the name of one of my babies! So hard, but everything is underway now. I can’t wait to provide better content and have a more organized blog.
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Congrats on the weight loss and the home progress! Love your new blog name as well…. sounds like your new year is off to a great start!
Way to go for losing that weight girl! It can all be so overwhelming to start! I did the Atkins diet after I had AJ 13 years ago and lost 30 lbs in a month. Definitely couldn't do it long term but I needed the jumpstart to get me going and it worked for me! So exciting about your new blog!
Yay so exciting about your new blog name!!!
Thank you so much for the in depth explanation on how you lost weight!