Treats with Eats!

You've made a decision. You are going to lose weight.


You are going to eat healthy, exercise daily, drink only water, cut out sugar and caffeine and pretend Doritos never existed. You will never again grace McDonald's with your presence. You will have sugar-free, fat-free birthday bran muffins instead of cake every year. You'll put an electrified fence up around the doors of your favorite pizza joint to keep yourself out. You will work out before, during, and after work, and also before bed and while you're brushing your teeth. You are going all healthy, cold turkey.


Yeah. Ssssooooo realistic.
And I'm going skydiving naked with Dean McDermott tonight.


In all seriousness, good on you for wanting to have a healthier lifestyle. It takes a strong person to realize they need to make changes to their eating and exercise habits. It also takes a lot of inner strength to keep with it (before it becomes a natural habit for you!)


However .. Cutting out all the foods you've ever loved is not necessarily the greatest place to start. You're just setting yourself up to fail. Very few people who make that choice are actually able to follow through on it ... and they then find themselves mowing down the junk foods. If I were to tell myself I'd never have pizza again ... I'd be binging on it a week later. You know how something seems so much more appealing when you're told "no"? There you have it. Pizza galore!


Just because you're changing your lifestyle doesn't mean you have to eat like you're dieting. It's such a cliché but the phrase "everything in moderation" holds a lot of truth for me!


I can have a slice or two of pizza .. But I don't need to eat half of it. Or all of it. And I don't need to eat it a few times a week .. Maybe once every couple of weeks (heck, even once a week would be a vast improvement to where I was pre-WW!)


You don't need to eat that whole bag of popcorn. Maybe dividing it into sandwich baggies and having an individually-sized treat every couple of days would be a better idea.


You're going to East Side Mario's for dinner and you REALLY want that cheesy, gooey pasta but you "can't" have it because you're watching your weight. Don't deprive yourself!! Cut the portion in half, or even only have a third or a quarter of it. Wrap up the rest right away and give it to your husband, or save it for lunch the next day.Treat yourself to some, but remember that you don't need to eat it all. Stop when you're satisfied. Stopping yourself from having something you truly love because of your "diet" is not really shining a positive light on your "diet", is it? 


You get the picture. You can have your treats - in moderation! Tell yourself, "This isn't the last time I'll ever get to have this food again," and then only have enough to satisfy your craving and hunger.

Well, at least he's only having one ..!

We had my father over for a Father's Day dinner last night. The menu? Ribs. And LOTS of them! I'd known that we were having ribs so I was able to plan ahead for it. I made sure to have not one, but two delicious (favorite!!) veggie side dishes to fill up on before digging into the ribs ( here are the steps to make the Lemon Parmesan Asparagus). I also portioned out my serving of ribs to a reasonable amount, ate my vegetables first, and made sure to drink lots of water between bites. In doing that, I was actually too full to go for a second helping of ribs and I felt SO satisfied! Not at all deprived. I had ribs!! And with the points I saved on not having more ribs, I was able to have a small piece of chocolate cake for dessert. We then went for our daily evening walk to help burn off what we ate and to help keep our metabolisms going!

I'm not even going to tell you how many points that small portion of ribs were!

Everything in moderation. That way, you can have your treat eats without depriving yourself of all the foods you love. Don't go hog wild on your junk foods .. But remember to treat yourself every now and then! It will make sticking with your new healthy lifestyle a lot more enjoyable :)