13 July 2009

In my last post I mentioned John and I have lost 85 pounds between us. We have changed our eating habits and discovered we can eat just about everything if we limit the quantity and adjust some of the preparation methods. It's not rocket science, but in the past, neither one of us paid much attention to what we put in our mouths. We really enjoy eating, so it became paramount that we find a way to lose weight while satisfying our hunger with tasty foods.

Now that we have been committed to this since February, it has truly become a way of life and I don't think we could ever go back to our bad eating habits again. The price is just too high!

We have adjusted our calorie intake to an average between 1200 and 1500 calories per day. We eat 6 times a day, so we are never hungry. Since this calorie intake is so much less than what a normal body requires, we can't help but drop the pounds. I did a little research to back this up and here are the calorie requirements recommended by the "experts" at our goal weight:

Daily Calorie Requirement for MEN
Height: 5' 10"
Lifestyle: Lightly Actively
Desired Weight: 160
Calorie Requirement: 2000

Daily Calorie Requirement for WOMEN
Height: 5' 3"
Lifestyle: Lightly Actively
Desired Weight: 135
Calorie Requirement: 1600

I am now preparing meals that average 300-350 calories each. We supplement the meals with 3 snacks a day that average 100 calories each. The snacks are eaten mid-morning, mid-afternoon and evening.

We started this journey by joining the Jenny Craig Weight Loss program. In the beginning, we got all our meals and snacks from them and then gradually I started adding in meals I had prepared. Now, I prepare all of the meals and most of the snacks. We still go to our local Jenny Craig center every Saturday to weigh in and keep ourselves on track.

There is a link to our family cookbook at the top of this page. I am going to start sharing all of my low calorie recipes with anyone looking for a healthy, well balanced meal. I will add the letters "*WP*" to the title of each low-cal recipe. I also plan to go back and edit each of recipes I have already posted to add in the nutritional information.

Below the blog postings you will find a ticker tracking tool we are using to mark our progress toward reaching our weight loss goal. At the rate we are going, we expect to be showing off a new wardrobe next year.

Next, I will tell you about all the new recipes I have come up with that make it easy to stick to this lifestyle....

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