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I'm trying something different this week, some meal prepping and a 1400 calorie plan. I got the idea from a YouTube video made by Liezl Jayne Strydom, and I'm trying this for 3 reasons. I mentioned in a previous post that I lost about 5 lbs in March, when I was stuck at home & all the restaurants were closed, but started gaining the weight back when restaurants reopened & I ate out more. Also, last year I managed to lose 10 lbs on an 1100 calorie diet, but haven't really been able to get back to 1100 calories. Of course, it's possible that I'm kidding myself, because I snacked on chocolate that I didn't really account for. But finally, I'm sick of throwing out food that went bad before I could eat it. I just threw out a bag of carrots Friday, and nothing upsets me more than doing that! Anyway, I figure if I can get into the habit of planning & prepping, I'll eat out less often & possibly lose a few more lbs. Plus this is an experiment to see if I can lose weight on 1400 calories.
So, today is day one of the 1400 calorie meal prep. (And THIS time I'm sticking 100% with the diet plan, no snacking on chocolate between meals!) In her video, Ms. Strydom says you can prep 7 days worth of 3 meals each in 1 hour. I planned on just 5 days, buying just enough groceries to cover these meals. Well, it took me over 3 hours to get the veggies chopped & cooked, plus make the kale salad for the lunches. I still need to cook the meats & prep the breakfasts, so obviously I need to get a little more organized and/or faster. Dinners will rotate between salmon with roasted potatoes & root veggies, and chicken with brown rice, roasted broccoli & cauliflower, and zucchini. Breakfasts rotate between overnight oats and banana smoothies, while lunches will be variations of kale salad, served with either chickpeas or hard-boiled eggs. I gotta be honest, I am TERRIFIED of the Kale salad. I'm not sure I've ever had it, but everyone I know that has tried it hates it! But I AM trying to stick with the diet, plus I've already bought the Kale, so hopefully I'll be able to eat it. However, I am NOT pulling avacado in the banana smoothie, ewwwww! I'll be using a spoonful of almond butter instead, to add the healthy fats. But I'm a little concerned about getting enough protein, so I'm sticking with my chocolate protein shakes. That's my one dose of chocolate, which I MUST have. I'm subbing them for the snacks in the video, though I'll still have the fruit. I'll cut back on the grains a bit, to keep the calories to 1400. Anyway, this starts tomorrow & we'll see how this goes!
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