Want to drop 5 pounds the easy way? You probably don’t have to make any changes to what you eat for breakfast, lunch or dinner. All you have to do is eliminate high calorie snacks, soft drinks and appetizers.
Since buying my Fitbit, I’ve been taking a baseline of my calorie burn vs. intake each day. Now I’ve actually been a pretty healthy eater for the past 20 years and wasn’t looking to lose any weight when starting the evaluation process. However, while taking this baseline it made it very clear how easy it could be to hit my ~2,200 calorie / day target. and how easily it could be missed with just one or two bad choices. Take for example my dinner at Chipotle last week. I always order a very healthy rendition of the Burrito Bowl with Chicken, brown rice, black beans, lettuce, and guacamole (no dairy). This burrito bowl is filling, tastes great, and comes in just around 710 calories. I’m fine with a 710 calorie dinner, particularly if it’s that tasty and the calories are all working for me. However, I do allow myself a few dietary vices, and since chips and salsa are two of my favorite things, so I am no stranger to a side of tortilla chips to accompany my burrito bowl. They’re also incredibly tasty. When I went to enter the side of chips into my FitBit Log, I was blown away. These “empty calorie machines” come in with an average of 570 calories per order. So, the little side dish that went along with my meal almost doubled my calorie intake that evening (from 710 to 1,280 calories). Does this mean I won’t ever get tortilla chips at Chipotle, absolutely not, as I said I do enjoy and allow myself the decedent, salty, crispy calorie bombs from time-to-time. However, I will do it much less frequently, and within a better understanding of my total caloric intake over a given day.
Things like sucking down 1 or 2 sugary sodas at 180 calories each (x2 = 360 empty calories), sharing an appetizer before dinner (e.g. 800 calories in a Bloomin’ Onion at Outback Steakhouse), or nibbling on a bag of potato chips mid-afternoon (each little bag has similar calories to a sugary soda), can completely destroy an otherwise reasonable meal plan.
So what? Well, assuming you’re eating relatively well and hold the other aspects of your regimen constant, eliminating some of these high calories sneak attacks and holding everything else constant would be an easy way to lose 5 pounds in just a few weeks.
Try it.
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Small steps add up!!!