My Top 10 Dos and Dont's

As I mentioned yesterday, different things work for different people. Even if you look at the plans laid out by physicians and nutrition experts there are so many varied opinions. Find what works for YOU, and what doesn't. I've slightly surpassed my goal of losing 10 pounds in January and have found the following rules to be helpful for me:

1) Eat breakfast! This jump starts your metabolism like throwing wood into a fire. If you wait until lunch to eat, you've wasted four hours that your body could be burning calories at a higher rate. I know the excuse "if I eat breakfast I am more hungry by lunch than if I don't eat at all." That's because you are not eating the right breakfast. Choose protein, fruit, whole grain.

2) Women, limit your daily calories to 1200. The number should be about 1600 for men, just as a general rule. Do not consistently go over or you will gain weight, do not consistently go way under or you will retain weight.

3) Find the time to move your body. I've been walking 2 miles a day in 40 minutes or less, 5 days a week for the past 6 weeks. When I skip a few days, my weight plateaus. This extra 175 calories I've burned adds that number of calories to my daily allowance.

4) Make your own food. Fast food has to go away for a while. Preferably for good. Even if you look at what may seem to be the healthiest option at a FF restaurant, it's probably not that healthy. If you check out McDonald's Nutrition, oxymoric, you'll find an awful lot of hidden calories and saturated fat.

5) Eat your veggies. Just do it.

6) Don't clean your plate. Especially when you're eating out. Unless you're eating tapas, cut your portion in half and plan on a take out box. PLAN on taking half home and don't eat it just because it's there.

7) No soda or alcohol. At least for a while until you start to see some progress. Once you are on a good pace, I don't think adding wine back, if you drink, is as bad an option of adding soda -- regular or diet. Regular is loaded with sugar and has no nutritional value whatsoever and diet has artificial sweeteners which are said to be carcinogenic.

8) Don't drink your calories. In addition to point #7, watch out for fruit smoothies and fruit juice. Very high in calories (up to 900 per serving!) and much lower in health benefits than the actual fruit. You can make your own smoothies though, very healthy option.

9) Establish a list of food staples. For me, it's oats or eggs in the morning, hummus and wheat pita with veggies for lunch, Greek yogurt, apples and blueberries as snacks and lean protein and non-starch veggies for dinner. I also have small amounts of nuts, cut up fruits and veggies around for in between meal snacks.

10)  Focus on what you CAN eat. This is so huge it gets its own blog tomorrow.