Protein

I weighed in at 215. 6 this morning. I love seeing the weight move down every day. I’m going to see a steady decline if I stay consistent thats for sure.

It feels good when you wake up feeling proud of yourself. I feel proud today because I followed an eating plan yesterday.

I watched a podcast that reminded me to try focusing on something new when it comes to my diet. In the past, I’ve only had restrictive thoughts. I spent my time thinking about what I can’t do and can’t eat. This time, I’m going to try doing the opposite.

Instead of thinking about all the things I can’t eat, I’m going to give myself permission to eat anything I want as long as I focus on eating 100 grams of protein every day while staying within a budget of 2300 calories.

When I started thinking about adding something to my diet, something shifted. All I could think about was ways I could do it. I spent a lot of my time thinking and researching foods with a lot of protein and then I started putting together meals that would give me 100 grams of protein each day. It started to feel like a goal that might be possible and easy to achieve each day. It made me feel successful just thinking about it.

It’s interesting because I got this fitness journal for me and my partner for Xmas and I brought them out yesterday for the first time since Xmas. It’s got enough space to log 3 months of meal and fitness tracking.

I love journalling and I’ve had a lot of success when I was using my kekeibo journal to get my finances in order so I thought it would make sense to transfer my love of journalling to achieve my health and fitness goals.

Just like money, if calories aren’t tracked, you’ll run out before you know it. Extra weight is the same as debt. It just hangs over you making you anxious, worried and depressed. However, both are in your control.

My partner is great at keeping track of where his money is going and making sure to save enough for the future, but, just like me, he sucks at keeping track of his calories and making sure to save some for a “rainy day” (i.e. chips and chocolate for movie nights).

When I brought the food journal out, he was very resistant and annoyed and said he didn’t have to write anything down because he had it all in his head. He wasn’t able to come around to the idea until I made the money connection above. Then, he got involved in counting protein and calories.

I know I said I wasn’t going to involve my partner but I couldn’t help bring it up because I feel like our diet and health style could be something to work on together as a hobby. We both like lifting weights and we both like doing our own thing so I’m going to try it with him today. I’m predicting some of the usual couple bickering over music and workout routines but I’m going to stay positive. I want us to find another way we can spend quality time together doing something we both enjoy.

Back to protein.

I’m experimenting so see what would happen if I focus on adding things to my diet instead of focusing on what I’m taking away. It’s a simple change of thought that could lead to significant results.

Stop thinking about what you can’t eat and think about what you can eat. Think about all the ways you can successfully eat 100 grams of protein every day.

Will I be more successful with dropping the weight I’ve accumulated for the past 10 years. Will I finally be able to meet the fittest version of myself? Will I do the work every day?

If I stick with this, I’m predicting that I’m going to be too full to consider eating chips and chocolate or, at the very least, I won’t be able to eat as much as I normally would. I might also choose not to eat the “junk” because it uses up too much of my daily “money” allowance (calories). I’m also predicting that meal prep and clean up is going to take a lot of time which distracts from thoughts about junk food and keeps up standing which burns more calories and muscle.

I have to do the work and I think the work is going to be staying organized and diligent with following the rules I’m going to make for myself. I’ve always been good at organization and that’s where I excel in my job so I may as well take what I’m skilled at and apply it to my personal success with health and fitness. That means writing everything down. Tracking my food and fitness every day. I think I’ll enjoy watching what happens when I stay consistent. My fitness journal only lasts 3 months so I’m curious to see the change I could make by May 18, 2024. I’m going to keep doing my video blogs on my mac as well. I wonder if I should be taking selfies with the videos?

I want to make my health and fitness my new hobby and I want my partner to be on board. I want us to have this thing together that we both like doing. I want us to both want to work toward being our best every day. I want us to lift each other up and encourage each other to be our best. I think our relationship would really improve if we did that. I think we would have a higher success rate if we both did this together.

It all starts with me though and I have to remember that. I can’t make someone do something they’re not ready to do. I just have to focus on myself and hope that he comes along for the ride when he see how positively it’s going to affect me.

My focus now is eating 100 grams of protein every day. I think if I do this, I won’t overeat on junk because my focus is going to be on protein instead. I think it’s going to be a weird mind trick that might work. I’m not going to restrict myself at all and by doing so I’m going to make better choices since every meal I make is going to revolve around protein instead of revolving around the thing that tastes the best.

My focus is on protein but I’m going to be carb aware as well. I’m not going to restrict my carbs but I want to be aware that a healthy daily intake of carbs is 100 grams. I’m going to “low key” stay within that range. Sometimes awareness alone can create lasting change. Being aware is going to make me think twice before eating a family sized bag of chips, candy or chocolate.

I have to maintain a vigilant focus on my thoughts though. I have to make sure “Fat Rochelle” doesn’t creep in and try to convince me to give up. I need to be aware of her when she arrives and kick her out by focusing on my goal. The goal I’ve had since grade 2 and haven’t been able to achieve because I didn’t believe in myself. I didn’t think it was possible for me. Now I know different and I need to focus on a new mentality.

Another thing I’m going to track is calories. I’m going to allow myself to eat whatever I want as long as I don’t go over 2,300. Remember, it takes 3,000 calories to gain a pound and because I haven’t been monitoring my calories, I’ve gained a lot of weight in a short amount of time. Some people might say it’s annoying to track but without it, I know I’m going to ignore what I’m doing and I’m going to keep gaining weight. Just like I kept going into debt with online shopping when I wasn’t paying attention and tracking my spending. You can’t hide when you see the numbers right in front of you. That’s what I’ve been doing for a long time, hiding the truth, the moose behind the tree.

I watched a podcast yesterday called “JM Strength Academy” and they recommended eating 150 grams of protein a day.

It reminded me of a podcast I watched with Sal Di Stefano and he recommended the same thing. He said that if you want to see some serious weigh loss results you should focus on eating your ideal body weight in protein every day. For me, that would be 160 grams of protein. I would feel like I was eating all day!

I think the purpose to this strategy is to focus so much on eating protein that you’re not thinking about chips and chocolate. Eating 100 grams of protein is something you have to plan your day around and it’s probably something I would be focusing a lot of my time on because it takes planning and preparation.

Some people might feel like the planning and preparation is too daunting and give up before starting but I think this method ties in well to my personality and lifestyle. I love planning, organization and journalling. I also love having something to focus my time and attention on since I don’t have kids.

To be successful, I need a major mind shift. I need to focus most of my day on my thoughts. Am I thinking about depriving myself or am I thinking about the food I promised to eat?

Right now I’m super motivated and excited and I have nothing but hope that this is going to work if I follow the plan.

Remember, the plan is eating 100 grams of protein every day and staying within 2300 calories while being mindful of staying close to the 100 carb range.

Part of the plan is also thinking of this as my hobby. I want to enjoy this whole process as though I’m my own experiment and my hypothesis is that I’m going to transform every day. Every moment of the day I have to direct my thoughts and remind myself that protein tracking is a hobby and an experiment. I want to see what will happen if I track consistently until my food and fitness journal is filled up.

100 grams of protein

100 grams of carbs (suggestion only)

2300 calories

Every day.

What will I look like? Who will I become?

-Dawn Rochelle