The Diet

Around New Years, Dusty decided he wanted to start losing weight.  This led to me deciding that our whole family could start eating healthier.  We could give up fast food, we could trade in the unhealthy treats for healthier ones and we could practice better living habits.

My concern was that he would want to do something that resulted in rapid weight loss and would be disappointed if he didn't see significant results rather quickly, get discouraged and give up.  My other concern was my own weight.  I have the HARDEST time keeping weight on and gaining.  HARDEST.  I'm finally at 123 and I have to fight to stay there and easily consume 3,000+ calories a day.  I am blessed with an awesome metabolism that one day, I'm sure, will catch up with me.  But, until then, I don't like the idea of dropping even a single pound.

To help Dusty with his weight loss, we decided to utilize some aspects of sparkpeople.com.  We entered in his current weight, his goal weight and it told us how many calories he should consume a day (as well as fat, protein, carbs and so on), meal ideas, recipes, and all that good stuff.  His goal was to drop to 1500-1800 calories a day and to lose 2 pounds a week.  His total weight loss goal was 37 pounds.  This goal should be reached in about 4 months according to Spark People.



We began logging each and everything he ate.  Trading unhealthy meals for healthier ones.  Saving calories where we could.  For example, instead of eating left overs for breakfast, he started eating a yogurt with a sprinkle of granola.  Lunches were taken to work instead of fast food, and dinner stayed nearly the same.  Whenever possible substitutions were made to ensure that it was super low in calories, healthy and flavorful.  And lots and lots of veggies.  We've always been big veggie eaters, so that part was easy.

Thursday marked 1 month since starting the lifestyle change.  Dusty is down 19 pounds!  How awesome is that?  We've become a lot more aware of what we're eating and the nutritional value of every bite.  Dusty still gets to have just about anything he wants and we've eaten out only once in a month.  Super proud of him!