Weight Loss Tips

By Debby Padilla-Hudson

Food Scale

I recommend you get a food scale if you don't have one already... it will make everything easier. You will want to measure all your food that you eat. You can use cups and measuring spoons in the mean time if you do not have a food scale, but you want to get one ASAP.

I got mine from Walmart, an electronic one that is very accurate and measures in ounces/grams digitally and is very easy to use. I think it was $20 or maybe less. It's important to have one that measures in ounces as well as grams because fit day sometimes doesn't have listings for ounces, so you can find out what the cup measurement is in grams and convert it.

I have a list of common foods that I eat and their gram measurement conversions at the end of this document.

Body Weight Scale

You want to get on the scale *daily* and record your weight on fitday. This is important because often when you are eating too much, too little or eating foods that don't agree with you it's easy to spot patterns when you have your weight tallied every day.

Often if I make mistakes like eating too late I will see my weight bounce up, so I've learned little things in addition to the weight plan that help, like drinking enough water, getting enough sleep, and not eating too late, all effect my weight loss and health and how I feel.

Getting on the scale every day also keeps you of denial about how your choices are affecting your weight, and helps you avoid those periods where you procrastinate getting on the scale for a long period of time, then find you have bounced up quite a bit.

This can be very discouraging, but if you stay on top of it, you'll often see that you end up regretting when you make bad choices, because the weight gain is not worth it, and you actually feel worse than if you had chosen to abstain from the food.

Meal Frequency

You want to spread your food out to at least 3 meals a day. If you can manage it, 4-6 is even better. If you are hungry before bed, having something small, preferably with a lot of fat, and a small amount of protein.

Fitday

You'll want to track every single thing you eat on fitday every day. You'll want to plan out all of your meals, and if possible cook the meals 24 hours in advance. At worst, you want to cook all your food for the day in the morning and have it ready to go for the rest of the day.

This is because it's very easy to get in trouble because you get busy and don't have time to prepare your food and then end up eating what ever is on hand. It also keeps you accountable and ensures that your food choices are based on science and logic, not on emotions (i.e. boredom eating) or circumstances (run out of food, etc.).

Always enter your foods in raw where ever possible because fitday assumes you drain your ground beef fat for instance. Measure raw and journal raw, and then you can cook your foods. I have a list at the bottom of this document with the best measurements to use.

Calories

Based on your body size, you want to eat around 10 to 12 times your body weight in calories. So if you weigh 200 pounds, your calories should be 2000 minimum to 2400 maximum. This may seem like a lot but it's OK if you work your way up to this... but you do want to eventually get to this level within a month or so.

Eating will probably become a chore so you won't want to eat much, but it is very important you eat the right amount of calories and don't skip meals. Too little puts you in starvation mode, too many and you gain. As you lose you will lower your calorie levels in proportion to your current weight.. so as that decreases so do your calories.

Exercise

Exercise is a great help to make you feel better, help with health issues, and help with weight loss. Strength training is the best exercise you can do. If you can get some hand weights and do basic lunges or work out with the dumbbells great. If you can go to a gym even better. Even going for a walk will help.

I personally use an elliptical machine because it's the most non jarring exercise (next to perhaps swimming which I don't enjoy in winter) you can do. It's great for those of us who are heavy, older, sick, etc. When I started out I could only do 2 minutes and then I was done… now I do an hour each time (could do more but don't have all the time in the world so just increase the intensity).

Water

Drink as much as you can. For reasons too many to list here, water is crucial to weight loss and healing your body. It will help you detoxify from all the chemicals, metals, toxins and other stuff that will come from burning body fat as well as bacteria and fungi.

Ratios

When you enter your food on fitday, start with entering your veggies, because some veggies contain protein and will require you to adjust your protein levels. Put in the different veggies you will eat that day and try to reach 20-25 grams of fiber.

You may need to eat more or less of certain veggies that have higher fiber to meet your requirements.  Next you will add in your protein.  

Finally you will add in fat until you get to your calorie goal. Then adjust by adding or subtracting foods until you get to proper ratios.

Ratios should be the following:

To calculate your ratios and calories, we recommend using the free program found at fitday.com.

Allowed Foods

There is a list of the foods allowed here:

MOVES Allowed Foods List

If you are having trouble with weight loss or cravings, I suggest you remove the foods in the Special Category list, and also butter, one at a time from your diet and see if that helps any. You can also try decreasing your vegetable carbs or switching the vegetables you eat around.

Important Foods

The most important foods outside of the basic foods you can eat are coconut oil and garlic. You want to try to eat them as raw as possible. With the garlic, get certified organic and mince it as finely as possible and mix it well with your food, and this will make your food taste really good... raw garlic on its own is hard to eat.

Use as little as possible of your oil to fry with, and then add the raw coconut oil at the end without heating. I usually use about 1-2 tbsp to fry with, then save the rest to mix with my food raw at the end, and it melts with just the warmth of the food.

Fitday ListingGram measurements
Asparagus, raw1 cup = 134 grams
Broccoli Raw1 cup chopped = 91 grams
Bok Choy, Cabbage, Chinese (pak-choi), cooked, boiled, drained, with salt1 cup shredded = 170 grams
Cauliflower Raw1 cup = 100 grams
Chicken, broilers or fryers, breast, meat and skin, raw1 breast, bone removed = 290 grams
Coriander (cilantro) leaves, raw1/4 cup = 4 grams
Garlic, Raw1 clove = 3 grams
Green Beans, Raw1 cup = 110 grams
Leeks, (bulb and lower leaf-portion), cooked, boiled, drained, with salt1 leek = 124 grams
Pepper (Red sweet), raw1 large = 164 grams
Spinach, raw1 cup = 30 grams
Zucchini (Squash, summer, zucchini, includes skin, cooked, boiled, drained, with salt)1 cup slices = 180 grams