Your Weight Loss Transformation: The Calories Weigh In!

As I mentioned in my previous post, when trying to lose weight women should be consuming between 1200-1400 calories per day. But where do these calories come from? The calories come from the 5 servings from the bread group, 4 servings from the meat/protein group, 2 servings from the milk group, 2-3 servings from the fruit group and 3 servings from the fats, oils and sweets group. Remember that you can eat as many veggies as you want as long as they are not the ones that fall into the bread group because they are high in starch.

Each serving from the various food groups has a calorie value associated with it.

(B)reads: 90-100 per serving. A serving is 1 slice of regular bread or 2 slices of Weight Watchers or Hollywood bread, 1/2 cup cooked of either pasta or rice, 3/4 cup to 1 1/4 cup of cereal (depending on the brand), half a pita, half a big tortilla wrap, half a cup of corn, one medium-sized potato, half a cup of peas. Look on labels of various foods to educate yourself about serving size.

(P)rotein/Meat: 60-70 calories per serving: Read the labels for serving size and adjust your portions according to the calorie count. For example: 1 cup of cottage cheese may have 100 calories as the serving size. You should only be consuming 60-70 calories so scale back your portion to 3/4 cup. Please also remember that cheeses, cream cheese, peanut butter and cottage cheese fall under this category and not the milk group because there is enough protein in them to justify them as protein. For meats, please choose the lean meats such as chicken, turkey, lean group beef and pork. Please also note that fish (except for salmon and mackerel) is a good choice because you can have 2 ounces of fish for every ounce of meat. Each serving of meat is 1 ounce.

(M)ilk: 90-110 calories per serving. Low fat milk (skim or 1%), low fat or fat-free yogurt. My personal favorite for the yogurt is Dannon Silhouette. It has 40 calories per each container so I can have two containers of it. It is filling and tastes great.

(Fr)uit: 60 calories per serving: Please check my previous post for a list of fruits. Please eat fresh fruit whenever possible as dry fruits such as raisins, apricots and any other dried fruits are very high in sugar.

(F)ats, oils and sweets: 10 calories per serving. A serving is usually a tablespoon of low fat butter or margarine, low fat salad dressing, low fat or fat-free mayo, vegetable or olive oil. Please be careful with this because if you cook or fry with oils, the oil you put into your frying pan counts as a fat or even two depending on how much you use. HINT: Use nonstick cooking spray whenever possible.

(V)eggies: You can eat these freely. Eat as much as you want. Carrot and celery sticks are an awesome snack. Salsa also falls into this category so use salsa on top of your baked potato and to add flavor to sauces and soups.

PLEASE NOTE THAT CHIPS AND SALSA DO NOT QUALIFY AS EATING BREAD AND VEGETABLES:)

Tomorrow we start with the menu planner and where the weight loss transformation begins. Remember to set realistic goals, celebrate the smallest victories and share your victories with others.