You know you need to eat better

“You know you need to eat better. Here's how the cold turkey fits in.”

Loosing weight is one thing, but chucking all of your bad eating habits in one fell swoop may be a little unnerving. Start by making just a couple of replacements. Write down what you typically eat for one week and portion size (example: 1 cup mac n cheese, ¼ c green beans with 1 t butter, 1 fried BBQ chicken leg, 8 oz 2% milk). Now, write down how many calories for each item. It's a good education to know how many calories are in the foods you eat. Look at each item and see what is costing you the most calories. Now, come up with solutions. Can you replace a higher calorie item (fried chicken leg) for something with fewer calories (4 oz of chicken breast with skin removed with BBQ sauce on the side)? Can you eat half as much (1/2 c mac n' cheese) and can you substitute a lower calorie type (8 oz of 1% or skim milk for the 2% version)? Just making a few tweaks to your diet can save you hundreds of calories a day, which translates to pounds lost. Continue making changes to move toward a healthier diet over time. You won't need to go cold turkey, you just need to add it to your new healthy diet.