I’ve been getting a lot of questions about weight loss and exercise since embarking on the journey to health and wellness in January. It is now June, which takes me through a full six months of the journey. I’ve slowed down the weight loss (31 pounds to date) for the time being and am maintaining my current weight nicely. I still plan on losing another 10-15 pounds, but figured I’d give myself a break and work the fitness angle a little more intensely.

The first step in the chain of progress was joining Weight Watcher’s after seeing the success one of my closest friends had on the program I decided to give it a whirl. I highly recommend the online version of the Momentum Plan. It has worked well for me seeing as I lack the motivation and general interest in attending local public meetings and it also works well with my Web 2.0 geekery given the set of online tracking tools and their overall performance. I can easily look up various foods, recipes and figure out the points, chart my food intake, activity levels, weight loss & measurements. I wish I had done the measurements early on because I am curious to see how they have changed in the past six months.

As far as diet goes, I’ve learned to modify and balance my eating habits for the most part.

- While I love breakfast food, I’ve never been a big breakfast eater, which always led to snacking throughout the day. I usually have something from the grain family whether it be a fat free or low fat muffin, cereal bar, granola bar etc. Weight Watcher’s has delicious Blueberry and Double Chocolate Muffins. I really like the Special K Strawberry Cereal Bars. If you happen to live near a Genuardi’s, they carry a brand called Eating Right and they have awesome Cranberry Citrus Bars. Kashi also makes a yummy pumpkin pie granola bar. Odwalla makes some decent “superfood” bars, which are quite tasty and replete with omega fatty acids and are all natural.

- I had never been a big fan of diet soda and always loved my dark carbonated beverages like Dr. Pepper. I still limit my intake, because I don’t want to overdo it on aspartame. I wish more sodas would be made with Splenda or other natural sweeteners. For the most part, I drink Coke Zero (or Cherry Coke Zero). I like other diet sodas now Diet Sunkist, Diet Dr. Pepper and Diet Pepsi, however Diet Coke is just gross. I also drink about 2-4 cups of tea per day. I tend to prefer herbal blends, florals and fruity ones. Other than that I drink a lot of water. Thank the foods gods and goddesses for Crystal Light on the go packets. I was also happy to see that Ocean Spray makes some on the go packets as well. I really love the White-Cran-Peach. If you can find them the Mixed Berry Water Sensations are pretty good. The grape one is okay, but the lemon and orange ones are surprisingly gross.

- The next big food modification was bringing my lunch to work. I realized I had fooled myself into thinking I was eating relatively healthy getting fresh sandwiches, salads and whatnot from local eateries and the cafeteria at work. I love Italian Hoagies, but for all intents and purposes I may well have been scrafing down a McDonald’s Big Mac and French Fries. There really isn’t much difference when you breal down the caloric intake and fat content. That is setting aside processed foods versus unprocessed foods. Granted I have slipped a little bit away from the organic/natural foods in the process, but losing weight came first. Anyways, normally I pick up something I can easily reheat in the microwave, which tend to be frozen lunches from Smart Ones, Eating Right, Lean Cuisine or Healthy Choice. I tend to balance out the lunch with random combination’s fresh fruit, yogurt, cottage cheese with pineapples, rice cakes, dried fruit, carrots, rice cakes, pretzel sticks and some sort of low fat dessert. Weight Watcher’s desserts are awesome. I love their cookies and cakes. Also, No Pudge brand makes an awesome fat free organic brownie mix. You just add fat free yogurt instead of eggs, oil and water.

- While on the subject of work. I have a desk drawer totally dedicated to healthy snacks. I highly recommend this because it prevents me from heading down to a vending machine and getting unhealthy stuff. I usually keep the kind of stuff I would crave that would also be filling. So I have an array of 100 calorie snack packs and candy, the aforementioned granola and cereal bars, raisins, and sometimes rice cakes.

- Vitamins are also helpful. I usually stick to a regiment during the week, sometimes I forget though. I find having a healthy dose of vitamins reduces the appetite and gives you energy. In general I take, a multivitamin, Vitamin D, Vitamin C (sometimes I up the dosage with Emergen-C if I am under the weather), Fish Oil, Flax Seed Oil and Alphalipoic Acid (its good for hair and nails). I only take Iron as needed, same with things like Ginseng, Mothers Wort and some dietary aids.

- I used to be really bad about making dinner and would almost always stop and pick something up along the way (or having Tim do so) thus falling into the same patten I did with lunch. I tend to be somewhat lazy when it comes to cooking after working 9-5 and commuting. I’ve learned to keep things on hand that can be combined and prepared quickly and easily. The George Foreman Grill is your friend. I prepare most of my meats on it unless for some reason they need to be baked another way. I find having various marinades and sauces on hand to be an easy solution and most (when used in correct proportions are not bad at all calorie/fat wise. Sometimes I cheat and make a frozen pizza or something from my lunch stache. I’m not a big fan of frozen food, but I have grown to love frozen french fries. Normal french fries are pretty unhealthy given the whole fried in oil scenario, but baked french fries are less than half the amount of points for a decent sized serving.

Stay Tuned for the Fitness & Exercise Installment….