Welcome back to Her Campus Iowa, Collegiettes! I hope everyone had a great winter break spending time with family, binging on Netflix, and eating whatever your heart desired. We have now entered 2016, and with the new year comes New Year’s resolutions.
The most popular resolutions revolve around a common interest: weight loss. These resolutions are also some of the most commonly broken ones. I believe everyone is beautiful no matter how they look, but ultimately it’s up to you on how you feel and if you’re comfortable with how you look. Only you are allowed to judge yourself. While you can feel productive in January, come February some people fall into a slump, and that may be due to setting unrealistic goals and expectations.
I’ve never really been one for resolutions because I’m always making claims that never follow through the next day, so why would a month or year make a difference? The two “resolutions” I can remember setting for myself was trying to straighten my posture because of growing back problem and joining a gym so that I would have a place to run in the winter (yes I do run) because running in the cold isn’t that comfortable, and I converted to elliptical workouts, which kind of replicates running outdoors. Those definitely failed for me since I started working two jobs when I was back at home and started school with a rec center, so there was no need for me to go to my gym and the fees kept adding up. And the posture thing I try to remember, but usually forget until I look like the Hunchback of Notre Dame. However for the sake of experimenting and brilliant ideas, I decided to eat the suggested serving size for a week.
What is a serving size you ask? Does such a thing exist? Serving size is an amount of a food or drink that is recommended to be served. For example, a suggested serving size of Cheetos is 21 pieces, but in reality, does anyone really count out how many pieces they’re going to eat? The recommended size, which is listed on the “Nutrition Facts” label, (that fun thing you like to read when you’re eating and don’t know where your phone is) is usually what the calorie count is equal to. 21 pieces of Cheetos is equivalent to 160 calories, and there are roughly 16 servings in a party-size bag. So image you’re binging on Netflix with a snack and you eat more than one serving size of Cheetos, that’s more than 160 calories and more realistic situation than counting out 21 pieces.
I set my time frame to one week. I could only eat one serving of one thing a day and drink two liters of water a day. And I tried to have three meals a day, which isn’t something I regularly do because I opt out of breakfast for sleep and go hours without eating either lunch or dinner. So my eating habits were out of wack already, and it’s bad to skip breakfast because it is the most important meal of the day and can be a key to weight loss. The water drinking took some getting use to because I was drinking more than I usually do. By drinking water after you wake up and before you eat has shown that you can actually fire up your metabolism and makes you feel full faster. I tried my best to eat three times a day, but I’m so used to eating one. I also didn’t eat out due to the fact restaurants tend to over serve and have bigger portions, so I said goodbye to B-Bops and Hy-Chi for the week. While tedious, I measured everything thanks to the help of this portion chart and nutrition labels. These are the stories…
Sunday
Breakfast: I started by drinking parts of my two liters of water.
Dinner: Due to working all day, I had a snack before going to bed, which consisted of holiday candy (1/4 cup of peanut M&Ms and five mini Kit Kat bars, of which I only had two) and 21 pieces of crunchy Cheetos.
Monday
Breakfast: One cup of orange juice and one medium sized Banana
Dinner: One brat, one brat bun, 11 pieces of Ruffles, three Ferrero Rochers (I usually only eat one) and one orange (My mom and I do this ritually every time we have dinner)
Tuesday
Breakfast: I’m still counting my water as breakfast
Lunch: one pork chop (Mom’s sauce marinade), 1/4 c of jasmine rice, one tbsp of soy sauce (recommended for condiments is 2 tbsp but that’s a lot of soy sauce = salt) and 12 oz (1.5 c) of Peach Tea
Dinner: One 12 fl oz mini Coca Cola, water, a handful size of rice noodles with three shrimps (suggested is 7 for medium shrimp) and my nightly orange
Wednesday
Lunch: one slice of pepperoni pizza
Dinner: one chicken quesadilla (one CORN tortilla, two tbsp of chicken fajita mix and only 1/4 c of cheese since it was so small, but suggested is 1/3 c)
Thursday (New Year’s Eve)
Lunch: one cup of orange juice and one slice of bread with 2 tbsp of peanut butter (about a spoonful)
Dinner: 6 pieces of Captain Crunch roll, a dab of wasabi (suggested is 1 tsp, which is the pieces pictured, but I only used 1/4 of that) and two tbsp low sodium soy sauce.
Friday (Day of Rose Bowl)
Breakfast: One c of OJ and half an orange.
Lunch: one chicken quesadilla (with one flour tortilla, two tbsp of chicken fajitas and about 1/3 c of cheese this time.)
Saturday
Breakfast: water and one cup of Gatorade.
Dinner: one Brat, no bun, 11 pieces of Ruffles and one orange.
I started off very hungry after eating, but after a while your body adapts, and you don’t feel so hungry. A nice tip is to drink water anytime you “feel” hungry because your brain might be confusing it for thirst. This really helps give your stomach a fuller feeling. I saw differences in some weight loss, hair growth, and my skin is still feeling smooth after drinking so much water and using a facemask. However, if you feel like eating two serving sizes of chips because that’s what normal people would usually do, then do it! The FDA has been facing criticism to force nutrition label to have more realistic serving sizes. However, I recommended drinking the serving size of water, which depends on the size of the person, but is usually eight glasses, which is equivalent to three .75ml or two 1L CamelBak. You can use this chart to help determine some serving sizes or look at portion sizes here. Make the right choices…#BlessUp