What I Ate to Lose 20 lbs

This post is inspired by the very lovely and beautiful, Running Rachel  – She  asked me what I ate to lose the 20lbs that I’ve lost this year. Truthfully I didn’t do anything fancy schmancy – no fad diets or anything, instead I made it a personal challenge EVERY day to reach 5 servings of lean protein and 7-8 servings of fruits n veggies. I don’t believe in DENYING myself things, instead I CHALLENGE myself.  I found by doing this it was, dare I say it, fun!

To illustrate to you the food choices that I made, I’ve gone through my iphone pics and found all of the pics I’ve taken of the meals that I’ve prepared and eaten this year – think of this as a visual SAMPLE of what I ate:

Breakfast

I start every day I start with a coffee (double cream double sugar), followed by a breakfast high in protein, either a Strawberry/Banana/Spinach Protein Smoothie  that my kids fight to make for me:

 or a bowl of cereal with fruit:

I then typically have a second coffee while we’re out and about:

Lunch

I rarely eat a mid morning snack, but will have a glass of water (or two) mid morning.  For lunch I try to find a meal high in protein, and then have some veggies with it.  Things like a chicken breast and a spinach salad with strawberries, or a can of tuna salad with some cucumber slices and carrots:

I gotta admit, the hardest thing for me to give up was soda (pop, Coke or whatever you want to call it).  I really LOVE the feel of the bubbles on my tongue, so I started drinking flavoured carbonated water:

Snacks

Lunch to dinner is a LONG time so I carefully plan HEALTHY snacks. Snacks that once again, combine a protein with a fruit or a veggie.  If I didn’t I’d make poor choices (think taking the kids to the store for “treats”).  Some of my favourites are:

Dinner

This is typically my least “healthy” meal of the day.  I generally consume the most calories at dinner because this is the ONE meal where I eat the exact same thing as the kids and hubby.  Because I  make  bribe the kids to eat fruits n veggies all day, this is our “fun” meal of the day.  Tonight we had chicke burgers, baked french fries (gasp!) and steamed broccoli.  Below are some of my other dinner choices:

Bedtime Snack

Usually looks a lot like this:

Question/Sharing: What are YOU favourite things to eat?