Day 03: Meal Planning

Well I took my own advice and created a meal plan for the day -- you can now get your own planner to start using by downloading it from Chapter 10 HERE. I ate what I had at home, because we are on a budget and can't really go shopping for new foods. I also just did all the dishes and I didn't want to do anymore. So that sort of dictated my day. My walk was about 2.5 miles this morning. I feel good and energized.

I spent my day formatting that PDF for your use. If you look at Day 3's meal plan ... you see dinner can be tricky. I know what you're thinking ... Canned Peas ... for dinner. Okay?

Well I have some leftovers in the fridge I'd like to get rid of. I don't want to do any extra cooking right now, so I eat what I have. I've been more creative than this in the past for dinner. Sometimes the easiest way to do a 250-300 calorie dinner, is eating one of the frozen "diet" dinners I mention or sip on a Muscle Milk. Salad works too. The hardest part in the beginning, is getting used to small or light dinners. Most people end their day with a really big meal. However, that's not an option in this plan.

If you are going to end your day big, do it sparingly, no more than once a week. Don't eat light the following morning to compensate, just eat better, and increase your activity and water. 

Good luck and happy new year!

Chapter 10: Royale Meal Planner

The task of writing down everything you eat and drink can be daunting. In addition to logging your foods it becomes even more daunting to have to list all the Nutrition Facts about your food -- well sort of. What you list and what you don't list is COMPLETELY UP TO YOU. There is an easy online source for you to do it at http://www.fatsecret.com, which I found INCREDIBLY useful and easy to do. Plus it can go with you and your mobile devices.

However, if you want to do it the Diet Royale™ way (or as I like to say "The Queen's Way"), I've made you a planner you can easily fill out, save and print out to your heart's content. No membership required. No fees. It's completely free. All you need is a recent version of Acrobat (I think it is compatible with 7 and up), and time to think about what you are going to eat.

Download The Royale Meal Planner PDF here.

It looks something like this.

This is a sample of the planner. This is Day 03. This is not a perfect menu,
but it gives you an idea of how the tables work.

It Doesn't Have To Be Perfect
The sample menu is merely a sample of my Day 03. Word of caution, it doesn't have to be perfect. I found it was virtually impossible to have a perfect day. I tried many different ways to get a perfect day and I think I struck gold once meeting all my Magic Numbers. That was almost 2 years ago, and I don't know if I kept the formula. Plus, I recall it wasn't very satisfying.

You don't want to starve yourself. You don't want to punish yourself because Dinner may be a little bigger than Lunch. Simply do your best. The point is behind the planner is to get you to pay attention to the foods you eat and know how much of each nutritional value you are getting.

You will find it very hard to keep your Carbohydrates (Carbs) levels low, while keeping you Sodium level low too. I found the fewer the Carbs, the higher the Sodium is in some foods. Don't worry about it. Don't fuss over it. Just know it is going to happen. If I had to pick, I would choose lower Sodium.

Do I Have To Plan Every Day?
You can, but you don't have too. I would recommend doing this for a few months, until you have an idea of what to eat and not eat on your own. In 2010, I pretty much kept a daily log. There were days I forgot or days I didn't want to. There were days I was sometimes too busy. However, I found I was more successful about keeping on track if I made a daily meal plan.

A Word About Potassium
Like I mentioned in Chapter 3: The Full House and the Royale Flush™, potassium is often not listed on Nutrition Facts, because it is not required by the FDA for food companies to list it. You are often times going to have to leave this field blank, do some research, or make an educated guess. That is all I can tell you. When I can't find potassium on a food, I sometimes put a standard 50 mgs for most foods that are healthy and organic. Junk food I just leave blank. These are places you can look online to find out how much potassium might be in your food:
http://www.vaughns-1-pagers.com/food/potassium-foods.htm
http://www.healthaliciousness.com/articles/food-sources-of-potassium.php
http://www.drugs.com/cg/potassium-content-of-foods-list.html
http://www.dietandfitnesstoday.com/potassium.php

So take it easy. The Royale Meal Planner is not the end-all-be-all of planners. It is simply a tool you can use to help you on your way. Good luck

Day 01: Nobody's Perfect

Practicingwhat you preach can be hard and hey, nobody's perfect. Day 1 may seem like a bit of a challenge. If you’renot ready to start counting and planning a day in the life of your stomach,then start out small. I haven’t had time to buy new foods, so I looked in ourfridge, freezer and cupboards to determine what I was going to eat today. It isnot a perfect menu, but it did get me started on things to look for. I over didbreakfast by about 300 calories and 700 mg of sodium. No worries, just keep in mind that throughout therest of the day my meals would have to be smaller. You will notice I am not focusing on fat and sugar atthe moment. I will next week. This is just to get me started,

Here’swhat I did for Day 1:

QUEEN MARY'S DAY – The Royale Menu Planner -- Limit 1500 calories
Time	Event	Calories/Sodium/Fiber/Protein/Potassium
4:30 a.m.	Waking:	I am not hungry for 2 hours -- listen to your body!
6:30 a.m.	KING BREAKFAST	6 Nancy’s Petite Quiches 715 cal., 1080 g sod., 3 g fib., 26 g pro., 150 mg pota.
8:30 a.m.	QUEEN SNACK	Almonds 169 cal., 0 g sod., 4 g fib., 7 g pro., 211 mg pota.
10:30 a.m.	PRINCE LUNCH	Tomato Soup & Grilled Cheese 340  cal.,  1364 g sod., 4 g fib., 15 g pro., 488 mg pota.
1:30 a.m.	PRINCESS SNACK	Talente Sorbet 120 cal., 0 g sod., 3 g fib., 0 g pro., 0 mg pota.
4:30 a.m.	PAUPER DINNER	2 cups Steamed Broccoli 60 cal., 60 g sod., 6 g fib., 4 g pro., 556 mg pota.
6:30 a.m.	PEASENT SNACK	Yogurt Drink 70 cal., 40 g sod., 0 g fib., 3 g pro., 135 mg pota.
	Total intake	1474 cal., 2544 g sod., 20 g fib., 55 g pro., 1540 mg pota.
8:30 a.m.	8 hours of Royal Beauty Sleep	A minimum of 8 hours for healthy weight loss.

Mybreakfast, though really good, put my numbers over the top too early and I hadto seriously think before I ate anything after I realized how many calories andsodium I had consumed. All in all total calories were in line, but my sodiumturned out to be really high, and I needed to take 5088 mg of potassium just tobalance 2544 g of sodium. So I was a little short. As you can see, the firstmeal of the day should be the biggest … but try not to make it above 400calories as it will limit what you eat for lunch and dinner. I had to choosebroccoli for dinner, because breakfast and lunch were so big. However this isday 1, which though was a fail, got me to think about planning day 2 better.