Hi everyone,
I’ve been asked a lot about my weight-loss and PKU diet, so I decided to write another post about it.
First of all – you can all achieve it – if you WANT to and if you DECIDE to change your daily eating habits. It’s nothing mysterious about it. It’s all about things we already know. Boring, really 😉
Stop eating when you’re full. Find a sport you like and practise it regularly (which doesn’t mean once a month 😉 Weekly should be your aim. And the most difficult part of all is the part of changing and then keeping (the new) eating habits.
It was really hard in the begining – it started all with a dinner I had with my friend at the Chinese restaurant. We talked about food and our weight and we were both unhappy. We decided to start the project weight-loss together and to motivate each other and to support each other when it would get difficult.
The spark of this evening converted into a flame – it worked for me, I was so motivated that I pulled through and though I’m eating now my full calorie capacity each day, I’m still aware of eating healthy and to have sweets only as nice side effect and not more than a certain amount (I still use to orientate on calories I try not to exceed 300 calories for sweets per day). Unfortunately, my friend, with whom I made all those plans, couldn’t get into it like I did. What I want to say is that it’s all about converting the spark into a flame – then you’ll succeed.
It’s not true that you have to banish unhealthy food to lose weight. I’m addicted to chips and salty snacks and I allowed myself always some snacks – but I weighted them and I had never more than those 200 kcal per day. I really looked forward to this “pampering” (I kept it for the evenings) and it motivated me, to be strict for the day, so I could allow myself this spoiling in the evening.
A typical diet day looked like this:
Breakfast
Fruit smoothie or fruits
Lunch
low protein bread (I decided to use only jam, without butter and of course only a bit, it’s all about the quantity)
Dinner
mostly vegetables with a sauce or low protein noodles or rice, too (also being aware of the quantity..)
Of course, I hadn’t eaten the same every day, it’s especially import for us to have a variety, since our formulas do provide a lot of necessary proteins and vitamins, but we’re supposed to eat healthy and have variety to ensure a good maintenance. AND it’s also very important to take in the formula REGULARLY. And don’t underestimate the calorie intake we have for the formula – find out what is yours and build your weight loss diet around it. I chose the lowest calorie formula I could find (I take those tablets from Milupa), they represent 200 kcal per day. So I allowed myself to have up to 1.400 kcal a day but never less than 1.000 kcal. You do need calories and it’s not clever to lose too much weight in a short time – most likely you will gain the lost weight faster than you’ll know and secondly it’s absolutely not healthy for your body (AND: since during every weight loss process your Phe levels will raise, you shouldn’t be so strict either, in order to keep the levels as low as possible,too)
So for starting, find out what your daily calorie intake is (if you can consult your diet consultant or your doctor, this would be best, otherwise try to find out on the internet, you will have to enter your weight, size and your acivity level, someone working in an office won’t need as many calories as someone who is busy walking all day…
Make a plan. What can you banish easily from your daily diet plan? What do you want to keep? I decided that I could skip easily normal, bread-based breakfast for healthy variants with smoothies or fruits. Maybe for you it’s the right thing to do, to have a good breakfast and skip lunch with a smoothie or fruits. You’ll have to find out yourself what works best for you.
Keep a eating diary (if you’re not doing already for PKU).
Make sure to controll your Phe levels during the dieting even more often if you can. You need to have an overview how your body reacts on the weight loss. In my case, I couldn’t see a much higher phe level. It was moderate.
Don’t get overeager. You need regularly meals and your formula.
Last but not least: Do sports. Maybe you can build it in your daily life – could you go to work walking or by bike? Could you use the stairs more often? Maybe you can meet your friends up for a team play volleyball or anything you like. Have regular walks. Go to the gym or dancing. Whatever you like and keeps you moving is good.
I also got a savings box which I filled for every kilogramm I lost. Maybe you could also make a deal 😉 with your partner. My financé also put in some money for every kilogramm. And it was a nice amount in the end and I pampered myself with a nice bikini. 🙂
Well, I hope this was interesting and motivation for all those who want to lose a little weight.
One good point at the end: I used to drink lemonade often and I really was aware of drinking light products as there is phe in it. But when I did some research I found out that actually the Pepsi and Coke lemonades DON’T have that much phe in it. For Coke Zero (over here, please check again for your country!) it’s only 7mg / 100 ml and I decided I could easily have 21mg phe per day less and save 150 calories for that!
Good luck everyone – and let me know, how your little project is going!!!
Love,
Katie xxx
PS: Good to know, that once you’ve succeeded in pulling through diet for one or two weeks, it’s going pretty easy, since you’re proud of what you’ve already reached and you’ll soon notice a change in your eating habits and you won’t long that much for “crap” 😉 than before.
PPS: If you made some other experience or you can share some tips for those who want to lose some weight, please tell us below 🙂
thepkutreasurechest 