Intro & Backstory

Intro & Backstory:

Hi there and welcome to What Amy Ate Today!  Over the course of the last 10+ years I have lost over 40 pounds in a slow moving, but ongoing quest to be more healthy, more energized, and yes, drop a couple pant sizes.   I dropped the weight slowly as I made little changes to my eating habits, but then I made a couple more tweaks and lost another 7 pounds in two months.  So of course lots of friends noticed and asked me how I did it.  This blog is my long-winded answer to that question.

If you want the short answer it is this:  eat healthier: lots of veggies, like really LOTS of veggies, and fruits and lean meats and good fats and all the things you already know you should be doing every day like eating breakfast, switching to whole grains, get rid of that terrible soda! etc.   The forthcoming long-winded answer will attempt to provide some easy hands-on ideas, recipes, tips, and even possibly some warnings (like when you lose weight, your boobs shrink!), alongside the obvious run down of “What Amy Ate Today” to give the concrete answer to the question lots of my friends have been asking me: “How have you lost so much weight?” 

This is not a diet to follow.  This is nothing more than a normal woman’s account of her quest to find a solid balance in leading a happy and healthy life, first for herself, but also for her family as well, by simply changing some of her eating habits.

Blog Goals: 

Share information with other people who are like me (normal!) in hopes to help them live a longer, healthier, more energized, and possibly thinner, happier life.   For me it is just about making one teeny tiny change at a time, at my own pace and letting my own results motivate me.  I LOVE food and I LOVE eating.  I could eat all day long, I promise you.  But I have figured out how to eat in such a way that I am never hungry and able to maintain my weight and enjoy treats occasionally too.   I have not found anything that tastes or feels better than being healthy, energized, and lighter on my feet!  Not even glazed doughnuts, not even french fries.  

But yes I do eat doughnuts and french fries sometimes! I don’t believe in deprivation or going hungry or skipping meals EVER, and no food is off limits.  For me, it is just about deciding how much of something I should have and how often I should have it.  The changes and tweaks I make are absorbed into the daily grind of normal life so I only make changes that I can live with and are easy to maintain.

Credentials: 

I have none!  Yes, I am not a nutritionist, though I wish I was!  Everything I know about food and healthy eating has been gathered during ten years working in the restaurant industry (5 years with high end Mediterranean cuisine) and a lifetime of tirelessly reading current periodicals such as:  Cooking light, Nutrition Action, Food Network magazine, Women’s Day, Real Simple, Family Circle, Whole Living, etc.  I was also influenced by books such as Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation and Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.  And before I had children I enjoyed many hours of watching the Food Network shows and all the excellent cooking shows on PBS (I still try to squeeze some of those in on Saturday afternoons when we are home!)   

I have never followed a ‘real’ diet of any kind for more than one day.  I’d say that is due to poor willpower and a complete refusal to count calories, but also the fact that diets just don’t work.  You are deprived in one way or another and then you just gain all the weight back after you return to your ‘normal’ life.  I have watched many friends and family members go through this weight gain/ weight loss/ weigh gain diet roller coaster and I imagine it is self-defeating and frustrating and could easily leave a person with a sense of hopelessness.  And that really just stinks.  

OK, this has already been too many words – now on to “What Amy Ate Today"!!