3 Months to Habitual Health

I just wanted to give some tips on what I do to make these two challenges a little easier to achieve.

Why 6 meals a day? So your metabolism doesn't stop! You'll burn calories more efficiently and throughout the day this way.

My meal plan based on a 1,000 cal a day diet is:

Breakfast: 275 cal
Snack: 100 cal
Lunch: 150 cal
Snack: 100 cal
Dinner: 275 cal
Snack: 100 cal

I eat every 2.5 to 3 hours. No, it doesn't matter what time of day you start and end. Eating right before bed doesn't mean you won't burn the calories like normal, so don't worry about that. Likewise, it's important to have your first meal within an hour of waking up to get your metabolism up and going.

I personally feel (and have read a lot) that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. It's my personal preference (and it might end up being yours) to get in most of my daily fiber during this meal. I will typically eat Fiber One cereal (my favorite is the honey clusters type), and either a piece of whole wheat toast, a peach, or half a banana. The cereal contains 12 grams of fiber per serving, which is about half of what I need daily. If I have a piece of toast with it, that's 3 more grams of fiber. So in one meal, I've already taken in over half of my daily fiber. If I get bored of cereal I have Quaker Oatmeal with added fiber (8 grams of fiber per serving).

Past that, my meals usually make up for the rest of the fiber without my even having to account for it. I just always make sure to have fruit and veggies throughout the day. And spinach salads are great too and extremely low calorie. So for lunch I might have a turkey sandwich. I use 2 slices low cal whole wheat bread (45 cal a slice, 3 grams of fiber a slice), a serving size of turkey (for the kind I buy it's 50 cal for 6 slices), then whatever veg I want... sliced cucumber and tomato, sprouts, spinach. I use mustard as my spread.

My dinners are usually anything goes as long as it's low-fat and 275 cal or less. I've found so many good, tasty recipes out there. I always combine my main dish with whatever non-starchy veggies I want. My favorites are broccoli and zuchini. If not a veg, I'll have a side salad with low-cal dressing. You can always have a little rice too, brown, preferably.

Like I said, snacks during the day are always salads or fruit. For my last snack of the day I usually like to have something sweet. I'll eat low cal popsicles or Special K bars. I don't go overboard with the amount of sugar in this snack.

Hope this info was useful.