Healthy Diet

Your sitting there trying relax and read a book when all of a sudden your stomach signals to you that your hungry. Instead of the words on the pages your mind is now focused on eating a piece of cake or two or three. Or maybe your mind is telling you to polish off that last half of the large bags of potato chips you have in the snack cupboard. Now the wanting of junk food is all consuming and you need to eat. Now! If you have never experienced that count your self as lucky.

I am currently on the atypical anti-psychotic Olanzapine (generic Zyprexa). This drug has been a miracle worker in regards to sleep and the psychosis that is a part of my illness. The only draw back is that it makes me hungry, and not just hungry for food in general. It makes me crave foods that are sweet or loaded with carbohydrates. Yep thanks to Olanzapine my brain is constantly screaming for cookies, chips and other wondrously fattening and unhealthy food.

I'm not gonna lie, it is a struggle not give into the cravings. Hell I'll be honest while I was typing this up I just had to eat a candy bar that had a whopping 350 calories. This shit is that real in regards to appetite increase, even the mere mention of junk food sets my mind into a frenzy. It screams find some thing loaded with calories and carbohydrates and eat it all. But like I said it also works for what it was intended for and it far less sedating compared to Quetiapine (generic Seroquel) So how can one combat this issue? Will power and diet.

I am attempting to keep my diet in check and healthy. I have been tracking my calorie and carbohydrate intake using this handy online tool that can be found here. It has almost become an obsession of sorts. I like this tool because it also allows me to track my daily water intake, something that is very important when you are taking psychiatric medications. It also has an exercise and daily activity counter. This gives me the chance to see how much calories I might be burning while doing not only my daily exercise routine but also my daily cleaning. I stress the might be part only because the medication may actually effect how I burn calories. That is why eating a healthy diet is so important. This site is very easy to use, and being able to see everything real time and how many more calories I can ingest make planning meals and snacks so much easier. So if like me you wish to eat healthier is attempts to stave off the weight gain associated with medication I suggest you find an app that fits your needs as use it. Here are some general tips for help with maintaining a healthy diet.

1. Before starting any new diet seek the advice of your Dr. He/she may be able to direct you as to what type of dietary changes you need. That means telling the truth about what you eat.

There are a few simple things that anyone can do though. First is cut out all soda from your diet and replace with water. Soda has more calories than most people know and it is also filled with sugar and over a period of time constant consumption of soda can actually cause the body to become dehydrated. Water on the other hand has nearly 0 calories and will help with hydration of the body which is very important if you take certain medications, lithium being the biggie. Just by making that switch you can easily cut out 200-300 calories a day. The same holds true for sports drinks and energy drinks, replace those fuckers with a glass of water.

2. Eat healthy snacks. Get the junk food out of the house. You can't eat it if you don't have it. I try to go for raw veggies such as celery, carrot, cucumbers, broccoli, cauliflower, and green peppers. All of those are low in calories and are full of vitamins. Some fruits are great snacks too, although some are higher in calories than others so it is better to research it. If you need to more flavor added try dipping fresh veggies in hummus (which on average has 50 calories per serving) or peanut butter. Yes I know, peanut butter is chocked full of calories, but is also has protein which our bodies need for energy.

Carbohydrates are the biggest offenders when it comes to having an unhealthy diet. Carbs effect not only sugar levels but also are converted into fat. Try to switch out high carb foods to lower carb high protein healthier foods. Your Dr should be able to give you some ideas based off of your current food and taste preferences.

3. Switching to a healthy diet should be done slowly not over night. Give our body and mind a chance to adjust, in the mean time pick up the pace with physical activity if you can to help you burn unwanted calories. Also allow yourself treats now and again just not on a regular basis.

4. DO NOT SKIP MEALS. Yes I screamed that. This is very very important. By skipping meals and starving yourself you actually run the risk of over eating. Starvation can also slow down your metabolism so do not attempt to even try this.

5. If you do find that the hunger between meals is unbearable, you could try two things. The first is higher protein and fiber meals. This should make you feel full longer. If that doesn't work try eating 6 smaller meals a day instead of three. For me I find that three meals and two snacks leave me feeling fuller. Just make sure that all combined meals do not exceed your target daily calorie intake.

I am currently in the process of switching my diet out. I don't really have a diet plan in place in regards to calorie content per meal and snacks. Although through some research and talking it over with my DR I am starting to get a better idea. The main difficulty that I have encountered is that I am not trying lose weight I am trying keep my current weight, give or take a pound. So it is possible that I will need to adjust my plan in the future. For now I am holding steady at 119 lbs.

A few changes that I have made is that I normally I eat oatmeal (150 calories) fruit (roughly 45 calories) and two pieces of toast (75 calories each) for breakfast But I intend to switch it out occasionally for things such as fried egg whites (16 calories per egg white) a slice of toast (75 calories) and fruit (roughly 45 calories) I should be able to shave off an 118 calories on those days. On the days that I do have oatmeal for breakfasts it from now on only consist of oatmeal and fruit.

Another thing I am working on is lowering the amount of sugar that I add to my morning coffee. Plain 8 fl oz coffee itself has 1 calorie while plain tea has 2 calories. Adding extras to them can easily bring them up into the 70 calorie range. I like my coffee black so I do have to worry about the added calories of creamer/half and Half/milk it is the four teaspoons of sugar that packing on the calories. If this doesn't work out I will be switching to tea which I don't really sweeten.

My goal is to have three meals in place and two snacks. The two snacks will have no more than 175 calories each. This should give me wiggle room as I spread out the rest of my daily calorie intake, which I calculated should be 1500, to spread out between breakfast, lunch and dinner. If I start losing weight I will increase my calories as currently I am at a healthy weight. I just figured I would start out with a total calorie intake of 1500. As for carbs, I would like to see myself somewhere in the 80 gram range. Yes that is half of daily recommended amount, but Olanzapine can mess with metabolism and I was told to cut back on carbs just in case. I will be watching my protein intake closely to make sure that I do hit the daily targeted amount.

I would like to start a weekly post where not only I but also my readers can share their healthy lifestyle changes. This post will be called Healthy Thursday. You can share dietary changes, new exercises, stress reduction techniques or just general things that you have changed in your life that has a positive impact.