I find that there are alot of helpful tools out there to help us count calories, find out how much we should be consuming, how much we burned off by doing activities, how much of it was fat, carbs or vegetables... the list goes on and on. I'm sure we could find a calculator to tell us how many calories we expended walking to the fridge, keeping it open and staring at food if we wanted to. Hell, even the WebMD tool that I posted a few days ago has a calorie count for sex, vigorous sex, etc. It even suggested to me after I had put in my calories that day that if I had vigorous sex for 25 minutes, I could burn some additional calories. Way to look out for my sex life, WebMD!
I have a little different of an approach to calorie counting and diary keeping.
When I started losing weight, I kept very thorough track of what I ate. I had a little notebook, reminiscent of the little ones reporters used back in the day. I kept everything in it. What I ate, what I drank, how many calories were in what, etc.
But you know what the problem is with that? When it comes to eating prepackaged foods, sure its easy to figure out what exactly is in it, calorically. But, when you eat a chicken breast, a baked potato and some broccoli- how do you know the portion size equates out to what you actually consumed? You dont.
Often, people overshoot what they actually eat by saying that they only had one portion of this, or so much of that when in fact the portion size they actually consumed is double. Or, they neglect to look on a package that two or three servings is in something they just had and only count it once.
I try to eat healthy every day. Unfortunately, its hard. There are temptations all around and honestly, its easier to throw a frozen pizza in the oven than it is to make something healthy to eat.
So, my suggestion to you if you are starting out slowly with weight loss is to definitely keep track of what you are eating. If you find you have Doritos or Cheetos several days in a row and half the bag is gone yet you are only calculating one portion, thats definitely a problem if you're wondering how the scale isnt going down. However, if you are finding you are eating fresh, healthy foods with little to no extra calories... Once you get to that point, I dont think its necessary to keep the book.
I "graduated" from keeping my book a while ago. I'm fairly good at guessing about how many calories is in what. BUT, I absolutely do not keep track of veggies or salads. For instance, I had a salad with the fajitas I made the other night. I did not use a tortilla. I used salsa instead of dressing. I counted the chicken and the cheese I put on there, but the rest of it was lettuce, cilantro, onion and bell peppers. I did not count those. Those to me are "free foods". I do the same with all veggies. I personally feel that veggies are good for you so why count how many calories are in them?
You can choose to methodically keep track of what you ate in a harrowing fashion. But, it gets monotonous, time consuming. If it gets to the point where you are just saying, I only have so many calories to eat left for today and you're starving... sometimes that plan goes out the window to keep such methodic track of it. I remember when I first started doing that I had consumed all the calories I was going to eat for the day. I got home from school one night about 8:30 and was absolutely starving, as in I would not wait until tomorrow to eat hungry. So I chose the lesser of two evils. I made myself some scrambled eggs with a piece of eziekel toast. It wasnt that bad for me and you know what? My little book didnt blow up into a fiery ball fueled by gasoline because I added more calories that day.
You can still be cautious of what you eat and how much of it you should eat, but be logical about it. If I find a huge chicken breast and have that and a salad for dinner- to me, its moot to keep track of it. Or, in Friends terms, its, "Moo, you know... like a cows opinion".
Eat healthy, vegetables, lean proteins and see what happens. Most of the weight issues today can be addressed by simply shopping the outside of the grocery store- produce, meat, dairy, instead of looking towards processed dinners like hamburger helper to feed your hunger. And, to be honest, its just as cheap to eat from the outside of the store as it is on the inside if you plan your accordingly.
What's your favorite lean protein? Veggie? Do you have a favorite summertime salad?
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