Where to Start?

When making the choice to live healthier, most of us start with our diet. It usually begins with our inner monologue saying, "Starting tomorrow (insert healthy thought here)." We all know we are lucky if this thought lasts through tomorrow. Instead of swearing off certain "bad" foods or depriving yourself from the foods you love, set realistic achievable goals that can easily be implemented into your lifestyle. The ultimate goal is to live a healthy lifestyle that can be maintained through a balanced diet and frequent exercise. During my weight loss, I was able to eat the foods I wanted but paid close attention to my portion size. Portions at restaurants have become ginormous and this has transferred to home cooked meals. When you factor in appetizer, main course, and dessert, you can leave a restaurant consuming more calories then you should eat in a day. But we expect big portions because we are paying for this food and we want to get our money's worth. Think about fast food eateries. Ask yourself why you ever eat this food. Where does taste rank? Most likely taste ranks third behind convenience and affordability. This is why a good goal to start with is recognizing portion sizes and know how to determine how many calories are in a proper portion. When it comes down to gaining, losing, and maintaining weight, it is all about calories consumed vs. calories burned. Calorie counting can be annoying but it is extremely helpful when you are first starting out. Weight Watchers uses the points system and it is helpful to some people, but, if you know the actual number of calories (not points) you are consuming then when you are out to eat or cooking at home, you will be able to determine how many calories are on your plate. A good (and free) website that helps you determine how many calories per day you are averaging is www.fitday.com. This site will also break down your diet to show you what percentage of carbohydrate, protein, and fat you consume as well as vitamin and mineral breakdown. You can even use it to log your exercise and it will give you a time line to reach your goal based on calories/day and goal weight. Once you have a few days of your journal complete, use the breakdown to determine where/why you are doing well or not. To determine the right amount of calories depends on the person, their goal, and the amount (time and intensity) of exercise. Try www.fitday.com to see where you are at and let me know if you have any questions/comments.