Is it good to count calories? I don't think it is absolutely necessary, but I do find it useful. Keeping calories consistent can be beneficial for our bodies.
When I first started going to the gym back in 2005 I wanted to lose weight badly. I felt like I knew a lot about eating healthy. I didn't keep track of anything. I just kept a checklist going in my head. Choosing portions that looked right and keeping starchy carbs to a minimum. I substituted sweet potatoes where I used to eat white potatoes. My consciousness about the food I ate rose considerably. Unfortunately, the number of pounds that I lost in those first couple of months were very disappointing to me. The scale wasn't moving at all. The weight was not coming off of me. My trainer asked me to write down everything I ate over the next couple of days so he could determine if I was doing something wrong. I didn't see the point. My choices were all good choices and my fat intake was at an all time low. At least I could get his opinion. Over the next couple of days, I logged all of my food with approximate portion sizes. I didn't weigh or measure a thing. Well I couldn't believe it. It may have only been a coincidence but didn't my weight start to drop at that exact same time I began to keep track. My trainer looked over my choices and couldn't find fault with what I was eating.
The results I continued to have over the next couple of months were very fulfilling and I was reaching all of the goals. Even though I had stopped logging my food after only a week. Because I had stopped counting calories I never considered it to be advantageous.
Several months passed and I continued to be pleased with my progress. It was then that a friend suggested a program to me for keeping track of calories. He told me that it was very simple to use. There was a log for both food and activity. It sounded too good to be true as far as diets go. I decided to give it a try,just to see what it was like. The program's name is Diet Power.
Right from the start I was impressed with how easy to use it was. I could record my weight every morning. Its' food and exercise database is quite extensive which made it easy to find a close proximity for all my choices. The program gives a rating to you for how well you are doing. I haven't really figured out how it does that and what criteria the rating is based on. It inspires me none the less. What I found so interesting about this program was the way it made me more accountable to myself. Causing me to make the best informed choices.
Calorie counting may not be for everyone. Then again it may show you a whole new way to appreciate why it makes good sense to make wise choices. If you are on a good eating plan and always eat whole foods you won't have any weight issues. Even then you may like experimenting a little with something new. These new programs can add a little fun to becoming calorie wise.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Staying Motivated
It's just one of those days. We are warm under our covers and are coming up with tons of excuses to stay in bed. Doing nothing seems like such a good idea. What can be done to keep us from falling into a slump?
Every day is worthwhile! It is important that we do not lose our enthusiasm about each day. Stop thinking tomorrow or later. Grab hold of the day, for it truly is a gift. One that does not unfold unless we embrace it. When we do, we will see that there are plenty of simple reasons to enjoy the day. Components in life that don't cost a thing. All we have to do, is be out there and receive them. The best things in life are truly free.
Just a few things to look forward to...
Believing in ourselves and our limitless potential is needed to thrive. We are deserving of all the good, that life has to offer. Let us embrace this day and everyday and springboard ourselves out of bed. We are alive and great.
Every day is worthwhile! It is important that we do not lose our enthusiasm about each day. Stop thinking tomorrow or later. Grab hold of the day, for it truly is a gift. One that does not unfold unless we embrace it. When we do, we will see that there are plenty of simple reasons to enjoy the day. Components in life that don't cost a thing. All we have to do, is be out there and receive them. The best things in life are truly free.
Just a few things to look forward to...
- a day that we have prepaid at our gym
- food in the fridge
- sunshine outside
- fresh air
- seeing other people
- someone might make us laugh
- someone might make us cry
- someone might cause us to feel compassion
- we could find some money
- we could burn some calories
- we could solve a mystery
- we could be reminded of something we forgot
- embracing all feeling
- forgetting life's difficulties
- we could learn that there is nothing to be afraid of , but the fear itself
- embrace the laughter and the tears
Believing in ourselves and our limitless potential is needed to thrive. We are deserving of all the good, that life has to offer. Let us embrace this day and everyday and springboard ourselves out of bed. We are alive and great.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Is it time to say Good-bye to Dairy?
Dairy has played a big part in my eating program. It is rare that a day goes by without me eating a moderate amount. My daily protein intake is enhanced greatly by all the yogurt that I eat. I enjoy the flavor and the benefits.
Milk, yogurt and cheese are my top choices. I do pay very close attention to the fat content though. Dairy products may contain high amounts of fat. Lucky for us there are fat free and low fat alternatives for all of them. Some are not very tasty and others taste quite good. The nutrients remain intact in the fat free versions.
Calcium appears to be the number one reason dairy is a recommended part of a healthy diet. Dairy is also a good source of iodine as well as vitamin D and K and B12 and riboflavin. We then must assume that our body can absorb all the minerals and vitamins and reap their benefits. That, as well as it being a good source of protein makes low fat dairy a good choice in my books.
Some individuals have some problem digesting the milk protein, casein. In those cases it would be best to avoid it altogether. RAW foodies seem to believe this intolerance is do to the lack of natural enzymes in our milk. The dairy that we buy goes through a sterilizing process before packaging called pasteurization. This kills all the harmful germs and bacteria that can make us sick or worse. It is correct that the good digestive enzymes are also destroyed. Usually I like to stay away from processed foods. This is one modification that I agree is very necessary. I still think it is better to be safe and avoid the possibility of getting sick.
The Canadian and American food guides all recommend dairy. It is considered an essential part of our daily diet. Do I think it is essential? .....Probably not. We could live a long healthy life without it. I just wouldn't want to. It tastes great and is very satisfying. The energy I get from it is very sustainable.
Milk, yogurt and cheese are my top choices. I do pay very close attention to the fat content though. Dairy products may contain high amounts of fat. Lucky for us there are fat free and low fat alternatives for all of them. Some are not very tasty and others taste quite good. The nutrients remain intact in the fat free versions.
Calcium appears to be the number one reason dairy is a recommended part of a healthy diet. Dairy is also a good source of iodine as well as vitamin D and K and B12 and riboflavin. We then must assume that our body can absorb all the minerals and vitamins and reap their benefits. That, as well as it being a good source of protein makes low fat dairy a good choice in my books.
Some individuals have some problem digesting the milk protein, casein. In those cases it would be best to avoid it altogether. RAW foodies seem to believe this intolerance is do to the lack of natural enzymes in our milk. The dairy that we buy goes through a sterilizing process before packaging called pasteurization. This kills all the harmful germs and bacteria that can make us sick or worse. It is correct that the good digestive enzymes are also destroyed. Usually I like to stay away from processed foods. This is one modification that I agree is very necessary. I still think it is better to be safe and avoid the possibility of getting sick.
The Canadian and American food guides all recommend dairy. It is considered an essential part of our daily diet. Do I think it is essential? .....Probably not. We could live a long healthy life without it. I just wouldn't want to. It tastes great and is very satisfying. The energy I get from it is very sustainable.
Monday, January 31, 2011
What is it with Fructose?
I have been doing a lot of reading about nutrition for the last several years. The latest and greatest weight loss books in particular always grab my attention. I must read what they have to say. They all claim to be experts. They all have proof that there method works best. Call me skeptical. All of them can't be right, Can they? We are in the age of EXTREME everything. Immediate gratification, give it to me now. It's seems like everyone has to lose weight as quickly as possible. We are already half way sold just because we desire it so much. Experiment as much as we can, but we have to be smart about it. Good advice is good advice. When it sounds too good to be true it usually is not true.
Fruit is a bit of a sore spot for many nutritionists. Or so it seems. More and more I have been running across the "sound advice" to stay away from fruit. Never eat fruit. It is worse than sugar. It will make you diabetic or obese. ...then they discuss there supposed proof. Maybe it is just me? If you are going to put down fruit for its lack of (?)nutritional contribution then do your studies on fruit, ....NOT FRUIT JUICE! Every time I read about experiments with fruit juice I cringe. How can they conclude that whole fruit is bad? As soon as you juice anything, in my opinion, it is no longer whole. Many of the benefits are lost, and we almost always end up consuming mostly sugar in the form of fructose. The natural balance altered by juicing.
Cutting down on fruit can have its benefits in weight loss. That is not rocket science. There is a fair bit of sugar (or fructose) in all fruit. Unrefined, natural sugar. Eat less fruit if we must. I'm just saying that if we are having problems with our weight it is highly unlikely it is do to eating too many bananas. Eating whole fruit is beneficial in maintaining healthy energy levels. It's better to eat them than most other things found in pantries across the world.
All fruit is designed for human consumption. It attracts our attention naturally. Our bodies digest it well and the nutrients get delivered to our blood stream relatively quickly, making it great for energy. I for one will never stay clear of anything whole that nature has to offer. Eating only fruit or no fruit at all is just too extreme for me. I will stick to moderation. After all, it has kept me healthy for years.
Fruit is a bit of a sore spot for many nutritionists. Or so it seems. More and more I have been running across the "sound advice" to stay away from fruit. Never eat fruit. It is worse than sugar. It will make you diabetic or obese. ...then they discuss there supposed proof. Maybe it is just me? If you are going to put down fruit for its lack of (?)nutritional contribution then do your studies on fruit, ....NOT FRUIT JUICE! Every time I read about experiments with fruit juice I cringe. How can they conclude that whole fruit is bad? As soon as you juice anything, in my opinion, it is no longer whole. Many of the benefits are lost, and we almost always end up consuming mostly sugar in the form of fructose. The natural balance altered by juicing.
Cutting down on fruit can have its benefits in weight loss. That is not rocket science. There is a fair bit of sugar (or fructose) in all fruit. Unrefined, natural sugar. Eat less fruit if we must. I'm just saying that if we are having problems with our weight it is highly unlikely it is do to eating too many bananas. Eating whole fruit is beneficial in maintaining healthy energy levels. It's better to eat them than most other things found in pantries across the world.
All fruit is designed for human consumption. It attracts our attention naturally. Our bodies digest it well and the nutrients get delivered to our blood stream relatively quickly, making it great for energy. I for one will never stay clear of anything whole that nature has to offer. Eating only fruit or no fruit at all is just too extreme for me. I will stick to moderation. After all, it has kept me healthy for years.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Understanding the Food Pyramid
Nutrition has become my passion in recent years I have always loved food. Controlling my love of food was the issue. It made me feel too good. Just like a drug. My emotional health seemed to depend on my eating very fattening processed food . It sometimes seemed like the only solution to stop gaining fat, was to starve. Take it from me, it is not the answer to any problem. . Food is necessary for all to survive. So going without it is not an option.
So what is eating healthy? The answer to this question turns out to be much more complex than I had ever realized. That is why I must to start at the very beginning. For me that is the Food Pyramid. I now refer to it as the Standard American Diet. The food pyramid shows us graphically what foods we should eat and in what proportion. At the base of this pyramid we have the largest area which signifies that the greatest number of calories should be obtained from these foods. Here we have our grains such as bread, pasta and rice, eat 6-11 servings per day. Fruit and vegetables are found on the next, slightly smaller level, meaning, less calories from these foods. A mere 5-10 servings are suggested per day. Even less room as we move to the next level of the triangle. This is where we will find our proteins. Dairy products like cheese, milk and yogurt are here. Along side are other protein sources such as animal proteins, nuts, beans and legumes.. Combined we are looking at roughly 5-6 servings everyday. What is left? Not much. Very little sugar and fat. Barely enough to signify a serving size. This is due to the fact that by consuming the other foods you will be getting your required amounts of fat and sugars.
The chart appears to be straight forward enough. Quite a simple way to depict nutritional requirements. Yet, when I was younger I remained confused about the whole thing. Growing years aren't necessarily knowing years, and we often don't get the importance of nutrients in our food. Food is food, and we eat what we like.
Whole grains like quinoa, brown rice and oatmeal are good choices. Some pasta and a serving of bread are alright. I consider potatoes and other root vegetables to be in this category. SAD is groups them with vegetables. I limit myself to one serving of bread (the more fiber the better) per day. Even though bread may contain whole grains it is not a whole food. Show me a bread tree. Vitamins and minerals that we get from bread are added into the mix. We need naturally occurring nutrients so that our bodies can absorb them..
Vegetables and fruit are our best friends. Less calories naturally unless you eat a lot of potatoes. All root vegetables tend to be a lot more calorie dense than other vegetables. At lease they are nutrient dense calories. Other vegetables like broccoli and asparagus and leafy greens have very few calories. Combining vegetables while you cook them can easily make them more appealing. Salads can be an adventure in flavors if we let them. Thinking outside the box. Sometimes I will do a stir fry of onions with tomatoes and I use different tricks to enhance the flavor. Throw that on top of our raw salad and add a little balsamic vinegar. We can make it as wild as we like just getting to know our favorite spices, I have learned to embrace fruit for there natural sweetness. Natures own treat.
Choosing very lean proteins is important. There is a little, to a lot, of fat in most of our favorite meats. Fatty fish is the only exception. This is very beneficial fat and it is unlikely you will consume to much of this fat. Beans and nuts are also high in fats. Again, a much more tolerable and beneficial fat. Skinless chicken breasts are very low in fat and are a good choice in the meat department. We must be careful how we prepare our lean proteins though. It would be very easy to add unhealthy fat, if prepared in a carefree manner. You could boil or poach your chicken breasts. I have thrown seasoning in boiling water while cooking breasts this way. I enjoy the taste. Many people would not like them prepared that way. Baking without fat, using only spices can make for flavorful chicken. Stir frying with cooking spray and chicken broth and balsamic vinegar and more spices works well for me. While stir frying I usually through in lots of vegetables. This adds lots of flavor, moisture and more of those natural vitamins and minerals that I love so much.
......to be continued
So what is eating healthy? The answer to this question turns out to be much more complex than I had ever realized. That is why I must to start at the very beginning. For me that is the Food Pyramid. I now refer to it as the Standard American Diet. The food pyramid shows us graphically what foods we should eat and in what proportion. At the base of this pyramid we have the largest area which signifies that the greatest number of calories should be obtained from these foods. Here we have our grains such as bread, pasta and rice, eat 6-11 servings per day. Fruit and vegetables are found on the next, slightly smaller level, meaning, less calories from these foods. A mere 5-10 servings are suggested per day. Even less room as we move to the next level of the triangle. This is where we will find our proteins. Dairy products like cheese, milk and yogurt are here. Along side are other protein sources such as animal proteins, nuts, beans and legumes.. Combined we are looking at roughly 5-6 servings everyday. What is left? Not much. Very little sugar and fat. Barely enough to signify a serving size. This is due to the fact that by consuming the other foods you will be getting your required amounts of fat and sugars.
Whole grains like quinoa, brown rice and oatmeal are good choices. Some pasta and a serving of bread are alright. I consider potatoes and other root vegetables to be in this category. SAD is groups them with vegetables. I limit myself to one serving of bread (the more fiber the better) per day. Even though bread may contain whole grains it is not a whole food. Show me a bread tree. Vitamins and minerals that we get from bread are added into the mix. We need naturally occurring nutrients so that our bodies can absorb them..
Vegetables and fruit are our best friends. Less calories naturally unless you eat a lot of potatoes. All root vegetables tend to be a lot more calorie dense than other vegetables. At lease they are nutrient dense calories. Other vegetables like broccoli and asparagus and leafy greens have very few calories. Combining vegetables while you cook them can easily make them more appealing. Salads can be an adventure in flavors if we let them. Thinking outside the box. Sometimes I will do a stir fry of onions with tomatoes and I use different tricks to enhance the flavor. Throw that on top of our raw salad and add a little balsamic vinegar. We can make it as wild as we like just getting to know our favorite spices, I have learned to embrace fruit for there natural sweetness. Natures own treat.
Choosing very lean proteins is important. There is a little, to a lot, of fat in most of our favorite meats. Fatty fish is the only exception. This is very beneficial fat and it is unlikely you will consume to much of this fat. Beans and nuts are also high in fats. Again, a much more tolerable and beneficial fat. Skinless chicken breasts are very low in fat and are a good choice in the meat department. We must be careful how we prepare our lean proteins though. It would be very easy to add unhealthy fat, if prepared in a carefree manner. You could boil or poach your chicken breasts. I have thrown seasoning in boiling water while cooking breasts this way. I enjoy the taste. Many people would not like them prepared that way. Baking without fat, using only spices can make for flavorful chicken. Stir frying with cooking spray and chicken broth and balsamic vinegar and more spices works well for me. While stir frying I usually through in lots of vegetables. This adds lots of flavor, moisture and more of those natural vitamins and minerals that I love so much.
......to be continued
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
The Choice is Ours
The freedom to choose. What a luxury that is. So let's be indulgent eat something that makes our self feel good. We deserve it, we long for it. It's life's greatest reward. That's something I would tell myself all the time, everyday and many times a day. I would justify my need for every type of fatty, sweet and calorie dense food I could. I would eat ice cream like it was going out of style chased with cookies. Food truly has been my big compulsion all of my life. Why does bad have to taste so good?
My weight was really high when I was younger(10-17 yrs 180-200lbs). Although my self esteem was always very low, I still had to convince myself to go on. After all I was not dead, just feeling under appreciated. I convinced myself that I wasn't that bad. Eventually I believed that I was supposed to be large. That is what nature had intended for me. The proof was there. After all, I wasn't getting any smaller. So I coped.. It's what I had to learn to do. Feelings of being weak and incapable held me back because I let them. I needed to feel that I was weak in order to validate myself. Proof that I should be fat and unloved. I could prove anything I set out to prove. It's too bad that I had to focus on the negative aspects of my life with a need to magnify the difficult issues.
The battle went on right into my 40's. Still convincing myself that all the wrong things were right. Now statistically I was in the norm. Most people seem to be overweight these days. I fit right in. When the proof is all around you it is pretty hard to ignore. The reward is the killer. Satisfaction lingers, It doesn't dissolve in your mouth. It doesn't cause you heart disease and high cholesterol. I don't have the need to be normal, or even like everybody else. Life is not over and I am not sitting around waiting to die.
I now see the beauty in all those other choices that I neglected to look at for most of my life. Fresh whole foods are true rewards that multiply throughout the course of our lives. By taking care of our bodies we enable ourselves to reap benefits that we dream about.
My weight was really high when I was younger(10-17 yrs 180-200lbs). Although my self esteem was always very low, I still had to convince myself to go on. After all I was not dead, just feeling under appreciated. I convinced myself that I wasn't that bad. Eventually I believed that I was supposed to be large. That is what nature had intended for me. The proof was there. After all, I wasn't getting any smaller. So I coped.. It's what I had to learn to do. Feelings of being weak and incapable held me back because I let them. I needed to feel that I was weak in order to validate myself. Proof that I should be fat and unloved. I could prove anything I set out to prove. It's too bad that I had to focus on the negative aspects of my life with a need to magnify the difficult issues.
The battle went on right into my 40's. Still convincing myself that all the wrong things were right. Now statistically I was in the norm. Most people seem to be overweight these days. I fit right in. When the proof is all around you it is pretty hard to ignore. The reward is the killer. Satisfaction lingers, It doesn't dissolve in your mouth. It doesn't cause you heart disease and high cholesterol. I don't have the need to be normal, or even like everybody else. Life is not over and I am not sitting around waiting to die.
I now see the beauty in all those other choices that I neglected to look at for most of my life. Fresh whole foods are true rewards that multiply throughout the course of our lives. By taking care of our bodies we enable ourselves to reap benefits that we dream about.
Monday, January 24, 2011
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| Confidence has been the greatest reward |
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