Now that we understand how much energy (calories) we need to get through our day, we can begin to look at what we are eating and doing that is inhibiting us from living a healthier life. Below I will discuss a few thoughts that can help with watching your calorie intake helping you get healthier one day at a time.
1. Start a Journal.
Grab a journal, calendar, excel spreadsheet or just a plain old notebook and start keeping track of all of your meals AND snacks. Key part here being SNACKS. I know that this seems extremely tedious, and for the first week or two, it is! After that, unless you have a different meal, you will already have the calories and fat, carbohydrate and protein grams so it becomes as easy as copying it from one day to the next.
If you can keep up with this, I am willing to bet that you will become more aware of those needless, grazing snacks and will start to incorporate more healthy foods such as fruits and vegetables into a more structured meal plan. It really starts to come into focus how much of an impact that little pack of m&m's, bag of chips or handful of cookies has when you are looking at the nutrition labels and realizing that those cookies may only have 150 calories per serving but a serving size is ONLY 2 cookies!
Again, this is a tedious process but post it where your family and friends can see and you will be less likely to grab that needless, unhealthy snack, especially if you have to put up another 400-500 calories for all to see....in more ways than one.
2. Look at the Nutrition labels.
Not only do you need to look at them to get the information to keep up with a nutrition journal but there are a few items specifically that I want to bring attention to so that next time you are at the market, you can look for these to help you choose healthier foods.
Fats: Most people think that to lose fat, you need to avoid fat. Not only is this just an ignorant way to look at fat lose but it can also be dangerous to yourself if you try to cut fat out of your diet completely, this will be a later topic of discussion.
To keep it simple: Saturated and Trans fat - BAD, Mono and Polyunsaturated fat - much better for you.
Saturated fats are usually solid at room temperature and along with Trans fat are usually from animal sources. Diets high in these fats lead to an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, higher LDL (bad) cholesterol levels and increases your risk of getting type 2 diabetes.
Unsaturated fats are usually liquid at room temperature and polyunsaturated fats are plant based. Unsaturated fats improve blood-cholesterol levels which decrease your risk of heart disease and can also help with or help prevent type 2 diabetes. Omega 3's are a popular polyunsaturated fat found in fish and produced by many nutritional supplements companies.
Lesson on Fats - Avoid Saturated fats, eat vegetables, some fish here and there and take an Omega 3 supplement!
Sugars: The only part I am going to put on sugar here is that as Americans, we consume way too much sugar and for most, it is not even real sugar, it is a processed form such as high fructose corn syrup. If you need sugar, use a real sugar such as sugar in the raw and avoid the processed sugars like sweet n low, equal or splenda. Also, when looking at your foods nutritional information, try to pick foods that offer more fiber than sugar or at least contain a good amount of fiber.
Drinks: 1st - Drink water. It's good for you, delicious and a thirst quencher. 2nd - Look at the nutritional information on your soda's, fruit juices and sports drinks. Most Americans drink over half of the amount of calories they should consumer in an entire day. 3rd - drink more water!
3. Exercise
Let me just clarify that I am not saying to go out and hire a personal trainer or to start running 5 miles a day. What I'm saying is to just get out and do something. That something can be walking, playing golf, tennis, walk the dog, play with your kids, ride a bike, go fishing, go to the zoo, go to a shopping mall, participate in volunteer work, just do something! Fresh air and a long walk can ease most stresses.
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