Calories

Health and cheerfulness naturally beget each other. ~Joseph Addison

Ok, if you are still reading, this is where your homework begins! For this first assignment: Begin tracking your calories. It is vital! Do not skip anything or cheat. It does not help you reach your goals to lie to yourself. It is OK to have slips, but it is not OK to deceive yourself. Don't worry about the fat content or anything like that, just calories for right now. If you need to buy a notebook and carry it with you to keep an accurate count, do that. If you need to post your calorie count on your fridge, do that. No excuses!

Calories are based off of a serving size. Serving sizes can be tricky depending on the product and can require you to do a little math. For example, most bags of chips may say something like the serving size is 1 oz. How the hell are you supposed to know how much 1 oz. of chips are? Well, some companies are kind enough to also say about how many chips make 1 oz. (usually about 10), but other times you have to look at the front of the bag or the ‘servings per container’ in the nutrition label and do some math. For example if it is a 4 oz. ‘grab-bag’ of chips, then eating the whole bag is 4 servings so you would have to multiply the calories for one serving by 4 (usually about 100 calories per serving so 400 calories for the whole bag of chips). Even a simple bottle of coke can be tricky. Those 20 oz. coke bottles are often split into 2 servings! So be sure to pay attention to the serving size to get an accurate count.

Keep track of your calorie count everyday for a week without changing your eating habits. After a week, analyze it to see if you are above or below 2,000 on average—daily amounts tend to fluctuate so it is better to look at weekly averages. Then, you can make the necessary adjustments to meet the goals I will discuss in the next post. Here is a website that you can use to find the calories for any food so when you go out to eat or if something does not have a nutritional label on it, you can still get a fairly accurate count of your calories. Just type the food into the yellow box, then specify your choice as much as possible.

Don’t start dieting yet! First you have to analyze your situation. You have to know what your habits are first and then you can make corrections. Don’t start with corrections because you won’t know what needs fixing. Just spend the next couple of days taking an inventory of your calorie intake. Remember not to cheat! We will discuss what to do with that count tomorrow.

The Nuts and Bolts of Weight Loss

“A man's health can be judged by which he takes two at a time - pills or stairs.”~Joan Welsh

Weight loss is not the only criteria for health, but it is one of the most important. While some may say it is possible to be overweight and healthy, no one will say it is better than being fit and healthy for many reasons, from increased quality of life to lower health risks overall (and all the other reasons I discussed previously).

There is no secret to weight loss and fitness. I can (and will) give you hints to make losing weight easier and to help you keep motivated in future posts, but there is only one thing that goes on in your body that creates these changes and there is not much that can alter the process. It is the same for all of us. It is calorie intake and calorie burning. Simple as that.

Here is the explanation:
1 pound = 3,500 calories

If you can remember that equation, then you understand all there is to know about weight loss. The goal is to have a deficit of about 500 calories a day. In a week, you will lose about a pound (500 X 7 = 3,500 calories). I actually advocate about 2,600 calories a week which is about 2/3 of a pound so you do not get burnt out. I will explain a relatively simple plan to meet this weekly 2,600 calorie reduction in future posts.

Here is a silly analogy to help explain how calorie deficits works:
Pretend you are a car. Your owner (maybe your brain, hands, and mouth working in conjunction) fills you full of gas (food/calories) to keep you running. When you put too much gas in, your body saves that extra gas for later (fat). When you use up all the gas you put in and you still need more fuel, the car starts to eat itself and shrinks. If you are a big truck, you will become a little festiva. The faster you go during the day (activity), the faster you burn through your gas. Now obviously cars do not shrink, but we do and that is the remarkable thing about the human body.

It can go in both directions, and unfortunately it is very easy to shove a pound in our mouths (one fast food meal can easily exceed 3,500 calories and be eaten in 5 to 10 minutes), but it can take two days to burn that amount of calories. Let's leave that for a later discussion though.

Always remember that one pound is equivalent to 3,500 calories and you can make small but important choices to slowly and safely lose weight. As stated above, I will tell you how to achieve a safe and slow but consistent calorie deficit in the next post.