Weight Loss & Healthy Eating

After having to squeeze into more than one pair of shorts/capris this week (and stepping on the scale) I started counting calories and watching what I eat. I have always had a high metabolism and have never needed to watch what I eat, but I have always struggled with stomach upset. This has been due to eating too much and eating the wrong foods. I am like most people and enjoy my food, but I have a weakness in knowing when to stop eating. Even though I never went hungry as a child I feel a strong urge to finish everything on my plate and to eat more than I should simply because something tastes good or because it is still sitting in front of me.

I found a great site called Calorie Count for figuring out how many calories are in different foods. You just type in the food you are searching for in the 'Search for Foods' box at the top of the page and it will bring up a selection of matching foods to choose from. I really like using it for fruits and vegetables or for recipes in which nutrition information is not given. I use another site for figuring out how many calories I burn doing different exercises or chores. You simply type in how much you weigh and then the number of minutes you spent doing 1 or more activities. I found that by increasing my walking pace from 2mph to just under 4mph, I burn an additional 75 calories in 50 minutes. If I increase my pace to a jog, I burn an additional 189 calories.

Tracking my food intake and looking at different exercises as calorie burners has caused me to think about every bite of food I eat, not just as I am eating it, but also as I contemplate the depths of my pantry and fridge.