Hello Calories, I See We Meet Again...

Today, I have started counting calories again. While it is time consuming and a little bit annoying at times, I saw great results the last go round. Not only did I lose a significant amount of weight when I was counting calories (and exercising) but I learned a lot about portion sizes and about healthy and non healthy foods. I started actively comparing items I purchased based on the nutritional facts and making healthier choices.

Overall it gave me a much better sense of what I was putting in my body. The nutrition facts on products can be scary, and I have literally tossed products back on the shelf after reading them, thinking to myself, there is no way I am ever going to eat that. If this is your first attempt at counting calories beware it can be a little shocking at first!

Personally, I use the Calorie Counter app by MyFitnessPal on my android phone, however there are dozens of different apps and websites available for you to choose from. I like MyFitnessPal because you can track as little or as much as you like including weight, workouts, and more. It also has a neat little feature where the app tells you that if you do this good everyday you should be down to so many pounds in 2 weeks.

So here is back to reading nutrition facts and logging every sip and bite, may it be well worth the effort!

Getting back on the Wagon

I haven't posted in a year!! It was probably one of the roughest years I have ever had and things seemed to have calmed down now, so it is time to get back on the wagon. At one point I was down a total of 51 pounds, however I have put about 5 of it back on in the last 6 months or so. Now it's time to finish what I started and get myself healthy and in shape. Lately my eating and exercising habits have been less than stellar, but they are improving. I started slowly adding cardio workouts back into my life a month ago and yesterday did a mile in sixteen and a half minutes on our elliptical. Think it is time to start counting calories again too!

Stress and Weight Loss

As we all know, stress can have a real impact on weight loss. For some people stress can lead to emotional eating, or cause someone to lose weight from not eating.

This last week I was dealing with the latter. After the dissolution of my 8 year relationship with my former fiance, I lose 8lbs in one week. This is NOT healthy. Believe me I was thrilled to see the numbers, but it's time to get back to eating right and getting back to my exercise regimen.

I have lost a total of 34 pounds now, and dropped my BMI by over 4 points. Let's see what some exercise does to those numbers!!

Calorie Counting vs. Weight Watchers Points Plus

A few weeks ago, I decided I would try counting points+ and calories and see how I felt about the two. I will start off by saying I HATED trying to calculate points. I have a handy little app on my phone that did most of the work for me and I still felt it was a pain.

I only counted WW Points+ for a few days, but it just irritated me. I was, however, not irritated by simply counting calories. For me, this was just much simpler, and admittedly, I may not be getting as much information about what I eat, or percentages; but the results still speak for themselves.

I have lost 5lbs in the last 2 weeks, counting calories alone. I have slacked off on working out but still the scale dips lower and lower. I have now lost nearly one third of weight I am striving to lose and my pants keep getting looser.

If Weight Watchers isn't your thing, give calorie counting a shot. I know it takes some effort but if you track as you eat, but this will help keep you from over eating during the day. When I see I only have 500 calories left at the end of the day for dinner, I plan a dinner that's right around 500 calories.

Try my favorite Calorie Counting App! Available on the iPhones, Blackberries and Android Phones.

Homemade Pizza

Last night we made our own pizza at home and it was delicious. I picked up the Pillsbury Thin Crust Pizza Dough in a tube in the dairy section at Safeway yesterday for half price!

I already had sun dried tomatoes in the cupboard and crimini mushrooms from two nights ago. I grabbed some spinach from the produce section and bought some pre-cooked roasted chicken pieces. Another item I already had in my fridge is a tube of fresh Italian herbs, which I mixed into a little bit of oil.

We bake the pizza crust on a cookie sheet for 5 minutes before you add your toppings and bake for an additional 6-10 minutes. I smeared some of my herb oil on the crust and sprinkled on shredded mozzarella cheese, diced chicken, sun dried tomatoes, crimini mushrooms and onion.

When it came out of the oven I sprinkled it with a little Parmesan cheese. It was amazing. It was very light, but still was very filling. The only improvement I felt was the oil herb mixture needed more Italian herb mixture.

My significant other made his pizza his way. It consisted of sun dried tomatoes mixed into a Alfredo Marinara sauce we had in the fridge, with chicken, mushrooms, lots of onion and mozzarella cheese. I tried to only eat a bite, but I ended up eating a whole slice of his too.

Best part, I ate like 1/4 of the pizza and only put myself back 485 calories. A slice of pizza from the leading pizza chains can set you back anywhere from 300-600 calories PER slice, and we all know they don't use fresh ingredients.

Admittedly, my dough wasn't fresh and the chicken was precooked but I still think it's a step up from the fast food choice.

This Week's Progress

This week has been fairly good. I had hit a plateau for a week or two and the scale wasn't really moving. However, after downloading the My Fitness Pal app on my android phone and religiously counting calories, I am down 3 lbs! I still feel like I need to boost up the actual exercise though. Even when I work out 2-3 times a week, I feel like I should be doing more.

However, I am losing just the right amount every week or two weeks though, so I remind myself it took 18 years to get this heavy it's going to take at least that many months to lose it all. If I keep it up at this pace I should be right where I want to be by next summer! Look out swimsuit here I come!

So just remember, take it one day at a time. This will not happen over night and don't kill yourself trying to do that. Baby steps...

The Dirty Truth about PB&J's

I love a good Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich, but I hadn't really thought about the calories. Now that I'm an adult and trying to lose weight I am finding out more and more about the foods I like and have eaten without thought in the past.

A peanut butter and jelly sandwich on white bread is roughly 450 calories, if you're using Weight Watchers Plus Points, this is a whopping 12 points! When you're limited to around 35 points a day this childhood favorite becomes more of a harsh reality check.

I can't say enough about counting calories and/or tracking points. It is an eye opener and you will learn a lot about your eating habits, good or bad! Try and find healthier alternatives to your more calorie laden favorites. I'm still looking for a good pb&j replacement...

Food Journals and Calorie Tracking

So why is keeping a food journal or calorie tracking so important? Because keeping a record of what you consume will tell you a lot about where your specific issue lie. Your calorie consumption might be fine and you need to increase your exercise, or you may find you need to cut back your daily calories with, or with out exercise.

Calorie tracking is a great way to monitor what you are putting in your body on a daily basis. Consider creating a food journal as well, in place of just tracking calories. Track what time you ate each item, how hungry you were at the time, how did you feel when you were eating each item, and how long you felt satisfied from what you ate.

This can help you get an even more in depth look at your habits and can really help break emotional eating cycles. The more you are aware of, the more you can fine tune and make changes where they are needed.

Tracking and logging, admittedly, are time consuming but it is definitely worth the effort, and I promise you will learn something about your eating habits you didn't know before. Honestly, I had no idea how many calories I consumed in an average day, until I spent two weeks keeping track and wow is it an eye opener.

There are some really great tools on the internet for tracking calories, or creating a food journal or log. Some websites offer printable pages for keeping logs, and some websites have fully interactive online calorie trackers that allow you to enter your calories and track your progress all in one place.

Here's a few websites that offer calorie tracking:


My Calorie Counter by Everyday Health

Calorie Count

My Pyramid

There's many options available online and I highly recommend checking out a few sites and trying one out for a while and see what you learn.

One more really great site for calorie tracking is Calorie King, they have an impressive database of nutrition facts for all sorts of foods, whole foods and pre-packaged and restaurant foods. They do offer paid programs and services for weight loss, but the actual food database is free to use and is a great resource.

An Article I Read about Regret & Guilt

I have signed up for several different blogs and emails from other weight loss websites and blogs, and I try and read them everyday. I find a lot of great ideas and inspiration for new ideas for my blog.

Calorie Count is a website that offers a lot of online tools for weight loss and better living, including a calorie journal, daily emails and advice. I signed up a few months back and receive the daily emails and find that most of the time the headline will get me to open and read the article.

Today's article really hit home, it put two very strong emotions, into the form of characters in a story, Regret and her horrible twin Guilt. It talks about the differences in the two emotions and how regret often leaves us with a lesson learned and guilt just leads to more guilt.

If you have ever had a hard time trying to lose weight and felt bad about it in any way I encourage you to read this article. I found that while I used to really relate to the Sister Guilt, since changing my outlook on my lifestyle and weight, I find myself feeling more and more like Sister Regret.

Which sister do you relate to most? Does it make you want to change your frame of mind?

Safeway's Online Features

I shop at Safeway. I like the products, the deals, and how closely it is located to my place. Another thing I like about Safeway is their online shopping tools. Now I know most places let you shop online, but that's not the cool part. Safeway, (and possibly others, I have yet to check) have a little button next to the items you are shopping for that says more information.

Can you guess what some of that info is? That's right the nutritional facts! This tool is great for when you are creating menus or just curious about the ingredients and nutrition facts.

This tool is also very helpful for me, because it helps me find and input my calories quickly. This makes calorie counting just a little bit simpler. It also saves the amount of time you stand in the aisle at the store looking at labels, time you could be using to work out or just enjoy yourself.

There are some items that will not have the nutritional information available such as items from the bakery or hot deli counter. I try to avoid a lot of these items simply because I have no idea what I am putting in my body at that point. Try and find a comparable treat with the nutrition facts on the package if this happens to you, and tell yourself those cherry turnovers probably have like 600 calories!