healthy eating and lifestyle's blog

a challenge! (how well do you really eat?)

 abuse

I have a challenge for all those who are trying to lose weight or just eat healthier/ better.  There are lots of things that advertise as healthy but really aren't or that we think might be ok, but really are not. 

It's not a bad idea to really get to know what your eating. 

One of the key aspects of truly losing weight is food management.

I’d like to challenge you to start documenting/ journaling what you are eating everyday. It’s not that hard really. Yes it is going to take some time out of your day. But you will be amazed at what you might see.

I will be the first to admit when I was challenged to do this, I made 100 excuses. I don’t have time, it’s too complicated, it’s too much work, I can’t find everything…. You name it, I gave it as an excuse.  Then a friend dared me, so I finally did it for a few days. I was amazed and jaw dropping surprised!

There are awesome websites that can help you track as well.  I use an excel spreadsheet at home. I email myself what I ate that day at work and then I spend about 5-10 min at home looking up the nutritional information and logging my stuff into my spreadsheet.

Some fantastic Free websites that can help you track are:

Sparkpeople

The Daily Plate

Fit Day

My Food Diary

Other websites where you can get your nutritional information on your foods are:

 Calorie King

 Calorie Count

Many restaurants have the nutritional information on their websites.  For example – it’s summer (ok not really but it's hot!)– who loves Coldstone?!  I know I do, but what are you really eating when you go there?  Click here and look up your favorite: Coldstone  (don't forget to addin those extra goodies like that brownie or nuts or candy!!)

How about Chili’s? Click on this link and go to the bottom – left and hit “download Nutritional Information”.  A PDF file comes up. Find your favorite dish! Chili’s

Pizza anyone? How many slices do you eat?  Domino’s let’s you create your own pizza on the Cal-O-Meter

How about those premade smoothies at the different coffee shops? Most of them have a TON of refined sugar. You probably should have indulged at Coldstone. Most of the mixes are premade and sweetners are added to make it taste so good! 

Just for fun, “Google” your favorite restaurant by typing “XXXXX nutritional information”.. XXXXX being the name of the establishment.  Some places do not provide information, however, some of the websites above – like The Daily Plate, etc, have it for you.

When you use the websites provided above, you don’t even have to look a lot of stuff up.  You just key in the name of the item you ate and then add it to your journal. 

What you cook yourself can be a little harder, but a lot of recipes these days come with nutritional information that you can use. Otherwise, some of the journaling sites allow you to enter the recipe and it gives you an approximation of the nutritional information based on the products you used.

 Just remember - however your journal, it's not enough to just write what you ate, you need to keep track of these key areas:

1.  The serving size

2.  Calories (total if you had more than one serving)

3.  Total Fat, Sat Fat

4.  Carbs

5.  Sugars

6.  Fiber

7.  Protein

8.  Sodium  

I challenge you to take the first step by journaling your food exactly how you’ve been eating lately, for the next week.  Only for one week!

Don’t do anything different than you have been. No cheating and leaving off items! You’re only cheating yourself.

Then we can touch back next Friday.  You don’t have to tell anyone your data, but I’d be interested in the feedback of whether you were surprised or not.

Next Friday we’ll do a new challenge and build on this.

Filed under: Health