The challenge this week is to journal EVERYTHING you eat.
It is much easier to do as you go. It will be more accurate and less time consuming than trying to remember at the end of the day.
Just keep a little notebook in the kitchen or in your purse and write down everything you eat and drink.
Then at the end of the day total up your calories. You can use tools like http://www.calorieking.com/ that are very easy to use in finding your calorie counts.
When you know you only have a certain amount of calories each day hopefully you will make better choices as to where those calories come from.
We all want to be able to just "guesstimate" what we are eating, and you will be able to eventually, but you need to learn what a serving size looks like and how many calories are in the things you are eating. It is an educational process that we all need to go through before we can eat through a guesstimate process.
Remember that serving sizes are essential to pay attention to. You will need to measure out your food. Our society has serioulsy skewed our perception of what a serving size is. We have to retrain our brain to see food portions differently.
If you are shooting for weight loss try to keep your calories around 1200 a day. If you are exercising intensely you can up that to about 1500 calories a day.
Some tips to help with hunger and cravings are:
1. Drink more water.
2. Eat a piece of fruit like a banana or apple to stave off hunger.
3. Eat a handful of chocolate chips to curb your sweet tooth.
4. Allow yourself to eat a small serving of what it is you are craving, but get the serving size ready before you start to eat and then put the rest away.
5. Drink a glass of chocolate milk.
Remember to write down everything--food and drink.
Come on, it's only for one week.
You can do it. :)
6 comments:
Dixie, you should totally see if you can be a guest blogger/writer for a fitness magazine...and make a little money from your writing skills and fitness know how.
I like the last part...So motivational!
Finally, I've been waiting for this one. Nothing makes you more aware of how fast calories go then when you have to write them down. Thanks Dix.
I have to say that I freak out when I focus on food. Like your last challenge I usually do eat fruit for snacks but just because I told myself I had to, I started craving junk food. Well, maybe it was my hormones???
Any way good tips I love reading them, and look forward to seeing what is next. I agree with Marissa Marie's comment!! They are better than the ones in my Womens Health mag.
Done and done! WW already makes me do this. A dixie challenge that I'm already doing? It's a MIRACLE!! Now if I could just stop eating after 7pm... hmmm...
OK, this one is totally hard for me because I just run out of time. But...I'm determined to have a little notepad in my purse that I just fill out EACH TIME I EAT!! I am excited to see what it shows me because I know my "guestimating" sucks! Thanks for the challenges, Dixie. I'm hoping it'll help me actually LOSE SOME WEIGHT in this crazy body of mine!
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