Be Mindful Of What Goes In Your Mouth

Ok, so how about this? You don’t start the diet you have been putting off endlessly. I know every time I think it is time to lose some weight, I reach for something fattening. Do this instead – just pay attention to what you are eating and how many calories it has. All packaged foods from the grocery store come with nutritional information and the internet is full of sites that will give you the calories in every food available. Here is an example: http://www.fitday.com/WebFit/calories/calories.html

Write down everything you put in your mouth. Don’t just reach for the chips and starting munching, look at the package and check the calorie content. I am looking at a bag of taco chips right now, it says one serving is 6 chips and has 150 calories. That is 25 calories per chip. Have you ever realized that one taco chip has so many calories? I was shocked. Grab the number of chips you want to eat, and close the bag before you take any more.

You could keep track of what you eat and the number of calories on an excel spreadsheet, or the website mentioned above allows you to create an account and keep your journal there. http://www.fitday.com/webfit/index.html. Some of the time you will have to estimate the number of calories because you have no idea how much meat you were served somewhere, or the number of ounces in the potato salad at the company picnic. When in doubt, I assign the unknowns 300 calories, which is probably an overestimate, but overestimating is better than underestimating.

The main reason to do this is to just be aware of what you are doing. Chili’s restaurant now has a lower calorie menu and lists the number of calories in each dish. That is a great start, maybe more restaurants will follow suit.