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If it has been awhile since you did a formal check in on your calorie intake, it is time to do it again.  We did it back in September, which was six long months ago at the beginning of the season.  If it works for you and/or you enjoy it, you can do it every week.  Jeff and I like to do it from time to time because it is fairly time consuming to be really diligent at it.  Less time consuming options include calorie counting for a week once every few months or some regular period of time.  Alternatively, you could just write down (keep a food journal) everything you put in your body for a week.  Both ways are just a tool to force yourself to think about what is going in your body and whether or not it meets your goals.  It is important to write down the food/drink soon after you consume it and note the time of day so you can look back at the end of the week and see when and what you eat and get a good idea of why.

But let’s talk calorie counting.  Remember, calories themselves aren’t the enemy.  A banana has calories, broccoli does too, as does lettuce and cauliflower.  The idea is to understand your body by knowing how many calories it needs compared to how many you consume.  When we say “needs” we mean how much your body needs to maintain its current weight.  Then, if you are trying to lose weight, you can reduce the amount of calories you consume a bit below the “daily need.” 

First, determine your daily need estimate. As we’ve suggested in a prior post an easy way to do this is to use an on-line calculator.  Just type “Daily Calorie Need calculator” into your search engine and you’ll have your choice of thousands.  Pick one and enter your information.  The calculators will generally ask you for some combination of your height, weight, gender, age, and level of lifestyle activity. 

Next, keep a daily diary of everything you put in your mouth and the amount of calories of each item.  This is the part that is easier said than done.  Take a ham sandwich for example.  If you are making it at home from things in your refrigerator, you can look at the Nutrition Data on each package (paying attention to serving size, which we explained in this post) and add up your calories.  If your ham sandwich looks like the one I like to make, it goes something like this: 

2 slices of 100% whole wheat bread (180 calories)
4 slices of ham (92 calories)
1 slice of cheddar cheese (90 calories)
1 tablespoon of mayonnaise (110 calories)
1 slice of tomato (4 calories)
½ cup of lettuce (7 calories)
Total:  483 calories

So that is 483 calories for just the ham and cheese sandwich (with the fixins’).  You can see how cutting out (or back on) the mayo would be a big help and how the tomato and lettuce add next to nothing (but yummy goodness).  You can see how bread has a lot of calories.  You can see how the 483 number could skyrocket up if you were to add some potato salad, a soda, and a cookie.  And you can also see how it can be a little time consuming to count calories – but it is worth it because it returns a deep understanding of your body’s needs.  Give a try for a week and you’ll be very glad you did.  More on this topic to come — Jim Ballard

Thanks to Tony Steward for finding this…

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