Empowerment through Counting Calories

So I want to share how fun it has been counting calories this past week.  It has put a whole new perspective on how I eat.  Duh.

As someone who has a degree in Exercise Science, I think I just liked to "pretend" I ran off everything I ate even though I knew it wasn't true.  And how could I know if I wasn't keeping track? I didn't.  Thus, never being able to lose my stomach or any other little bit of excess fat.  It's harder to get the last few off, and I wasn't even really trying.  I was only tracking the calories burned, not the ones I consumed.  Which I already know is necessary.  I think for me, I just wasn't motivated to try to lose a couple pounds because I wasn't AWARE of where I was in terms of net calories.

Recently, I've been studying to get the Health Fitness Specialist Certification through ACSM.  What is an HFS? Straight from the source: "The HFS performs pre-exercise health risk assessments, conducts physical fitness assessments, interprets results, develops exercise prescriptions, and applies behavioral and motivational strategies to apparently healthy individuals and individuals with medically controlled diseases and health conditions to support clients in adopting and maintaining healthy lifestyle behaviors."

So, this was actually after I got the Livestrong app for my phone and started tracking, but one of the chapters in the review book I decided to skip to the other day was Metabolic Calculations.  Regarding fat stores..."it takes 3, 500 calories to make and store 1 lb of body weight.  Stated in reverse, 1 lb of body weight can provide the body with 3, 500 calories.   Because walking or running 1 mile expends 100 calories, you would need to walk or run about 35 miles to lose 1lb of fat."

Oh. my. god.  Doesn't that sound terrible? Well that agrees with what my app is telling me.  Even with all of the MARATHON training I am doing, I have to be careful to not go over the daily calorie goal for losing 1 lb/week.   After counting all of my meals, about 1 beer or glass of wine per day is all I can afford, IF I do a 4 mile run and 2 mile walk with the dogs, for example (today).  If I don't, well I'm way over.     

I will say this app makes it way easy to count.  If you don't have a smart phone, I don't see how this is possible on a daily basis if you have any sort of life (which I don't at the moment, but still).  So, kind of a dilemma when trying to get people to pay attention and be aware of their calorie intake.  But it is very user friendly & has a database of almost every food you could eat.  Seeing where you are throughout the day and how close you are to the limit allows you to more easily say "no, I'm not going to eat this brownie, because I want a beer later." It's easier to say no because you know exactly what it will do to the number. And no one wants to fail for the day and go over...awareness. But yes, it also allows you to track your cheating if you do feel like splurging, and keeps the cheating in perspective from day to day.

Above is the one I posted on FB the other day.  This is extreme.  I ran 14 miles that day.  The following is more realistic:

I ate a healthy breakfast, lunch and dinner (the dinner is high in calories but consisted of spinach, chicken, an orange, an avocado, some cashews and olive oil).  I ran 4 miles and walked 2 with the dogs.  I actually did have a small glass of wine with dinner and am now having 1 beer.  That's it! 40 calories to spare.......

After 8 days of tracking calories, I can honestly say I feel better.  I have not been overeating and I need to get myself on a scale, but I think I may have lost a lb.  Weight fluctuates a little anyway so it's hard to tell, but I feel better.

The red means I went over.  The green means I stayed under.  Still trying to figure out if there is a way to see the net for the week, but manually adding it up, I'm actually -1, 043 calories under total for 8 days.  So if you multiply 1470 by 8, it's 11, 760 calories.  I've consumed 10, 717.  Make sense?

I highly recommend trying this if you can.  It's empowering.