Darren Hardy in his book The Compound Effect talks about the challenge of paying attention to the small details. He poses the question how much more likely are you to reach your goal weight if you counted every bite, crumb, scrap of food you put in your mouth. That bite of cereal, the "dad tax" bite off your kids plate, the little "taste" of this unbelievable dessert.
Oftentimes, those are the calories we forget. No, I am not trying exaggerate here and saw that your little nibble is what is keeping from your goals. But enough nibbles during a day will add up. The challenge is to track every calorie that we take in, in order to create a calorie deficit for that day. The complex idea of weight loss has a simple formula, burn more calories than you take in. Now there are many other factors, but a great starting point to achieving weight loss is to do the math -- count calories!
There are some great tools that make this even more convenient:
MyfitnessPal
SparkPeople
LiveStrong -- save the Lance jokes. It is still a useful tool.
plus many more in the App Store or Google Play for your smartphone. Which leads me to this point, all these calorie counters you can take with you. No EXCUSES for not keeping track! So do it! I want you to have a beach ready BEACHBODY! Do the work, eat right, and keep track!!
Beachbody Challenge
Showing posts with label overeating. Show all posts
Showing posts with label overeating. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Sunday, February 3, 2013
Another Reason WHY
This weekend our family took a short getaway to Caribbean Cove Hotel and Waterpark in Indianapolis. The waterpark was your typical indoor facility with kiddie area, activity area, lazy river and 3 water slides.
My youngest child is my little diva. She is 5 years old and working on 15 most days. It took me a little convincing, a couple dollars cash to get her down that first waterslide, but once she did...it was I could do to keep up.
Here is a little perspective, the waterslides stand 40 feet up in the air, 4 stories high, 4 stories of steps...multiplied by the enthusiasm of a 5 year old girl who kept saying "daddy, one more time." Every one more time meant picking up our bright yellow intertubes, lugging it up those 4 stories of steps, to sit her down on that tube and give her smiling face a push down that slide.
It was just 7 seconds of bouncing and bumping down that yellow tube on that air inflated tube to get to the bottom of the pool only to find her their soaked by water but having the time of her life. And then those words "one more time" was reason enough to pick up that tube and travel up those 4 flights of stairs one more time.
There is a difference between being a dad and being an "active" dad. Being an active dad means not sitting on the sideline and watching them slide, but traveling along side them down the slides of the journey. It has been a journey for me to lose the weight, get healthy and get fit. But days like yesterday make it worth it. Worth every step, worth every slide down, worth every water soaked smile on her face. Just one more reason why I am stay healthy!
My youngest child is my little diva. She is 5 years old and working on 15 most days. It took me a little convincing, a couple dollars cash to get her down that first waterslide, but once she did...it was I could do to keep up.
Here is a little perspective, the waterslides stand 40 feet up in the air, 4 stories high, 4 stories of steps...multiplied by the enthusiasm of a 5 year old girl who kept saying "daddy, one more time." Every one more time meant picking up our bright yellow intertubes, lugging it up those 4 stories of steps, to sit her down on that tube and give her smiling face a push down that slide. It was just 7 seconds of bouncing and bumping down that yellow tube on that air inflated tube to get to the bottom of the pool only to find her their soaked by water but having the time of her life. And then those words "one more time" was reason enough to pick up that tube and travel up those 4 flights of stairs one more time.
There is a difference between being a dad and being an "active" dad. Being an active dad means not sitting on the sideline and watching them slide, but traveling along side them down the slides of the journey. It has been a journey for me to lose the weight, get healthy and get fit. But days like yesterday make it worth it. Worth every step, worth every slide down, worth every water soaked smile on her face. Just one more reason why I am stay healthy!
Saturday, January 26, 2013
Are you a cheater?
Friday nights at Casa Pitts are blocked off as a family night (at least as best as our schedules allow). After a long week, prepping a sit down meal at close to 7 PM (after finishing our other Friday responsibilities) is just not feasible. So our Friday night is our "cheat night". It is the one night a week that nutritionally we let our guard down a little bit and make frozen pizza or sandwich bar or something easy and pop in a movie and just chillax as a family.
So I wanted to pass on some tidbits of wisdom from a cheater like me.
1. Take caution in what you cheat with -
Just because you allow yourself a cheat meal does not mean that meal has to lack complete nutritional value. If you get a pizza make sure has some veggies on it. If you are going to eat sandwiches use a lighter cheese, skip the mayo and use mustard or even avocado as a replacement. You want chips with that sandwich, even here you make a better choice about the chips you eat. Cheat with wisdom, if you eat out you can still enjoy a yummy meal, but do it responsibly. Just because you are eating a cheat meal don't make a wasted meal full of empty calories because...
2. Your body knows what it wants -
Here is the reason you need to make sure even when you cheat, you cheat right. Your body is smarter than you are. It's true. When your body has a need for protein you will crave meat or eggs. When you body has a need for calcium, you might want cheese or milk. Your body knows what it needs and signals your brain "hey get us that." One of the dangers of a cheat meal is not fulfilling the need of your body. When that happens your body tells your brain "hey we need something else and more of it." If that something else is not what your body needs it will keep sending that signal to your brain. Your brain sends the signal to the rest of you and you find yourself with your hand back in the bag of chips even though you are not hungry. Which leads to...
3. Overeating
A cheat meal does not mean 5 trips to the all you can eat buffet. While you will more than likely blow your typical calorie count for a meal out of the water (my meals range from 350-425 a meal), this is not an excuse to eat like you are in the 4th of July Nathan's Hot Dog eating contest. You need to still have some portion management. So you may go back for a bite of seconds, but thirds, really, fourths. At the bottom of the bag of whatever you are eating is regret. So take caution! Manage the amount of what you are going to eat. Just because it is a cheat meal does not mean that you throw out the discipline you have the rest of the week. Consider this a controlled indulgence.
You don't bust your backside to not enjoy life. We fight for our health through diet and exercise in hopes a living a happier and healthier life. Give yourself some grace on occasion to cheat. Just cheat with caution. It is still cheating and cheating can always lead us down a slippery slope and leave us caught elbow deep in a tub of ice cream. So enjoy your pizza, your occasional scoop of Rocky Road, even juicy steak, but make this the exception to your life and not the rule. If you let poor habits rule what you eat you will be right back to the point you were before your journey toward a fitter you!
So I wanted to pass on some tidbits of wisdom from a cheater like me.
1. Take caution in what you cheat with -
Just because you allow yourself a cheat meal does not mean that meal has to lack complete nutritional value. If you get a pizza make sure has some veggies on it. If you are going to eat sandwiches use a lighter cheese, skip the mayo and use mustard or even avocado as a replacement. You want chips with that sandwich, even here you make a better choice about the chips you eat. Cheat with wisdom, if you eat out you can still enjoy a yummy meal, but do it responsibly. Just because you are eating a cheat meal don't make a wasted meal full of empty calories because...2. Your body knows what it wants -
Here is the reason you need to make sure even when you cheat, you cheat right. Your body is smarter than you are. It's true. When your body has a need for protein you will crave meat or eggs. When you body has a need for calcium, you might want cheese or milk. Your body knows what it needs and signals your brain "hey get us that." One of the dangers of a cheat meal is not fulfilling the need of your body. When that happens your body tells your brain "hey we need something else and more of it." If that something else is not what your body needs it will keep sending that signal to your brain. Your brain sends the signal to the rest of you and you find yourself with your hand back in the bag of chips even though you are not hungry. Which leads to...
3. Overeating
A cheat meal does not mean 5 trips to the all you can eat buffet. While you will more than likely blow your typical calorie count for a meal out of the water (my meals range from 350-425 a meal), this is not an excuse to eat like you are in the 4th of July Nathan's Hot Dog eating contest. You need to still have some portion management. So you may go back for a bite of seconds, but thirds, really, fourths. At the bottom of the bag of whatever you are eating is regret. So take caution! Manage the amount of what you are going to eat. Just because it is a cheat meal does not mean that you throw out the discipline you have the rest of the week. Consider this a controlled indulgence.
You don't bust your backside to not enjoy life. We fight for our health through diet and exercise in hopes a living a happier and healthier life. Give yourself some grace on occasion to cheat. Just cheat with caution. It is still cheating and cheating can always lead us down a slippery slope and leave us caught elbow deep in a tub of ice cream. So enjoy your pizza, your occasional scoop of Rocky Road, even juicy steak, but make this the exception to your life and not the rule. If you let poor habits rule what you eat you will be right back to the point you were before your journey toward a fitter you!
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