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Feb
15

Guest Post: The Pros and Cons of Calorie Counting

Jenera has done me the favour of writing a guest post for me. :) Please welcome her to Naturally Curvy. Enjoy!

Counting calories sucks. There is no doubt about that no matter how you work at losing weight or what type of success you’ve had. When making a lifestyle change in regards to eating, counting calories is a good first step.

In my many attempts at losing weight, I have always used calorie counting at one point. And I have had success with it. You would think that if I was successful I would keep at it. Nope, I’m not built that way. I like to walk away, thinking I can do this all by myself.

Here are some pros for calorie counting:
-You will know exactly the number of calories consumed in a day. No duh, I know, but it is essential when trying to lose weight.
-You will learn proper serving sizes.
-You will begin to read and understand labels.
-You will become more conscious of your eating habits.

On the flip side, there are some cons to calorie counting:
-There is the possibility that you’ll become obsessed with food.
-You will be discouraged after the first few days of knowing how many calories you really consume.

Don’t get me wrong, calorie counting is a great tool for weight loss, especially for beginners. In my experience, it works. In fact, I’m currently counting calories as a way to curb my overeating.

I have a few tips that will help with counting calories:
-ALWAYS read the labels. Even if you are going to eat cookies and pork out, read the label. Know what is in your food.
-Measure everything. Sometimes ‘eyeballing’ a measurement doesn’t work and you end up eating more than you think.
-Write everything down. Keeping a journal, using a phone application, or online tool is essential to counting calories and keeping track efficiently. Keeping a running total in your head can lead to over consumption.
-While the goal is to stay within a calorie range, there will be times when you go over. Do not obsess!
-If you DO go over your limit, simply add in some extra activity the next day. Calories burned and consumed are cumulative over a time period.

Losing weight isn’t always easy and neither is healing our relationships with food. Counting calories should be an easy tool and not something to add to our stress. Using these tips will help curb those freak-outs while dieting.

Category: Diets, Food, General, Guest Posts  Comments off
Feb
11

An Experiment with Water

I was reading the diary of a friend who had weight loss surgery (please do not let that fact colour your view of the rest of this post) and she mentioned something I hadn’t heard of before – water loading.
We all know that water is very important whether or not you are talking about weight loss.

I have read in a few places that you shouldn’t drink too much water while you’re eating because it washes food out of your stomach too fast, dilutes stomach acid, and keeps you from getting all the nutritional goodness you could be getting out of your food.

However, water loading proposes you don’t drink anything with your meal. For up to fifteen minutes before a meal, you can drink as much as you want. Then, after the meal, you don’t drink anything for ninety minutes.

Of course I decided to try it out.

I usually drink so much water before, during, and after a meal that my husband has made comments in the past. I always equated drinking a lot of water with meals with feeling full, so I always did it. However, I found something quite interesting when I tried water loading.

One day may perhaps be a fluke or have other reasoning, but I find the potential from the results rather interesting.

I tried out the stopping drinking fifteen minutes before my lunch today. I found that when I was eating, I definitely wanted to drink just as much as I usually do, but I resisted. I also found that I felt full faster with noticeably less.

Very interesting.

I’m going to continue on with the experiment and see if it helps with things.

Category: General  3 Comments
Feb
04

I Eat Because Something Is Missing

It began not as a decision but as a single acknowledgment.

I’m eating because I’m emotional.

The thought didn’t stop me. I still ate. But it did give me pause.

The next time it happened, I thought: I’m eating because I’m bored.

That time, it did stop me. I acknowledged that I wasn’t hungry, just bored. So I didn’t eat. Again, I didn’t think about it much past the acknowledgment and action.

What started out as such a small event has now snowballed into something I think about nearly every time I consider putting something in my mouth. Sometimes the thought stops me from eating, sometimes it doesn’t. The thoughts vary.

I’m eating because I want comfort.
I’m eating to punish myself. (I really dislike feeling full.)
I’m eating because it tears me up when The Bloke is feeling down and I can’t make him feel better.

I’m eating because I’m afraid.

More often than not lately, all of these thoughts have come together in a jelly mass of:

I’m eating because something is missing.

I live in a new country where I am safe, have a home, have enough to eat, have an amazing husband I love with every ounce of me, get to work doing what I love even though I don’t always make much…

What could possibly be missing?

That’s the question I am stuck with as I try to get past all the triggers that make me want to eat. It’s something I’ve had on my mind nearly constantly, sometimes depressing me and sometimes inspiring to get ‘out there’ and ‘do more’.

The more I have been thinking about it, the more I know that fear is what is keeping me from discovering what it is that I need to do to shake my dependence on food to try to fill that gap.

Perhaps I need to get out in the world and take some classes to meet new people.

Perhaps I need to join a club, day-travel more, get lost or do other things that make me nervous.

Or perhaps I need to stop worrying about whether people will believe me or whether I’ll cause trouble and finally do what I have been aching to do ever since I moved to Australia:

Stand on the rooftops and scream, “I left because I was being abused!”

Perhaps.

All I have at the moment is the knowledge that I eat because something is missing – and that missing part is clouded by a whole lotta fear.

Category: Food, General, Mental Health, Stress  4 Comments
Jan
29

Thinking of a Challenge…

A lot of health/fitness bloggers around the internet are trying new things, setting up challenges and – by the looks of things – getting 2010 off to a great start.

My 2010 started with pain, pain, misery, pain, gallbladder removal and recovery. Fun stuff.

While I’m still technically not supposed to have any ‘strenuous activity’ for the next two weeks, I’m thinking of doing a twelve day challenge starting on Monday.

(Hey, if I can handle sex now, I’m pretty sure I can handle exercise more strenuous than walking.)

(…like I was going to go a month without sex. Pfft.)

I have a new dance/exercise DVD I am eager to try out, as I love dancing. On another note, I’m realizing that dinner is a problem area for me. It’s disproportionate (bigger) than all my other meals, and I want to fix that. Thirdly, I’ve been slacking on my water.

So, for twelve days (because I’m leaving on the 13th and will be gone for a week), I want to do three things:

1. Workout every morning.
2. Drink 1.5 litres (at least) of water every day.
3. Replace dinner with a meal replacement shake.

Okay, so it’s not the most genius or hard challenge you’ve ever heard of, but I’m not set on wearing myself out. I just want to give the dancing a geniune go, get back in the groove of drinking more water and see if having a calorie-controlled dinner will help me lose weight.

It should be interesting.

Are you challenging yourself to anything next month (next Monday)? Right now?

Category: Challenges, General, Getting Started  2 Comments
Jan
26

Fat & Fat

Lately I have been thinking about my body, where I’ve come from on my journey to health and where I am going.

In all my thinking, I have come to hypothesize that there are two kinds of fats:

1. Idle fats
2. Work fats

Idle fats are the fats you lose by eating less. No, I’m not talking about fasting or anything like that. I’m talking if you count calories and stay in a healthier range or if you go on meal replacement like I did. These are the fats that leave you when you have less calorie consumption and little to no additional exercise or movement.

Sure, when I was on meal replacements, I did exercise. But, it wasn’t all that strenuous, nor was anything I did kept up for very long. But I still lost idle fat.

Now I have come to a new place in my journey to health. I’ve done meal replacements, lost weight and now that has stalled. Why? Well, there could be many reasons. My thought? I have now hit the work fat.

Work fat is like its name; you have to work it off. You can’t lead your usual life with the usual motions and expect for this stuff to drop off. This is the stuff that requires exercise and hard work. This is the true fat, not sugar fat, that is the essence of burning fat to be able to work and survive.

I have lost 46 pounds so far, and I’m not ashamed to admit, that was pretty much all idle fat. I just plain didn’t do a lot of exercise.

Appropriately, I’m now halfway to my goal weight, and idle fat loss isn’t enough. Now it’s time to buck up the exercise and get to it.

This is going to be a heck of an interesting 45 pounds to lose.

Category: Body, Diets, Exercise, Food, General, Meal Replacement  Comments off
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