Fun With Food

To whoever is reading this I want to show you something.. To my left, in all of its magnificence, I give you.. the perfectly peeled egg. Notice the shine and the flawlessness of the egg white, the perfect peel, only to be eaten in less than 5 seconds. The wonderful thing about egg whites is that they can take on any flavor that you put on them. If you like hot sauce, its tastes great with hot sauce. If you like to keep things simple, maybe a little salt and pepper, they taste great too. Right now for me, I like to just add a little bit of sea salt. Sea salt is great because it tastes a little saltier than your average kitchen table salt so you don't have to use as much to get the same salty flavor. The main thing you should try to avoid are sauces that are high in calories. You would be surprised how much even something as simple as ketchup can quickly add up to unwanted calories. I find having a few hard boiled eggs ready to go in the fridge make for a good clean quick snack in between meals as they are very low in calories and very little fat. Just boil up a few extra and you have a nice snack to get you through your day.


Up next, you will see my low calorie dinner. Homer is hanging out next to the chicken salad sandwich. I got my glass of water and five freshly peeled hard boiled eggs. Some people have sweet tooth's. I love salty. I don't know about the rest of you but I love having chips with my sandwiches. I know eggs are hardly the same thing as having a nice bag of chips with you but for me since I like to salt my eggs, they serve to fix my salty cravings. That meal all together was 455 calories. The eggs actually take up quite a bit of space in my stomach so it left a nice full feeling even though the calories were on the low side.

Today's Tip of the Day I wanted to share one of my girlfriend's secret weapons for getting rid of sweet food cravings.

TIP OF THE DAY:

For those who love sweets, its hard to cut them completely out of your life when you're going on a diet. Here is a great alternative for those out there who have a sweet tooth and love chocolate. Its called "No Pudge Brownie Mix."

The worst part about diets are you always feel like you don't get to eat the foods you like. Granted these aren't miracle brownies that have special vitamins or supplements that will help you lose weight but they are just about have the calories per serving size of the standard brownie. It comes pre-mixed and all you have to do is add a little bit of non-fat greek yogurt. You still have to account for the calories that you eat when you have these, but it sure makes it a lot easier to get within your target calorie goal with these bad boys.




On your left you see an average nutrition label for your standard brownie. Hopefully, somebody will find this useful.

Today was another rainy day so I didn't hop in the pool. I did however get in an hour's worth of cardio on the elliptical in my apartment complex gym. Its been a while since I've used the elliptical. I wasn't out of breath but it did get challenging at the end when I reached the top of the hill of the workout program. It felt good to use my leg muscles in a different way as well as get the heart pumping in this cold weather. I maybe try my luck at jumping in the pool again tomorrow, I might even go in while its raining but we'll see. In the words of one of my clients, "Wet is wet" so I guess there's no excuse for wimping out on not going for my morning swim. I'll see what happens tomorrow. No promises though.

Well hope everyone liked the post today. Time to sign off. Get your sweat on and happy dieting.

- Joel

Nutritional Stats:

Diet Planning 102

So I recently discovered that I can link my Twitter account to my blog updates. Sure does make things convenient. I also got my new swimming trunks in the mail today. Doesn't everyone love getting things in the mail? Anyway, swimming was good as usual. No new variations on the workout plan. But will explain farther down the line. For now, we will go into the tip of the day.

TIP OF THE DAY:
Here are several ways to help count calories. When on the go and eating foods that you don't know the calories for, take a picture of the nutrition label for reference later. Just about everyone has a camera built into their cell phone now these days should it shouldn't be hard to find a camera that you have access to.  That way you don't have to save used food packaging. Also, when packing food to go, use Tupperware with known volume measurements. Use smaller Tupperware so you can fill it completely that way you know how much you're eating.

One of the most important things to dieting is portion control. Having a true grasp of how much food that you're putting in your mouth helps to understand how many calories you're eating. At some point you may feel that you're obsessive/compulsive in the beginning but the more you do it, the easier it will be to count your calories without measuring it exactly every time. I highly recommend in investing in a food scale in the beginning as well. I've been counting calories long enough that I can guess usually within 50-75 calories by how full I feel after the meal. But when I really need to keep myself accountable I go back to counting calories and logging everything that I eat. It also helps to have someone who can keep you accountable to the diet.

Well, time to sign off early. Got to wake up early tomorrow if I want to get my swim in. So I'll sign off with get your sweat on and happy dieting.

- Joel via iPhone

Tonights Dinner:





















Nutritional Stats:

Stay Motivated

3 lbs down in 9 days.. Not shabby if I do say so myself.  You have to celebrate the little things when dieting otherwise at some point you'll hit a breaking point.  When serious about losing weight its important to realize that weight loss is a long term process.  A realistic goal of weight loss per week is about 1 lb.  A 2 lbs weight loss in a week is not an unreasonable amount either.  Shows like Biggest Loser have given an unrealistic view of how weight loss happens.  People forget that the contestants on that show live and breathe workouts when they live on the Biggest Loser ranch.  If they don't lose enough weight while living on the ranch, its all comes down to how much food their eating.  They don't have to worry about working or going to school or taking care of their families.  They just workout 7 days a week for the most part.  I'll include my food stats right now so we get that out of the way.

TIP OF THE DAY:  Today we're going to go over how to determine how many calories should be your target for your diet.  First thing everyone must realize is that there is no magic diet that will work for everyone.  You can follow diets that other people have created or do.  But the diet still must be tailored to you specifically.  If the diet contains foods that you won't eat, how will you ever be able to stick to it over the long haul and make it to the finish line?  Fad diets can work up to a point but at some point the diet stops being affective for the person and they go back to their old ways.

So the million dollar question, what's the magic number?  The truth is there is no magic number.  But I can help you find a number that works for you. With all the resources on the internet, there are plenty of tools that can help you calculate the proper calorie number.  A good place to start I would recommend visiting a site that i regularly use which is www.fitday.com.  This site has a tool that helps you calculate approximately how many calories your body burns on a daily basis.  If you have a gym membership to a gym, they usually will help you out if you ask to get your body fat percentage measured.  By putting in your weight, body fat percentage, height, age, and activity level it will calculate how many calories you burn on an average day.  I recommend estimating your activity one level lower than what you actually think you are.  By using a more conservative number, it makes it easier to lose weight assuming that you hit your caloric daily allotment on a regular basis.  I would recommend a caloric allotment that is 500-750 calories less than what the caloric daily burn estimates. If you are very consistent on hitting your caloric goal, you shouldn't have a problem losing at least 1 lb per week.  I'll go over nutritional specifics later on but this is a good place to start.  Changing body fat percentage and the way your body looks has other major details that I will go into further in later posts.  I'll also go over more tips for counting calories later as well.  Hopefully this helps those who are sitting on the fence and wanting to start out on their own weight loss journeys. Until next time, get your sweat on and happy dieting.