Counting Calories

Off and on for just over a year I've been using a program called Diet Power. It's calorie counting software. The premise is that you tell it your goal weight and goal date for that weight. It will tell you if it thinks that goal is reasonable or not by telling you how difficult your daily calorie restrictions will be. Once you settle on a goal that you think you can accomplish then you start entering in every calorie that you eat. If you exercise then you also log calories burned and this, naturally, earns you more calories to eat for the day. The software will dynamically calculate for you every day the calories that you can eat for that day so the number will change from day to day.

If you are faithful about logging your calorie ins-and-outs then you will reach your goal weight on your goal date. Determining calories isn't too hard, unless you eat out a lot. Then you have to try to estimate as best you can. A lot of the restaurants here in California now have the nutritional data available for you (it's state law for the chains) but the mom-and -pop places don't have to. Most items you buy in the store have calorie counts listed on them. I love it when they are listed by weight. I weigh out just about everything. I have a nice kitchen scale on my counter and weigh my cereal every morning. I weigh bread (if slicing it myself). I weigh out my mayonnaise for my sandwich. I find weighing food so much easier than using volumetric measurements. When the food is weighed fewer dishes are dirtied, too. I don't have to dirty a measuring cup or measuring spoon.

Anyway, like I said, I've been using it for a bit over a year now, off and on. I stopped last summer during my abdominal surgery (it's my experience that I lose weight anyway during and after surgeries, yet I gain it all back then afterward.) I also skipped this past November and December. It's just too hard during the holiday season - too much food that I didn't prepare and had no idea how to count.

So, here I am. I started it again on January 20th and have lost 7 pounds so far to date. To reach my goal I will have to lose 10 more, and Diet Power is projecting that I'll actually be 2 pounds under my goal at my current rate. Therefore it is increasing how many calories I can eat each day because it wants me to stay on track. Of course, if I reach my goal sooner then that will be great but it doesn't seem like I can tell Diet Power that.

Oh, and might I add that I've been doing this without any exercise? Sure, having 300 more calories each day to eat would be nice, and last Friday I did spend an hour on my exercise bike to earn a couple of glasses of wine for the evening. But the point is that weight loss (or control) is more about controlling your calorie intake. Or at least balancing it all out. I don't know how many times I've exercised very hard and my weight wouldn't budge. It's because I would eat a lot afterward, canceling out the calories burned. Now I know that to lose weight I have to take in less than I'm expending, whether I'm exercising or not. I'll step up the exercise soon because it's good for things other than just weight management (cardiovascular health, muscle strength and toning) but the key thing that I am learning (and demonstrating) is that you don't have to work your butt off at the gym to lose weight. All you have to do is watch the calorie intake.