Fun New Diet Tip & Weight Update |

More of Dad and Granny’s garden bounty. Thanks Dad and Granny!

The Best Ranch Dressing in the World! I could not find a website for the restaurant that makes it, but I buy it at Albertsons Grocery Store. I will do more research and get back to you.

That’s Feta, 1/4 c.

While chomping on the salad pictured above, Ben and I were watching a show about the weight loss journey of one woman. We watch these shows for motivation sometimes. At one point during the show a Dr. or dietitian was talking to the woman about diet. She went through, with the woman, a typical meal the woman was used to consuming, item by item. The show would display the food item then the Dr. would ask the woman if she knew how many calories were in the food item. Then after the woman guessed the Dr. would tell her the real total. The calorie total was always shockingly high compared to the amount of food on the plate. None of this was news to me, but I have been fighting this battle for close to 25 years. Someday I may expound on that topic. During this part of the show Ben looked over to me and said, “People don’t have a chance.” I replied, “What do you mean?” He then said, “That meal that they are showing does not look all that unhealthy, yet it contains over 5000 calories! Without some kind of program how are people supposed to know?”

Like I said before, I have been fighting this battle for a long time. Knowing, roughly, the amount of calories in a certain amount of a particular food item is almost second nature for me now. I think I take it for granted sometimes that people don’t just automatically know this calorie stuff.

When I say that I am on a strict 1200 calorie per day diet I do not know how that registers with every other human being. This blog could actually be incredibly confusing to people, diet wise. I do not write about what I normally eat day to day. Not because I do not like what I eat. Quite the contrary, I love the things I eat every day. The problem lies in the fact that I eat nearly the same items every single day. Who wants to read about the same thing day after day? “I ate a salad tonight, tonight I ate a salad, tomorrow I will be eating a salad, yesterday I ate a salad, etc…” Tastes good to me, sounds boring to you. The only days I really stray from my typical diet are my cheat days. And right now, I only cheat about 2.5 days per month. I always try to write about that stuff, if it turns out.

So today when I was pondering all of this, I had an idea. I seem to look at (process mentally) all of the food I typically eat in 100 calorie increments. That is the way it makes sense to me, and seems easiest for me to process, mentally. At the end of each post, from now on, I will include a photo of ~100 calories worth of something (a food item). Maybe other people think about food this way maybe they do not, maybe it will be helpful to you maybe not. It might just be a fun tip or bit of trivia. Take it however you want or don’t look at all, it’s up to you. 1200 calories can be a whole lot of food or a tiny fraction, depending on what the item is! For fun, I would just like to point out some interesting examples. It is not strictly all about portion control. It is more like calorie content within portion control.

For my new idea to make sense I have to let you know a couple of things. For perspective, I am going to use a quarter, a 1.5 oz. shot glass, and the same over sized plate/bowl. Most people can relate to the quarter and the shot glass. I took a photo of them in the plate/bowl I will use so you can get an idea of the size of the plate/bowl.

With that, here is my first item of interest. I found these the other night at the grocery store. They are low in calories but high in flavor and crunch! They were a perfect salad topper for me last night.

I am a huge fan of “Ranch” anything!

FYI, that’s 25 flavorful crisps!

P.S. I weighed in this morning (06/11/2012) at: 131 lbs.

P.P.S. Here are my stats from last week:

My Weight Loss & Fitness Journey

For: 06/04/2012

Daily Calorie Intake: 1225

Exercise: N/A