In the last few months I’ve managed to gain a few pounds that just aren’t coming off. Like many people, I consider myself to eat healthily but I wasn’t doing anything to confirm that belief. I knew there were a few things in my regular diet that I could probably do without since they weren’t helping me reach my fat loss goals but of course the “bad” food is so good – plus I had convinced myself that it wasn’t soo bad. Last night, I decided to bite the bullet and use myfitnesspal.com to calculate the amount of calories in my favorite comfort food: baked tostitos with cabot cheese and guacamole. The result – depending on the amount of chips, my snack has between 600 and 800 calories. I had been thinking it was somewhere in the 400 to 500 calorie range! Now that I know the numbers, I don’t think I’ll have any problems keeping my snack to a weekend treat. I don’t plan to start tracking my calories everyday but I do think it’s a good way to check in occasionally to make sure you’re eating the way you think you are. Hopefully the knowledge will help both me and you make more progress towards our goals. Have a look at the list below to see if you’re innocently eating some of these high calorie foods.
- cereal – maybe not high in calories according to the nutrition label but double check your serving size – it’s probably way bigger than the recommended serving
- chips (baked or otherwise) – see above
- healthy fats (nuts, guacamole, etc) – easy to get to snacking and eat way too many
- fruit juice – first make sure it’s 100% juice, not colored sugar water, then make sure you’re not drinking too much
Erin Mays Fitness Training 