6/17 Why track food???

To count calories or not is the question you battle every time you want to lose weight. Of course, you have little voices in your head – and on your social media pages – telling you that the key to weight loss is actually some crazy new trend. Pseudo fitness experts think losing weight is a matter of cutting out practically everything you enjoy on a daily basis – bread, milk, meat, fruit. Who cuts out fruit? Perhaps the problem here is that people focus so much on “losing weight” that they forget about health. Counting calories can be healthy. Calorie deficits are not. Check out the 5 benefits of counting calories for a healthy body.

5 REASONS FOR COUNTING CALORIES

Refocus your efforts and start counting for better a happy, healthy body.

1. YOU MAKE BETTER CHOICES

When you keep a keep journal or track your meals on your smartphone, you make better choices. You become accountable to yourself, and you can track your progress better. Within the first couple days of tracking your meals and their calories, you will be shocked.

There is no more fooling yourself about how much you are or are not consuming when you write it down. Journaling and logging your food choices leads to making better choices. It is better to eat a healthy and filling salad than to waste your calories first thing in the morning on a donut in the coffee line.

2. YOU LEARN HOW MANY YOU CAN ACTUALLY CONSUME

Have you wondered how many calories you can actually eat? Here’s a hint: it’s not what everyone thinks. Your ideal calorie intake depends on a number of factors: activity level, age, weight, body type, and macronutrient percentages. Calculate your recommended calorie goal. Once you see how much you can actually consumer, you will begin to reassess what goes in and what should be left out. If you are counting calories, count them correctly for your needs. 

3. YOU EAT SMALLER PORTIONS

Calorie control is not so much about restricting your diet as it is about eating the right amount of good foods. It’s not easy to eat healthy all the time, but portion control is possible when good eating is not. Counting calories helps you eat the right amount of better foods.

Pay attention to serving sizes on food labels, carry a portion chart with you in your wallet or purse, and learn how to visualize what a healthy portion looks like. Healthy portions and calories are easier when you limit processed foods and take-out. Again, when you log your food and calories, you will be inspired to limit your portion sizes, and you will eat different foods on the menus at your favorite restaurants.

4. VISUALIZING IS ENERGIZING

Most of the benefits lists come down to one key factor for success – visualizing. When you see, you really see it. You see your goals, you see your food, you see the calories, and you begin to consciously make better decisions. When your calorie intake is in your face, reality sets in. There is no running from it. If you are honest with yourself and your food journal, success will follow if you take the cues to make healthier decisions about your calories.

5. IT’S FREE

Yes, it’s free to count calories. No, you don’t need to sign up for an expensive weight-loss plan, you don’t need a 300-page book, and you don’t need a monthly subscription. You need an app, you need nutrition labels, and you need to count everything that goes in.

DON’T IGNORE THESE CALORIES

Finally, don’t ignore all of the calories you consume. You only cheat yourself. Every calorie counts when counting calories. Many people tend to leave out extra calories from the following:

• Condiments and dressings
• Coffee creamer
• Dips
• Dried fruits and nuts
• Butter and spreads
• Shredded and grated cheese
• Whipped cream
• Juice
• Beer, wine, and other alcoholic drinks

When you learn how to count your own calories, you won’t need to rely on expensive plans that promise big results when you can actually do it yourself. If you use an app to track your calories, choose one that allows you to scan nutrition labels. Be honest with yourself, eat the right portions, and make small calorie swaps every day to cut out hundreds of calories without starving yourself.

Nutrition is the first step to a wholesome life. When you are committed to your nutrition, you can be 100% dedicated to all other aspects of your best life – sleeping well, training, controlling stress and anxiety, and time management. Discover the ways a trainer at COR can help you achieve your wholesome life.

Why Track Macros? Find Out More About My Macros+

by Corinne Casazza | Macro Tracker | 0 comments

1. Why Track Macros?

We all know that having a handle on your diet is one of the more important factors towards reaching your health and fitness goals. Thankfully, as of late, there has been a shift from the “hardcore” deprivation style diets that allow yourself to be treated to cold tilapia out of tupperware to a more flexible, lifestyle approach to dieting. One where you can actually have your cake and eat it too.

Flexible dieting and “If it fits your macros” (IIFYM) are by no means a ground breaking concept, but one that has gained a lot of traction over the last few years. IIFYM, from a high level, is rather than having calorie based goal, you have a goal based off of Protein, Carb, and Fat intake (and I suggest keeping tabs on your fiber as well). IIFYM tries to decouple the thought of only eating “clean foods” as being a requirement to being healthy and in shape. IIFYM lets you enjoy the journey a bit more because you don’t have to deprive yourself from any of your favorite foods or shut yourself off from the social aspect of food.

Most peoples favorite foods, and the ones they are excited about not having to cut out while following the IIFYM principles, are those calorie dense foods that bodybuilding traditionalists consider “not clean”. Remember, everything is fine in moderation but if consumption is gone unchecked it is easy to spill over your nutritional goals. That is why I always suggest tracking your food and keeping a log of what your eating.

A couple of the main reasons I suggest tracking your diet are:
• Ensure that you reach your daily goals and stay on track
• Learning to better estimate portion sizes when you don’t have the ability to weigh out your food.
• Gain some insight into how certain foods affect your mood and well being

So now you may be thinking, logging everything you eat “Ain’t nobody got time for that” but I’m here to show you how easy it is.

In the early days the way it was done was pen and paper. You keep a hand written log of what you ate, nutrition values it contributes and tally up at the end of the day. Very time consuming and largely inefficient.

Next came Excel, basically bringing your hand written food diary on a computer. A big step in the right direction as far as updating, calculating and tallying your totals were concerned, but you were still limited in what you can do. Your nutrition database was confined to whatever you entered yourself, you had to physically send your spreadsheets whenever you wanted to share it with someone, the list inefficiencies goes on because that is simply not what excel was designed for.

These shortcomings along with a myriad of lackluster attempts by others was exactly why I developed My Macros+. My Macros+ is a diet tracking app for iPhone and iPad that was made specifically to track your macros and other nutritional information. Shipping pre-loaded with over 40,000 food items you can log the food you ate in under 10 seconds, quickly tabulating your meal specific and daily totals.

How can I drop 10 pounds in 2 weeks? 

Here are the 7 steps you should follow in order to lose 10 pounds in a week.

1. Eat Fewer Carbs and More Lean Proteins. …
2. Eat Whole Foods and Avoid Most Processed Junk Foods. …
3. Reduce Your Calorie Intake by Following These Tips (See List) …
4. Lift Weights and Try High-Intensity Interval Training. …
5. Be Active Outside of the Gym.

Some of the convenient features that you get from My Macros+ include:
• Add food to an infinite amount of meals, no more being restricted to Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, Snack
• Have multiple nutrition goals that can easily be applied to different days. Perfect for workout vs off days or carb cycling.
• Copy entire meals from one day to another
• Browse our recipe library for some great meal ideas or add your own custom recipe
• Macronutrient totals are given not just for the day but for individual meals as well