No special diet foods
No starving yourself
No pills
Do you want to know the easiest way to lose weight? It is not hard, it is nearly free and does not take much time.
It’s simple, just track everything you eat and drink. You can journal the old-fashioned way, but today it is so much easier to track your food by using one of the popular food tracking apps such as My Fitness Pal (free), MyMacros+ ($2.99), or my personal favorite: Cronometer (yes, it cost $2.99, oh shocker!).
When you track your food using one of the apps, you will have immediate information about your calorie and macronutrient consumption. When using Cronometer, you get the extra benefit of knowing your micronutrient consumption. Most people know about calories, but what is the deal with macros and micros?
Three are three macro nutrients: protein, fat, and carbohydrates. Protein and fat have the same macronutrient density; there are 4 calories for every gram of these nutrients. Fat is more nutrient dense as it contains 9 calories for every gram There really is a forth macro: alcohol, but alcohol does not have any nutrients, just calories.
Micronutrients are the vitamins and minerals found in the foods you eat and drink.
So what is the optimum calorie consumption and macro nutrient ratio? (I will have to cover micronutrients in another blog)) The numbers are different for every individual, depending on your age, gender, weight goal, activity level and health.
So, just start by tracking what you eat, and becoming aware of what you consume. If you need some fine tuning in understanding what calorie and macro targets are optimal for your health goals, make an appointment and we will be happy to help you develop some guidelines.
Have fun and track your food and enjoy loosing weight (really!)
Ann
