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Are Invisible Calories Making You Fat?

 

I recently saw a pic that has had me thinking about it a lot.  It wasn’t gross.  It wasn’t beautiful. It wasn’t shocking.  Well, that’s just it maybe that is exactly what it was in a way.  Let me explain.  

The picture was a hand with some mixed nuts in it.  Then, another hand with more nuts in it.  But, the first handful of fewer nuts was 85 calories, the second was 255 calories.  What made these hands shocking is that at first glance there really wasn’t much of a difference in the number of nuts and so, I started thinking.  

How much do we really know about where our calories are coming from.

A snack of nuts is a wise choice.  

  • ¼ cup/28g of the mixed that I buy is 160 calories, 14g fat, 0g cholesterol, 0mg sodium and 5g protein.  

So compare that to Doritos  

  • 21 chips/50g are 260 Calories, 13g fat, 0mg cholesterol, 370 mg sodium, and 3 g protein.  
  • Girl Guide cookies  2 cookies/29g  140 calories, 6 g fat, 0 mg cholesterol, 45 mg sodium and 1 g protein.  
  • Pretzels  90 pretzels/50g  190 calories, 0g fat, 0mg cholesterol, 860 mg sodium and 4 g protein.

 

These quantities are all of the suggested servings right on the package but I don’t know who ‘they' think is actually consuming their food because I have never counted chips or weighed pretzels or even had just two cookies.  Get real!

So look at this little comparison above.  Ok, no cholesterol in any of these choices. That sounds good, doesn’t it?  But look at the sodium amounts.  If all you are doing is counting calories, you are missing out on some major nutritional info.  

What you eat is not just about calories either.  If it was only about calories, let’s face it, there are a whole lot of people that would only eat chocolate or anything deep fried or just bacon. Our bodies are way more complicated than that.  And like it or not, we need to eat our vegetables.  A lot of veggies.  Sorry to all you people that don’t like veggies unless they are in a burger or a caesar.  

But, again, it’s more than just veggies.  We are made to eat a whole variety of foods.  Our brains don’t survive without fat.  Our muscles require protein.  Our digestion needs water, plain water.

If you don’t start paying attention to at least some of the details in what you are eating, your body will just not work the same.  The time has come and gone where you can just be complacent and eat whatever commercial you have just seen.  There are way too many competing radical diets that are dangerous.  You need to do what is right for your body.  So listen to it.

If after eating that portion of Doritos, are you full?  After all, it was your snack and you should at least be satisfied at the end of it.  A snack is just a small meal and so it should be treated like that.  A small meal should have multiple components to it.  Protein, first and foremost, because that is the food that keeps you satisfied longer.  Then whatever else you have to keep you actually mentally satisfied.  If it is crunchy, sweet, sour,  or whatever it is your body is asking you for.  If you listen, your body will tell you.  Really it will.

Please, just pay attention to your portions.  Not the portions on the package, those actually have nothing to do with the amount that your body should have in a serving.  The portions you should be paying attention to are actually not that hard to find.  We use a great app my fitness pal.  Your daily quantities are all listed there.  You can very quickly look at this app for your daily amounts of most of your requirements.  They also have most foods entered into their system for easy reference.  It is a free app, really easy to use.  I have actually talked about it before.  There are all sorts of references out there if you really are interested.  Even your doctor with have some daily quantities.  

Next time you sit down to eat,

  • look at your portion.  
  • Then look at your calories.  
  • After that look at the rest of your nutritional content.  
  • Pay attention.  
  • It matters.  
  • Oh, and drink your water.  

 

One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well. – Virginia Wolf

 

​This Is The Easiest Way To Stop Emotional Eating

Generally, I am not a fan of any article that preaches “the easiest, or the quickest” of anything.  For the simple reason that if it is the easiest or quickest, we already know about it and it either doesn’t work or it doesn’t last.  

However, this article in Women’s Health Magazine has used its headline value to get me to read, but really isn’t promising anything that is earth shattering.  But, it is promoting things that I talk about all the time.  You need to listen to your body.  You are the one and only you and only you can feel what you feel.  So when it comes to emotional eating, first things first, listen to your body.  You need to realize that you actually are emotionally eating and then, deal with both what your body will tell you, ie: you are full, stop eating, and then stop eating your emotions, and just deal with them.  

The key here is to pay attention to your body.

The Easiest Way to Stop Emotional Eating

Is Your Online World Making You Miserable?

I am going to get a little ‘deep’ today.  

Our world is spinning faster than ever before.  There was once a very simpler time out there.  Life was much harsher, far more brutal, definitely shorter, but life these days is way more complex.  I am quite sure that if our forefathers could see what we deal with today, they would run for the hills.   I have had this Bible verse on my heart for quite some time and I am finally ready to get it out of my mind and into yours.  So as we deal with all of these things that pull us in so many different directions we need to remember:

A peaceful heart leads to a healthy body; jealousy is like a cancer in the bones.  Proverbs 14:30

I can’t remember a day that I haven’t logged into Facebook and seen somebody airing their dirty laundry.  People these days are using social media for sharing all of their otherwise personal problems and most times are looking for support from their virtual world.  I use Facebook.  I choose very carefully what I put out there for the world to see.  What makes me sad is that people, in general, are forgetting that what they put online just simply will never go away and can come back to bite you in the butt.

I get it when you get lousy service from a merchant and you want others to be aware so that they don’t have the same bad experience, but since when is it ok to virtually yell at a friend, or a  virtual friend so that other people get to hear you yell.  We are not going to change back to the world without social media so we should learn how best to use it.  

With most of the western world posting away about so many things, please take the time to pay attention how other people’s posts make you feel.  Whether you are aware or not, each thing we see online stays with us and can really haunt us if we let it.

If you look at fitness models with their six packs and that makes you hate your jiggly tummy.  You need to fix that.  Fixing it comes in a couple of ways.  You can stop staring at what makes you so uncomfortable by removing them from your feed.  You can begin an exercise routine that will rid you of some of the jiggles.  You can change your eating habits to lose a few extra pounds.  Or, spend some time looking inward and finding out why somebody else’s body makes you feel so poorly.

When you see somebody’s pictures of them coming home from their trip of a lifetime and you feel so broke, again, what is it that makes you feel so bad?  Are you mad at that person for going away? Are you feeling left behind?  Are you ready to make a change in your own position in life so that you can go away to your trip of a lifetime?  What is it about that person’s trip that upsets you?  It may be time to figure it out.

We need to remember that there will always be somebody else out there that is… younger, fitter, richer, has a nicer car, has a better job, great skin,… fill in the blank.  But now that we can see it on social media, it’s hard to avoid it.  So don’t, it’s time to come to terms with it.

Having a peaceful heart is up to you and you alone.  It really is a choice.  It may be a tough thing to do and you may have to work at it every single day.  But what is your option?

Do you really want to be grumpy all the time?  Do you want to always feel that twinge of jealousy every time you go online?  Of course not, nobody really does.

Next time you go online, do some inner research.  

  • How do you feel when you see…?
  • How does that person’s rants make you feel?  
  • Does that person’s posts always make you feel awful?
  • Who’s posts make you smile?
  • Do you generally feel good after being online or not?  
  • Are you jealous of people you have actually never met in person?
  • Is it time to do an online purge of things look at?
  • Are there websites that make you feel good?

It’s really time to make your online world as healthy as you want your actual world to be.

 

My faith helps me understand that circumstances don't dictate my happiness, my inner peace. – Denzel Washington

10 Step Allergy Survival Kit

I am not going to say that I loved this article because that would imply that I have allergies.  I don’t have allergies.  

I am amazingly blessed to have grown up in a house where my dad and myself were the only people to not suffer from allergies.  So having said that, I did not have them growing, but I suffered too because everyone else had them.

On the west coast, as the article says, we have amazingly clean air.  However, when the trees start to bloom, I know so many people that try their best to hide until it’s over.  I am truly sorry about that.  

I hope that you find at least one helpful hint that may help with your symptoms.

10 Step Allergy Survival Kit