Food Journal

It has taken me twenty five years to come to the realization that when it comes to keeping a healthy lifestyle consistency is key. I am guilty for trying fads and diets hoping for fast results with minimal effort. If it were the case that those techniques actually worked then we would all look like super models. I have tried all kinds of things like herbalife shakes which made me incredibly ill to telling myself I would get up and run in the mornings to eating so few calories that I snapped and ate everything in sight. Everyone has their own way of keeping themselves in shape. Some people revolve their whole life around the gym, some people don’t eat meat. For me, if you haven’t figured it out yet, if it’s not simple it’s just not going to work for me. I know myself well enough to know that I always have great intentions but I usually do not last long on diets or gym schedules especially if it requires me to leave the house. Not only would I not stick with it, I would probably binge a whole series on netflix while eating a whole bag of cheetos and salsa ( because I crave nasty things like that) not to mention the waste of money on things like gym memberships. If the treadmill is not in my living room where I can watch a whole series of the Bachelor or at my desk where I could play hours of World of Warcraft it just is not going to work. (which is a great idea, maybe I should buy a treadmill to put in front of my desk). The one thing that I have found that can keep my fat ass in check is to count the calories of my food and to log my food into a food journal. To make it even lazier I have an app that does most of the work for me. The food journal that I use is called MyFitnessPal. It can be used from their website MyFItnessPal.com, or is free to download from the App store. When you download the app it will allow you to put in your information such as your height and weight, your activity level, and how many pounds you would like to lose per week. It even gives an option for if you want just want continue at the weight you are. After you put in all of your information it will calculate the amount of calories you should be taking in daily. It has a database of almost every food you would ever think about logging so you know exactly how many calories you are taking in. It even has a scanning option so that you can scan snacks and things like that without having to search for the product. This app also allows you to make meals for breakfast, lunch or dinner so that you can easily log that meal again. I usually meal prep once every two weeks. On meal prep day I log in all of my meals while I cook so that for the next two weeks I will not have to scan or search for anything, it will all already be stored in myfitnesspal. How easy is that? I pair the myfitnesspal with my Garmin vivosmart HR which calculate exactly how many calories I burn in a day and connects directly to myfitnesspal so I always know exactly how many calories I can take in in a day (because I want i would hate to miss out on available calories, am I right?). My daily calorie intake is pretty low at only 1,300 calories a day BUT I also hardly do any activity in a day so if I wanted to eat more, I would just have to exercise more but ain’t nobody got time for that! I thought it would be if I wrote up my two week meals plan the calories of each meal so that if anyone is interested in trying out MyFitnessPal you would have somewhere to start so I will be posting another blog shortly containing my meals and the calories in each of them so that you guys could see how I stay under 1,300 calories a day and still get to eat :). I can even share some recipes too! Logging food is a great way to show yourself just how much you eat in a day, it really does keep you accountable, and luckily for you guys, I have figured out the easiest way to log food plus I am going to give you a look into my kitchen and show you just how to stay under your calorie goal! Stay tuned my little sloths 🙂

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