“I have changed my diet, I go to the gym a couple of times per week, and I haven’t had a glass of wine in almost a week… but, the scale hasn’t moved! I am getting frustrated, and I am thinking that this isn’t going to work for me.” – Client<\/p>\n
“Let’s start with your diet. How many calories are you consuming every day?” – Me<\/p>\n
“I don’t know. Probably about 2,000.” – Client<\/p>\n
“Let me see your nutrition log, and we can see exactly how much you’re eating.” – Me<\/p>\n
“Oh, I don’t track. I don’t have time for that, and it’s too annoying.” – Client<\/p>\n
This is a common conversation I have on almost a daily basis (at least it seems like it).<\/p>\n
A client comes to me with the goal to lose weight but can’t tell me how much he\/she is eating.<\/p>\n
Now, let’s put this into context into other areas of your life.<\/p>\n
If your kid comes home with an F on her report card, and you meet with the teacher to find out why your kid failed the class, you expect that the teacher will have a log of all of your kid’s grades.<\/p>\n
If, when you go to the meeting the teacher says, “Well, it was time-consuming to track and keep all of Susie’s grades over the last couple of months, so I just made an assumption of what her final grade would be,” you would probably lose your mind on Mrs. Johnson.<\/p>\n
Tracking your meals is no doubt a tedious task, but it is one that is necessary for reaching any of your body composition goals.<\/p>\n
Without tracking, you are just guessing, which is a sure way to not be accurate with how much you are eating.<\/p>\n
When you overeat, even by just a little, your body is consuming more calories than needed.<\/p>\n
Those calories will be stored for later use during a time that you aren’t eating enough.<\/p>\n
The problem is, and fortunately, food is not at a shortage for us in the developed world.<\/p>\n
We don’t need to be storing extra fat on our body to prepare for the next meal that might not come for another few days.<\/p>\n
When you compound the extra calories every day, the weight will eventually start piling on.<\/p>\n
For example, if your Basil Metabolic Rate (BMR), or in other words, the amount of calories your body burns on a daily basis just to survive- is 1,500. And, you are consuming 1,700 calories each day, that means you are in a caloric surplus of 200 per day.<\/p>\n
If this is happening on a daily basis your total calories for the week are increased by nearly 1,400 calories… That is like adding the 8th day to the week, without burning any calories at all.<\/p>\n
No wonder why it’s so easy to put on weight, even when you are trying to change your lifestyle.<\/p>\n
Simply put, track your meals.<\/p>\n
Become disciplined in the fact that if you are not assessing, you are only guessing.<\/p>\n
There are a lot of free apps out there that you can download onto your phone, and use to track your nutrition.<\/p>\n
Most of these apps even remember the meals and portion sizes that you eat, so that it makes it easy to input them into the daily tracker.<\/p>\n
Without tracking your meals, there are way too many variances that can propel you in the wrong direction, even when you are making a conscious effort to eat better.<\/p>\n
If you have ever participated in a Discovery Session with me, this is one of the first areas that we cover.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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