Q&A: Reasons Why Calorie Counting Works

It's Q & A Saturday! This is a special weekly post of answering reader questions in more elaborate detail.

Today's question:

" How does one know where the line is of eating even too many good calories? What's your take on the calorie thing and the healthy fat thing? How has that worked for you?"

My answer:

You most certainly can be eating very healthy and still not lose weight. Portion control is the key here. I complained for almost a year to my hubby that I was eating sugar free and white flour free yet I was not losing any weight  AND I was exercising 3-4 days a week!

My portions were out of control. I had no idea my portions were crazy bad until I started using a calorie counter online and discovered to my HORROR I was eating double the amount of calories my body needed! No wonder I wasn't losing weight.

Why did I start counting calories when all I had done in the past was avoid that task?

1. I was sick and tired of getting no results with weight loss.
2. I knew I had to change something or I would continue to get the same results.
3. It had worked for me in the past when I was in the Prism weight loss program and I knew it would work again if I committed to it.

Why Does it Work?

1.  Its the only way to truly measure how much you are consuming each day.
2. If you know how much you are consuming it is easy to figure out how much you need to reduce in order to achieve the weight loss you want.

Counting the calories you are consuming daily, whether they be healthy calories or not, are the calories going into your body for fuel. Eating too many results in either maintaining or even weight gain.

Calorie counting is a lot easier today with all the resources and apps available. Here are some resource tools I have used over the years.

• My Fitness Pal is a great online resource for counting calories.
• Sparkpeople.com is also fabulous .
• Weight Watchers online is great if you are only counting points. I use it online for writing recipes and it saves all info and created recipes as well.
• Livestrong.com also has a calorie counter.
• Nutritiondata.com is the one I use currently for creating recipes online and receiving the nutrition info for it.

As far as the healthy fats goes I enjoy many healthy fats and have no guilt in eating them. I must reduce the amount I have because the calories are high, but I do not exclude them from my food plan. A few of my favorites are avocados, peanut butter, extra virgin olive oil and raw almonds. They can be incorporated into a healthy plan at least once a week.

Here's some of my favorite recipes that include those healthy fats:

• Quinoa Chickpea Salad with avocado dressing
• Peanut Butter Toffee Dairy Free Sugar Free "Ice Cream"
• Toasted Tamari Almonds
• Oat & Granola Crumble
• Sugar-Free Tomato, Artichoke & Kalamata Olive Sauce
• Cucumber Feta Relish
  

This has worked for me beautifully. I have lost the weight from my third preganacy and have maintained it for 5 years. When I notice a slight weight gain, I get back to reducing the calories between 1200-1500 because that is what worked for me. Consult your doctor or nutritionist to find out how much you should be consuming in order to lose weight in a healthy way.

So the moral of the story:

• COUNT calories if you want to lose weight.
• Incorporate healthy fats into your food plan sparingly.
• Focus on one day at a time.

YOU CAN DO ANYTHING FOR ONE DAY, CAN"T YOU?