Counting Calories and Serving Sizes

I read a lot of blogs and there’s a stigma out there about counting calories. It seems like sometimes people think they are healthy enough and don’t need to count calories, OR they think the act of counting calories isn’t for them. A short story: I used to weigh 250+ pounds. For a number of reason I decided to lose the weight. One day I counted all my calories without changing my diet in any way. I reached 2,000 calories by LUNCHTIME! I was horrified and was determined to change my bad ways. I lost 110 pounds with counting calories. It worked for me. Perhaps it doesn’t work for everyone but I FIRMLY believe in calorie counting. Things get out of control very fast without accountability.

Something I want to address in my blog is serving sizes. That was my biggest downfall in terms of my waistline. When I was 250 pounds, I disregarded serving sizes. I probably ate 2-4 servings of everything. When I started counting my calories, I was SHOCKED at what a serving sizes really was! It’s never as much food as you want it to be! From now on, I’m going to try my best to photograph serving sizes to illustrate them properly on my blog. Here is an example:

According to the back of the bag of chocolate chips, 1 serving size is 1 tablespoon of chips. 1 serving size is 80 calories.

I measured out 1 tablespoon of chips. Here is a visual of those chips on the plate:

Serving of Chocolate Chips

It’s really not that many chocolate chips! The next time I grab a handful of “something” and think it doesn’t count, I need to think twice! 80 calories, 50 calories, 100 calories “here and there” catch up at the end of the day!

For dessert tonight I had Late July Organic cookies with Vanilla Bean and Green Tea. Very yummy! 1 serving = 230 calories. Glass of skim milk to go with the cookies: 90 calories.