301.6

Keeping track of the things that you do and the foods that you eat are important to building new, better habits. To use myself as an example, I put my lists out there, not as some shining beacon of perfection but rather as the tool that it is meant to be and to show you how to use it to your advantage.

My foods yesterday:
Roasted chicken thighs, 14.35oz.(847 cal.)
popcorn w/butter, 187g.(984 cal.)
tuna salad w/ crackers, (925 cal.)
2 bananas, (210)

The first thing I would like to point out is, all of the food was prepared in my kitchen, no microwave popcorn was harmed in the making of this list. Chicken thighs are cheap, they have plenty of moisture and don’t dry out in the refrigerator. I get thighs in 5lb. packages and cook them all at once, roasted in the oven, never fried. I like to mix it up with chicken, this batch was seasoned with some hoisin sauce and a little extra spicy barbeque sauce but you can use anything really.

One thing you are learning with me right now is how many calories are in popcorn! It used to be my go to snack until now. Writing down the calories for the first time really drives home the point of this list, not so much eating only certain foods but being able to see in black and white what the calorie impact of each food is on your body. I’m still going to eat popcorn, not every day, and probably not with the butter either.

As well as writing down your food, make a note of your fluid intake, just to make sure you are drinking enough water. Mine was 3 qts. water and a couple of diet cokes, don’t judge me.

I have a small digital food scale I got at WalMart for $15 to measure my food, and I use a couple of different websites to look up calories:

http://www.calorieking.com/
http://nutritiondata.self.com/

…anything you can’t find there, google ‘calories from food’ or go to the mfg. website. You don’t have to break everything down to weights and calories right now, just look at the foods you are eating and see where you can make changes, it is a marathon, not a sprint.

As far as exercise goes, yesterday was my ‘rest’ day, I try to maintain a day on, day off schedule. I did manage to take my bestest buddies for a dog walk, 1 mile=152 calories burned, sunshine, fresh and happy dogs=bonus! To track the exercise that you do you can go to one of these websites to figure out how you did;

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/exercise/lookup
http://calorielab.com/burned/

To fill up the blank part of yourpage today, think about things you enjoy doing, or would enjoy doing, walking, jogging, cycling, swimming, etc. Use this list when you feel bored and don’t know what to do, maybe one of these items will bring you an exciting day.