How to Lose weight by tracking your food

How to lose weight while still enjoying your favorite foods

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

1. You don't need to spend money to join a weight loss program. You can do it online with http://www.livestrong.com. Or you can do it on your own without the computer. You need to be disciplined in order to lose weight. Once you set your mind to it, it will work.

2. You will simply need to track your food intake and your exercise daily. It takes a little extra time to record everything, but the outcome is well worth it. You can record your calories on paper or online. There are several online programs that you simply enter the food you ate, the portion size and it will record the calories, fat, fiber, etc. Go to www.livestrong.com and sign up for the "Daily Plate." Once you enter your weight, height, etc. You will receive the total calories you are allowed per day.

3. Measure everything!! Once you start measuring the food you eat, you will probably find that you where eating much more than the serving size. Having a food scale is a plus also.

4. Start recording EVERYTHING you eat. Even if you just took a bite of the kids mac and cheese! You will then be able to see how many calories you have left for the day. You have to stick to your daily allowed calories.

5. You must drink 8 glasses of water everyday. Think of it as flushing the fat out of your body. You can also record every glass of water you drink on the "Daily Plate."

6. Track your exercising. We all think that the more you exercise the more you will lose. When in reality you need to stay at the recommended amount of calories allowed in order to start losing the weight. If you are burning more than you are eating and your calorie intake is below the recommended, you may start to gain weight. So, if you burn 200 calories per day, you may need to take in an extra 200 calories (or close to it) per day to keep your body from storing everything as fat. Everyone is different, that's why it's important to keep the daily diary. Some may gain weight when they exercise and some may not. After a week or two you will find what works for you and how many extra calories you need to take in to equal out your exercising calories burned.

7. You may not see weight loss immediately, but after getting into a routine and understanding where your calorie intake needs to be you can start to lose up to 2 pounds per week.

Tips & Warnings

• You can still eat the foods you crave. You just need to figure it into your daily calorie intake allowance.
• Measure everything you eat. Portion size is the key to losing weight.
• Always check with your doctor before starting a diet and exercise routine.

Resources

• Livestrong

[livingwell4u]

on 10/18/2009 Great tips- will try this out!

[didi8u]

on 7/14/2009 Great tips and advice on how to lose weight tracking food. 5*

[mfrussell]

on 6/22/2009 Very informative! 5*