Calorie Counting

Ok.  Let’s be honest here.  

How many of us think about what we are actually eating?  

I’m talking, do you look at the bag/box label to see what’s in it?!  

And do you check the calories and figure out what that means to you?  

I will have to admit that I’m not traditionally this type of person.  However I’ve been thinking more along these lines, getting into the habit a bit more and even considering doing a calorie count to monitor my food choices.  Even though I’ve just been entertaining this idea of calorie counting for the last few days or so, and figuring how many calories I normally eat, what I should eat to maintain my “physique” if you could call it that, and then what I should scale down to enhance my “physique”, it's made a difference.   

I’ve already been thinking about eating something, wondering how many calories it is, and then wondering if I want to waste those precious calories on that particular item!  

Interesting.  Yes I may say so! :)

Obviously I am on starting grounds here.  But here’s what I’ve found out so far.

The following information was taken from
http://weightloss.about.com/od/eatsmart/a/blcalintake.htm


To estimate how many calories you should consume in order to maintain your weight, you'll need to do a little math. By using a simple formula called the Harris-Benedict principle, you can assess your basal metabolic rate -- also known as your BMR.  (Then, to lose weight, you'll need to cut calories or burn extra calories and shoot for a level lower than the results you get with this formula.)

Women:

655 + (4.3 x weight in pounds) + (4.7 x height in inches) - (4.7 x age in years)
Men:

66 + (6.3 x weight in pounds) + (12.9 x height in inches) - (6.8 x age in years)

So, for me....after figuring things out my calorie number is 1630.  

This is just your regular stay the same calorie intake.  

So I have 2 choices here.  I can either reduce the number of calories I eat in a day, or I could eat this same amount and exercise more to lessen my calorie intake.  

{I guess you could throw in a third option of doing both at the same time. :)  

And possibly a fourth option of do nothing about it at all.}

But I'm intrigued to do something no matter how minuscule.  

So far I looked at all the ingredients of 2 of my recipes, added it together and then figured out how many calories I was eating.  It definitely made me think about if I really want to eat that much, if I could scale back a little something and what would be better to scale back on.

So I'm going to think more about what I eat, and look at the calories.  I'm going to try and figure some of the calories for the things I make and then edit the recipes to include the calorie intake information for you all too!

I'm not saying I'm going all out....YET!  We will see where this leads.
For now I'm still going to eat the same foods, I'll just be thinking more about how MUCH of it I eat!

For now this is my first example.....today we made Grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch....I found out a simple way to cut some calories that didn't hinder the wonderful taste of my meal.  First, I only used 1/2 a Tbsp of butter instead of a whole tablespoon.  Yes 1/2 tbsp for both sides total.  This is a big deal because there is 100 calories in just a Tablespoon of butter.  That really adds up.  Secondly, another easy fix was to only use 3 small slices of my colby jack block cheese instead of 4 like I used to do.  So right there I cut 75-90 calories.  Plus then I had an apple instead of 2 sandwiches. 
Well that was easy. :)