It Works!

My husband and I are on a quest to lose weight. Me from having a baby and him from living the sedentary office life. The Wii Fit was the first step and now we've started something new to also help us meet our goal. The experts say changing your diet is the key to losing weight and I am a believer. Thanks to www.caloriecounting.about.com, we have been keeping track of our calories and activities. It is the coolest website and I love it!

Signing up is free and so is the service the site provides. You answer a few questions about your body and lifestyle and then it sets a goal for weight loss. It tells you how many calories you need to eat each day to meet the goal. You can go and keep a food log to keep track of the calories you eat with each meal. It has a huge database of food that you can look up and enter into your log. Then it keeps a running tally so you can see how you are doing for the day. It has been so helpful to see the actual numbers add up and know where we stand. Plus, it's gotten us to pay more attention to serving sizes and be more creative with meals. For instance, I had no idea that 9 tortilla chips counted as a serving and that one serving of those chips have 140 calories. You can see how it could add up fast. So last night for dinner for taco salad we had lettuce, salsa, sour cream, a dab of shredded cheese, black, beans, meat, and then a few corn chips crumbled on top. We got all our normal ingredients, just changed the lettuce to more and the chips to way less. It was healthier. I'll admit that my husband and I have gotten used to never feeling full, but we also have gotten used to eating less. Entering in the information on-line also makes us think before we eat. (Do I really want to waste 200 calories on jelly beans? I don't want to see those calories taken away!) It's almost like a competition for us to see how many calories we can have left after dinner. That means we can have a cookie or two or a light snack later.

The website also lets you keep track of any activity you do for the day and that increases the number of calories you burn. Did you know carrying around a baby, 15 lbs., burns 400 something calories in one and a half hour? I do that and more every day! You can log exercise, chores, walking up stairs, etc. It's great.

And there are also all sorts of recipes and information offered on the site.

We started this on Saturday and since then we both have lost a few pounds. It's been fun to see the results and be more aware of what we are putting into our bodies. I like this system too because you can still have treats, but it'll cost you calories from your total so you have to be wise and not pig out. You all should check out the site. We are big fans!