After your visit to your health care provider, find out what your daily caloric intake should be. Find out what your nutritional needs are (such as protein intake, fiber, carbs, and vitamins and minerals).
Remember, calories are not bad. You need calories to live. Our life is a process of taking in calories and burning them. It's what's in those calories that's important. You really want your calories to give you as much of your nutritional needs as possible minus all the things not so good for you such as sugar, sodium, and fat. (Okay, I know there's been some new findings about fat, but I'll save that for another post).
For instance, a bowl of oatmeal may have the same calories as a bag of French fries. However, the oatmeal is far more nourishing than the fries (Okay, I know you're doing a Homer Simpson right now. "Mm, French fries." So, stop it!). So, calories aren't necessarily evil. It's what's in those calories that count.
You may not necessarily change the amount of calories you consume, but you might start changing the food sources for your calories. The problem with suddenly reducing calories right away is you may feel so veraciously hungry, it may become an obstacle. Overcoming obstacles is important, but let's minimize the amount of obstacles you have to overcome.
Do begin tracking your calories for all meals and snacks (Okay, switching calories applies to snacks as well). Alongside, make sure you're tracking your nutritional intake for things like protein, carbs, fiber, and other things discussed with your health care provider. Use a simple notebook. If you're more geekish, create an Excel spreadsheet where you can enter in calories you've consumed and all those nutritional components I've discussed.
Finally, a note about carbs. Like calories, carbs (short for carbohydrates) are not necessarily evil. Granted, most Americans eat way too much of them. Carbs are your number one energy source. Despite those so-called "energy drinks," caffeine doesn't give you energy. It just uses the stored energy you already have. When you add exercise to your fitness plan, not having enough carbs will adversely affect it.
Just like calories, it's the quality of those carbs. You want to minimize sugar (and I will address sugar in a future post) and simple starches that burn through your system quickly. You want carbs with a certain level of fiber and nutrition. You want carbs from whole grains. However, you don't want to overdo it. Once you get really good at this nutrition thing, you'll see how to get the carbs you need and avoid the carbs you don't. You'll see how restaurants give overgenerous portions of carbs. I'm not saying restaurants are evil. A great deal of "comfort food" centers around carbs.
That's all for this blog post. I have more to add to building a new you in upcoming posts.
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