Can't Lose Weight, You Have To Keep A Food Log

A cookie here. A bowl of pasta there. A handful of veggies drenched in ranch dressing. We think we know what we're taking in nutritionally, but reality is often pretty far off base. If you have trouble keep weight off, there's usually a simple reason why. 

Most of us that watch the scale often know pretty quick that we're gaining weight. Gaining weight, if your not a body builder like those people on Venice Beach in California, probably means your increasing body fat. And if you're like most of us when we want to lose weight, we cut back on food. That's wrong. Most of us don't overeat, we just eat the wrong things. 

In particular, calorie intake when dining out -- which, let's face it, most of us do more often than we should -- is usually grossly underestimated. Even so-called "healthy" meals can get derailed in a hurry, thanks to poor nutritional choices. Salad dressing is the number-one source of fat in [many] women's diets, which attests to how many women turn a good salad into a cardiac disaster. Most restaurant salads with dressing are about 800 calories, some can be even more, like a Chef Salad, Taco Salad, or a Cobb Salad.

When it comes to diet, we do a lot of things right, but most of us manage to make some serious blunders. Keeping a food log can help us get back on track, and it's not as difficult as you might think. See if any of these excuses sound familiar:

But... I don't understand what the point of a food log is. You know those contests where people fill a huge jar with jellybeans and you guess how many the jar holds, but you're wayyyyyyyyy under? That's pretty much what happens when it comes to "eyeballing" your calorie, fat and sodium intake. We think we know what we're consuming, but we're usually light years away from reality. A food log will help you keep track. For instance, Small bowl of Rasin Bran, with Almond  Milk, banana and black coffee was 432 calories. I just touch breakfast and it gives you a list and you pick what you ate and the amount and it logs in the calories. You do the same for everything you eat and shows you the total for the day.

But... I don't have time to keep a food log. Back before the World Wide Web, my dad had a book full of foods and their calorie content. He painstakingly researched and recorded each and every meal and added up the calories himself. Let's all raise our voices in thanks for apps that now do the work for us.

But... I already eat healthy. Keeping a food log isn't only about the obvious culprits, like calories and fat. Most people unknowingly put away far more sodium than they realize in a given day, and we often overestimate our fruit and veggie consumption. A food log can be a wake-up call to improve habits we didn't even know needed fixing.

Fruit and Vegetables should be 3/4 of every meal. When watching calories, never drink anything with calories. You might not realize it but half the calories we consume come from drinks. If your gaining weight it's all about the calories. You can't exercise away a bad diet. Keeping a food log with an App is the quick easy way to keep track of calories.

So why track calories? When you go week after week and the weight isn't coming off, your food log will show you mistakes that you made.

Right now the most popular weight loss app is "NOOM". If you think that you don't have time for that, then just use a part of the app. Use the food journal. It helps you to find the amount of calories in your food. 

If you really want to lose your body fat than look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You'll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books. 

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $1.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, B&N.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com, just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page. 

Breaking Through Weight Loss Plateaus

It's extremely common to hit a plateau at some point during your weight loss journey. And, obviously, it can be really discouraging when the number on the scale doesn't move. Good news — there are certain things you can do to help bust through that plateau and watch the scale number lower.

Reevaluate Caloric Needs

As you lose weight, your body burns fewer calories — sad, but true! This means that over time, you need to consume fewer calories to lose weight at the same rate.

You have two options: 

1. Consume less food every day
2. Move a little more to make up the difference. 

Back to Basics

Good habits sometimes fall by the wayside when you get too comfortable with a program, so make sure you're as on track as you think you are. For starters, write down EVERYTHING you eat. You may not realize how many little extras you're sneaking into your day. Also, make sure you measure out or weigh your foods. Measuring cups and a small kitchen scale are great tools you can use to ensure you're eating exactly the portions you're accounting for. 

Move

Exercise burns calories. It's that simple! If you haven't started a workout routine yet, start by walking 30 more minutes a day or by trying out a dance class at the local gym.

The Key To Heart Health

If you've been working out, either step up your intensity or add an extra workout each week.

If you're on a budget, there are a lot of free videos available online, from yoga and pilates to cardio and dance. The key here is just to move more than usual, at least until you break through that weight loss plateau.

Switch It Up

Being consistent can be great, but sometimes you need to change things up to get your body back on track. If you typically eat three large meals and no snacks, try skipping one meal every other day. If you've been snacking a lot, try skipping those snacks and replacing them with larger meals. Once you've broken through the plateau, you can always go back to the plan that best fits your daily life.

Choose Fresh Foods Over Packaged

If you've been eating too many meals out of a box or bag, you may want to try adding more fresh options to your diet. This is especially true if you're a fan of mom and pop brands. Those are sometimes less accurate than mass produced items when it comes to the nutritional information. If you're struggling with stalled weight loss, you may want to skip prepared foods for now. Limiting packaged foods in favor of fresh foods (lean protein, fresh veggies and fruit, etc.) is a great way to jump-start your weight loss.

Beware of Bites

We're all guilty of having an extra bite here and there.

But those extras have calories, and those calories can really add up! Try to cut out the extras or at least be totally honest and record every single one of them in your food journal. You might be surprised to see you're eating more calories than you think!

Get Support

Invite friends to come with you on a walk, join an online health community like calorie count, or sign up with a local fitness group. Sometimes the support and help of others is all you need to get back on track.

Drink Water

This might go without saying but drinking water is super important. It keeps you hydrated, helps you feel full, and flushes out toxins. Travel everywhere with a bottle of water in hand and try to drink at least eight cups daily. 

Plateaus can be very discouraging  but is normal. Your body doesn't like when you lose weight, it things Your starving and it starts to hoard fat instead of burning fat.  

You can actually gain weight.

If you want your body to keep burning fat, you have to trick your body. Your body doesn't know how much fat is too much. Humans never had a problem with too much fat before the late 1800's. Oh sure, there has always been overweight people going back thousands of years, but not in the numbers we have today. People have always been more active than modern man and we didn't have to workout to burn calories. Also, before the 1950's we never had processed food, the food we ate was all natural. We never imported food from other countries and for the most part, our foods were locally grown.

The consumer has bought into this recent trend of buying processed foods to save time. In the future, we will discover that this trend was the biggest mistake modern man has made. 

If you really want to lose your body fat than look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You'll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books. 

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $1.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, B&N.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com, just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page. 

Why Do We Have Body Fat?

Good question. Some body fat is necessary; we need it to cushion the organs in our body. Also, our body burns good fats as fuel to create energy.  Approximately  30% of all the calories burned every day to create energy come from fat that you eat or stored fat that you body keeps in reserve.

So why is fat bad? you might ask. There is good fat and bad fat, I'll explain. Your body will try and process all the food and drink you consume, but some things that we eat can't be processed; it has no value to the body, so it's stored in fat cells. When your body processes food it separates it into food it can use and the waste it can't use, but if your body can't process something or you over eat and the body hasn't the time to process it, then it gets sent to fat storage cells before the body can process it.

Our ancestors needed this system of fat storage because Man  never knew when he would find food again. Because of the active lifestyle of our ancestors, always doing physical work, always walking about, there was never any thought about Man storing too much fat. Man was not designed to deal with excess body fat. Man was designed to store fat whenever possible for the purpose of survival. And yes we were given brains to deal with our evolution because over time we would evolve. But in spite of the brains we were given, we haven't done a very good job of maintaining our bodies. The body has no mechanism  to control our weight. We have no way of knowing that we are eating too much.

Our activity level is much lower than our grandparents even. Today we do most of our work with our mind's. Yes, we do small things to keep us active, but the average office worker is only on their foot about 4 hours a day.  So we do have to be more active all day long whenever possible. But that's not our only problem; American are in the habit of eating whatever and whenever they want. We have food available 24/7 and on average we consume twice the calories we should.

Her lies the problem. To stay healthy and keep a healthy weight you have to burn the calories you eat. Simply right? Not really. If man had a fresh food diet and only fresh food like vegetables, fruits and lean meat and some whole grain like brown rice and there was no other food; than Man wouldn't have a weight problem. As long as you were moderately active you couldn't eat enough to gain weight. But today we eat all types of food that give us no nutrition; the body can't process this type food and stores it as fat. We consume too much fatty foods that overload the Liver, so if the Liver can't process all the fat  it passes through into the blood stream and clog up the arteries.

To be healthy and stay healthy you have to stick to a fresh food diet. Look up "The Mediterranean diet" and look for the food pyramid that shows all the choices. If you eat healthy you will lose body fat over time. By walking more, and I recommend the 10,000 step a day program for beginners that don't exercise regularly,  you can lose the weight quicker. But losing weight does take time. Don't get discouraged, stick to the program and don't cheat. Cheat days only ruin all the good that you've done.

The Atkins Diet is an alternative. It's a little more restrictive, but it works. Check out both those, they are the best one I know.

If you really want to lose your body fat than look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You'll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books. 

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $1.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, B&N.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com, just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page. 

Can Skipping Meals Boost Your Metabolism?

Overweight people who eat during a much smaller window of time each day than is typical report fewer hunger swings and burn slightly more fat at certain times during the night, according to a new study. But the study was small and it's not yet clear what effect, if any, this approach might have on weight.

I personally understand the reasoning and I do believe that if you want to lose weight, you have to eat most of your calories early in the day. Breakfast and lunch or lunch and dinner should be all the food you need for the whole day. It's a type of "fasting". Eat all your calories in a 6 or 8 hour window and the other 16 or 18 hours you can't consume any more calories. This gives your body time to digest all the calories you ate and burn some of your body fat. But if you don't eat healthy food it doesn't work and you won't lose or if you binge food during the eating hours it won't work.

The assistant professor of nutrition sciences at the University of Alabama at Birmingham thinks the idea is worth examining as a potential weight-loss approach and hopes to conduct a larger study.

The approach is called early time-restricted feeding. It's been tested in animals, where researchers have found that it reduced fat mass and the risk of chronic disease.

Body mass index is a rough measure of a person's body fat based on height and weight. A BMI of 30 is considered obese. Someone who is 5 feet 9 inches tall would need to weigh 203 pounds to have a BMI of 30.

All of the study participants tried each approach -- the early restricted-eating and the typical pattern. During one four-day period, participants ate between 8 a.m. and 2 p.m. only; during another four-day period they ate between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m.

The participants ate the same number of calories during each approach and they ate only the food given to them by the researchers and under supervision.

Researchers then tested the impact of the longer fast time on calories burned, fat burned and appetite. The restricted eating time didn't change the total number of calories burned, she said.

Personally, I do think there's merit to the theory. One very big problem that overweight people have is night-time eating. Snacking at night and eating that big meal at 6 pm or later and then not being active enough after dinner will cause weight gain and most of that is simply bad habits.

If you really want to lose your body fat than look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You'll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books. 

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $1.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, B&N.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com, just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page. 

What The Best Diet For Me?

As new research study comes out, the age-old debate over the best diet for weight loss keeps evolving. Is it a low-fat diet, a low-carb diet, the Military Diet, paleo, gluten-free, or something else? 

The answer really boils down to you. Ultimately, all of these diets are just fancy ways of cutting calories so that you eat less than you burn. That's the only way you'll lose weight. 

Before you decide, explore your choices. Make sure the diet you choose isn't bad for you, ask yourself these important questions, and talk to your doctor or another licensed health professional to help you make the right decision.

Many diet plans make promises that weight loss is easy, that you can eat anything that you want and that you'll see quick results. The claims can be both tempting and confusing. So, how do you sort through the plans to find the best diet plan for you? Ask yourself these questions before investing any time or money in a weight loss plan plan. First remember that most of us weight on our own. I never spent a dime to lose weight. Any money I did spend only resulted in temporary results. My real weight loss came from a change in what I was eating. You might think eating real, natural food takes a lot of food preparation and cooking skills. That's not true, I learned all I needed to know from "youtube". After you begin to eat whole foods and stop eating processed foods you lose your food cravings and eat less. It will take your body a couple of weeks to adjust, that's normal.

What is my budget? Before you begin shopping for the best weight loss plan, decide if you have money to invest. Then, based on that budget, investigate as many diet plans and products as possible. Be sure to evaluate all costs that might be involved. This includes the cost of the food, support services, reference materials and exercise classes. 

Keep in mind that the cost of a diet program is not necessarily a predictor of the plan's success. Just because you pay to lose weight doesn't mean that the weight will necessarily disappear. However, there is some evidence that suggests commercial weight loss plans are more successful than trying to lose weight on your own. Research in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that dieters who followed a structured commercial plan lost slightly more weight than those who followed a self-help plan.

But if you don't have money to spend on a commercial diet, don't worry. There are some great online weight loss programs that are cheap or even free.  These apps, online workouts and virtual coaching services are perfect if you are a do-it-yourself type who prefers to be independent and create your own weight loss program. The best program for you is the one you can stick to. This is more than a diet it's a life long meal plan you can stick to so be carefully. Don't give up because because you didn't pick well, most people don't. You'll gain knowledge and do better next time.

I chose the Mediterranean diet that the people of the Mediterranean region have had for centuries. You'll find it on the internet for free. I chose it because the food chooses are numerous, more than any other plan I looked at and it's a proven plan with thousands of years of proven results.

One of the reasons that many diets fail is that busy schedules get in the way of good eating-habits. It's hard to pass by a fast-food restaurant after working a 10-hour day. But if you know that a healthy meal is waiting at home, making a good choice might be easier.

If your serious about succeeding this time, you want to prepare your own meals. You can't trust pre-made food, you don't know what in it. You can't trust food labels. The pre-made diet meals are usually very small and the plan is to starve you and you'll lose weight. You can't lose weight by starving. This is the biggest mistake that even the commercial plans get wrong. All the designer plans want to cut your calories by giving less food. If you eat less, you'll lose weight. But the idea doesn't work very long because you can't keep restricting your food intake. That leading to bingeing and then you develop a more serious problem. 

The trick is to change the food your eating so you eat less calories, not less food. You don't want to be hungry. Eat fresh and eat clean and you can eat all you need to stay full. 

In the process of choosing the right diet for you, try to ignore the claims and advertisements. Focus on your own physical, emotional and lifestyle considerations to find a plan that helps you reach your weight loss goal.

Eating fresh means no packaged foods, no frozen foods, no processed foods, no frankenfood, You want food that gives you the most nutrition in every meal. Also eat more seafood. You can find websites like seafoodedf.org which will tell you which seafoods are low in mercury. Another tip is to drink more water and avoid drinks with calories. Also eat less red meat; Americans eat too much red meat and tube meat; it contain animal fat and it will add inches to your waist line.

If you really want to lose your body fat than look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You'll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books. 

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $1.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, B&N.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com, just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page. 

How I Plan Meals

I always start to plan meals the day I'm going to shop. I generally shop on Sunday morning, so before I go out I'll make up a meal plan for the coming week. It's might sound hard but breakfast, lunch and snacks are pretty easy, It's usually the same week after week. For me and my wife it's pretty simple, we don't buy a lot of complicated foods. What I mean is pre-made foods or processed foods. So I want Low-Fat Plain Greek Yogurt and frozen berries, eggs, low-fat milk and Oatmeal. I stay away from any berries that have syrup included, I just want plain berries. I also get a variety of fresh fruit, whatever is in season. If they have apples in June, be sure to read the small sticker that tells you what country the fruit comes from. When things like Apple are in the stores in June and you pick Apples in the fall, you have to wonder how old they are or where did they come from. I always stick to fruit from California or Florida or at least fruit from the U.S.  Harmful chemicals are used in other countries like in Central America by the big commercial growers to increase production. In the U.S. we outlawed this chemicals  several years ago.

Next is the snacks and drinks. This is pretty easy for me, we drink lots of water and we might add a little juice to flavor the water. I look for juice without added sugar, then I buy tea bags and coffee. If you like beer, lite beer has about 100 calories per bottle and if that fits into your food plan, okay, there's no added sugar in beer. Wine and hard alcohol has added sugar, but if you want hard liquor, tequila and vodka only have about 100 calories per drink. A good mixer for these alcohols is a carbonated water with no calories. I only buy un-popped popcorn, mixed nuts, seeds and for a treat, dark chocolate.

Dinner menus are the hardest I want to eat fish 3 times a week, poultry once a week and red meat about twice a month. The other days I try to go meatless. I try to buy mostly fresh vegetables, mostly organic and fill in with plain frozen vegetables. I like bread and rolls but it's that easy finding whole grain items. They are out there and there's more than ever before. I'm not talking about whole wheat, whole grain wheat or oats or barley, but whole grain. I buy gluten-free pasta, bread, bagels and pizza crusts. That way I don't have to search the shelves for non-enriched flour.  And for dessert we eat fruit. Don't forget fruits like grapes and pineapple, but again try to buy only what's grown in the U.S.

Before I go to work, while I'm having coffee, I plan dinner for that day. If there's something in the freezer I need I’ll take it out and put it in the refrigerator.  So I remember I always write down the menu and take it with me when I go shopping. If your organized enough to do this a day or two ahead then if you're missing anything from the menu you'll have time to pick it up. If you learn to stick to the planned menus then you can actually save money on food. It means a few more trips to the store, but the inventory of groceries around the house will start to shrink. This is a good thing and yes the kids need snacks, but this will give you the opportunity to make some healthy choices. When you wait until the last-minute to shop, you don’t have time to make the proper choices, you end up buying anything just to get out quick. I wish I could count the times I nearly got run over going to the checkout line.

Fruit is great snack food, it has sugar but its good sugar, its natural sugar. It's all the processed foods that are causing our health problems. Try to avoid processed food. If you saw the Today Show when a health guru was talking about the six meals a day plan, maybe some of you thought it sounded  crazy, but it's true. Never skip breakfast, but be careful that you’re eating the right thing. Eggs are great, but only one yolk, the rest whites. toast is good, but not white bread or bagels unless the whole grain, it's just empty calories, and fruit is okay.  It's very important to eat but eat good food and avoid food that doesn't have nutrition. Get something for your food dollar. Go back and review earlier posts where I discuss the six meal plan. It won't hurt to read it over again. There's a lot of truth in that post. Remember you're not eating to fill your stomach with things that taste good, you’re eating to give your body enough nutrition until you eat again.

If you really want to lose your body fat than look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You'll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books. 

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $1.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, B&N.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com, just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page. 

About Me

I often get this question, "Why do you write about weight loss?" So I'll give you the whole story. I wanted to write after I retired from a long stretch about 45 years working. I think it was just the idea of have something to do and I always wanted to write but never found the time.

I read several books on writing and most of them encouraged the writer to write about something he loved and had a lot to say about the subject. The first thing that came to mind was "travel". I've been to more than 40 countries with my wife and I thought I had enough to start a travel blog and I did and I wrote for several months and then just ran out of words.

I stopped writing for a while and than thought about changing the topic. What else did I know enough about to blog on the subject. It was my wife that suggested I write about weight loss. After all, I have as much knowledge on the subject as most and it was a subject I was passionate about. I knew I'd have to do a lot of research on the subject, after all I lost my weight over years of trial and error and yes I did lose over 60 pounds and kept it off, but I've made mistakes along the way. Mistakes that cost me hundreds. So I wanted to write the blog to help my readers avoid the mistakes I made.

Some of the more important things I learned over the years is that my weight loss goal should have been to lose body fat, to eat less, and to eat better, healthier foods. I spent a lot of money on gym memberships and pills that I didn't need when all I had to do was change the way I was eating and what I was eating. It took me a long time to realize that you can't burn off your fat by exercising. You should do moderate exercise when your trying to lose weight, but a total of 6
extra hours of walking a week on top of your normal routine might be enough to boost weight loss.

It's your body's job to burn body fat. When you eat the right foods your body will burn your body fat for fuel and over time you lose fat and lose weight. I spent too much time worrying about what the scale said, when I should have been using a tape measure to see if I was losing inches.

Muscle per square inch weighes more than fat per square inch, so if your not feeding your muscle and your muscle tissue gets flabby your body will burn that flabby muscle rather than body fat. The body will always pick the easiest way to fuel the body and if you're not using all your muscles the body will use the unused muscle as fuel because it's easier. By easier I mean in order for the body to burn calories it has to use up calories. The body wants to burn the most calories for fuel with the lest amount of effort. In other words, the effort the body uses to create energy for the body to function will take energy and it gets energy by burning calories. So lets say the body has to supply 1000 calories of fuel and it will take 200 calories of fuel to produce 1000 calories for body functions. Now the body needs 1200 calories. But if your body can find flabby muscle to create energy it might only take 1100 calories to do the same thing. The body will always pick the easiest way of producing the needed calories because that will save energy.

You can learn more about weight loss in one of my ebooks. If you really want to lose your body fat than look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You'll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books. 

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $1.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, B&N.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com, just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page.