Too Much of a Good Thing

It's easy to think you're doing all you can to lose weight and maintain a healthy lifestyle when you're eating all the "right" foods and getting your exercise. But just as important as what you're eating is how much of it you're eating each day. After all, a calorie is a calorie is a calorie. And whether that calorie comes from carrots or chocolate cake doesn't matter a whit if your metabolism doesn't burn it.

Before I lost the weight, I would complain that there was nothing I could do to eat better. I ate healthful foods and exercised nearly every day, so why wasn't the weight coming off? Once I made the connection between total calories consumed and portion sizes, it was like flipping a switch and the weight started coming off.

We can also be fooled into thinking we're doing our bodies good because we're eating something that's purportedly good for us, but we're really only being fooled by persuasive marketing. In the October issue of "Cooking Light" magazine, dietitian Janet Helm, MS, RD, writes about the "halo effect" of eating, for example, a "superfood" or a product labeled "low fat" or and thinking we can eat as much of it as we like. In fact, she points out, studies have shown that people eat more calories of a food labeled "low fat" than they do of foods without the label. Other studies have revealed that people will eat more of a food labeled "organic" because they think it has fewer calories or is good for them, even if that item is cookies. Of course, all things being equal, "organic" products have just as many calories as their non-organic counterparts, and those calories will turn to fat if we don't burn them.

All this is to show that, once again, we need to be conscious of what and how much we're eating if we're going to be successful at weight loss. I need to be reminded of this time and again, as soon as I see the scale creeping up. But fortunately, we all know how to remedy the situation.