Guess Who Didn't Count Their Kilojoules Last Week...

...and remembered why it is so important! If you saw my weigh in from last week, you probably also saw that I had a bit of a naughty week. I got busy, lost some focus, and as a result I skipped a lot of things I shouldn't have, including recording my intake. While a bad week isn't really fun, it really helped to reinforce for me that I NEED to count kilojoules. It really works for me, and when I don't I tend to over-eat, under-eat, forget things that I've eaten and eat bad, bad foods. Basically I go a bit crazy and all over the place.

I did much better than I thought I would have. I didn't resort to my old eating habits, and I still tried to eat really good nutritious foods, but I did see a lot of issues that I don't really have when I'm on top of my kilojoules. It helps in so many little ways, like:

It keeps me accountable. What gets measured gets done. 'Tis true. Having an accurate account of all of the food that I've eaten somehow keeps me responsible and making better choices. I think that knowing my kilojoule happy zone, and have a running tally to compare it to makes me step back and really think if more food is worth it. I know that if I step over the happy zone, that I'm doing myself a disservice and taking away from the progress that I'm working so hard to keep going.

It stops me from overlooking foods. If one good thing came out of not counting kilojoules for the last week, it's that I'm now more confident in my ability to keep a mental count. I did pretty well. Despite that, though, there were sometimes foods I'd consumed that I would overlook or forget later in the day (seriously I have a mind like a sieve). Most of the time this probably isn't/wasn't a big deal, but keeping a record prevents it from becoming an issue.

It helps me to tell when I'm trying to eat for non-hunger reasons. Sometimes I just want food because I want food. When this happens, I don't always have very good reasoning skills and having a record of my food that day can help me to see quite clearly when I'm wanting to eat just for the sake of it.

It makes me think about my choices every day. If I have to log my foods into my records every day, then everyday I am forced to think about my weight loss and what I'm doing to get healthy. If I think about it daily, then it's easier to stay on track and motivated. I won't let it slip as easily.

It helps to control my portions. While eating healthy food is a great thing, it doesn't help me if I'm eating too much. Calculating kilojoules and recording them gives me a really good idea of how much of anything I should eat, and makes me stick to it. Especially because I can easily see how quickly eating that little bit extra adds up.

I know this post has turned into a bit of an ode to kilojoule counting, but it really does help me so very much. Out of any of the many tools and strategies I am using to lose weight, it is by far the most valuable. Last week helped me to learn a really good lesson, and I'm keen to keep going.

Food Fight

I've said it before and I'll no doubt say it an inordinate number of times again, that for me weight loss begins and ends with food. In today's post, I wanted to share what I'm doing, food-wise, to battle the fat.

1. Kilojoule Counting
Years of horrific eating have left me with almost no sense of how good or bad foods are, nor how much of them I should eat. Having a daily kilojoule limit of between 5000 and 6000 kilojoules (roughly 1200 to 1430 calories), and keeping a record of everything I eat helps enormously to correct for this lack of knowledge. Doing it religiously also keeps me accountable and firmly planted in reality about what I'm eating. It makes seeing mistakes in my eating a breeze and takes away the ability for me to fall into denial about what I've eaten.

At the moment I'm using a free version of the Shape Up app on my phone. It's a decent enough app (although the features are a little limited with the free version) and it's handy to be able to input my foods on the go. The only reason I use this over MyFitnessPal is because it has the option to use kilojoules. Here in Australia pretty much all food labelling uses kilojoules, rather than calories, to measure energy. MyFitnessPal looks to be the better app, but unfortunately they still don't have the option to record or measure in kilojoules.

2. Meal Replacement Shakes
Meal replacements have always been something that I looked down on and had no interest in. When my partner started on a meal replacement scheme to lose weight last year, I repeatedly voiced my concerns about how healthy they were. In the end, I struggled so much trying to lose weight with food, because I couldn't curb my compulsive and binge eating behaviours, that I caved and gave it a go. I'm glad I did because I've really benefited from the structure it provides. Sustaining myself with something other than typical foods has also allowed me to start addressing my compulsive food habits and building willpower.

The meal replacement plan I use is by Herbalife. Their weight loss plan involves replacing two meals a day with shakes and taking nutritional supplements with all meals to ensure adequate nutrient intake. The shakes are made from Herbalife's powder formula and your milk of choice. Depending on what milk you use, the shakes are fairly low in kilojoules. Currently, I use the shakes dependent on my mood. If I just can't do a shake, then I'm pretty happy to change it with a healthy meal.

3. Eating Lots of Vegetables, Fruits and Whole Foods
Bodies love that stuff. I partake in the school of thinking that our bodies are made to consume this stuff and so probably benefit from a diet high in foods that are natural. While I haven't eliminated processed foods from my diet (see point 2 above), I try to focus on adding and substituting in lots whole foods, especially vegetables. It helps to keep my kilojoules down, while making sure my body is getting lots of nutrients.

4. Drinking Water
I know water is not a food, but maintaining adequate hydration helps me to feel less hungry. The body has difficulty distinguishing between hunger and thirst signals, and often when I'm underhydrated I tend to feel hungry more often and end up eating more. This was part of the difficulties I had last week. Proper hydration is no doubt also important in helping the digestive system do it's job.

Although not all of these things will work for everyone, they have been really working for me so far. I think the key is to find out what makes sense to you and what you can reasonably stick to. Let me know what food based plans you're using and having success with!