Last night, I was having a conversation with a few friends about calorie counting. You see, I have a lot of mixed feelings about counting calories. I know the basic equation in which to lose weight you need to burn more calories in a day than you consume. That concept is clear to me. But is it really that easy?
Recently, I downloaded an app on my phone that helps you to keep track of your food consumption and exercise through the counting of calories. Now, this app, or "application" as one might say, is a great tool in the pursuit to obtain a healthier lifestyle. With this application, you select the foods that you have eaten throughout the day and plug them in to a sort of calculator. Each time you plug something in, the amount of calories you get to eat becomes fewer and fewer. It's neat because not only do they have basic food items like "apple" or "carrot" or "cinnamon bagel with extra extra pumpkin cream cheese" that you can choose from the list, but they also have popular store brands and restaurant items that you can choose if you are going out to eat. Same goes for exercise. You plug in which form of exercise you do, and it calculates the general calories burned for your age and weight.
Anyway, I'd been using this app for a about a month and everything had been working out great. That is until I started cheating. At first I was really on top of it. I found myself wanting to eat healthier, because generally healthier foods had fewer calories which meant I got to eat more. I would plug in things like, egg whites, turkey sandwich on whole wheat, 1 tsp mustard, 1 cup raw almonds, chicken breast, kale, kashi cereal with one cup almond milk, organic this, raw that, blah blah blah, etc etc etc, and be very proud of the outcome at the end of my calorie counting day. Proud, but so, so bored. How did people eat like this? You mean, if I wanted to drink a cup of OJ which, until calorie counting Ashley existed, I thought was maybe even healthy, I had to give up 260 of my precious calories in a day? No! Help! SOS!
So then, I started incorporating the exercise element into the app. I joined the gym. I ran, I biked, I zumba'ed, I yoga'ed, I hiked my little heart out as I watched the calories burn. With each exercise I would get this thrill knowing that I could eat whatever I wanted because I was burning the calories.
I hit my ultimate low the day I looked up how many calories a person can burn per hour of walking. Yea, that was it, that was the low. Once I saw that the average person of my age and weight burned 140 calories an hour walking, calorie counting Ashley was ruined. You see, I have two jobs, both of which require me to walk and/or stand almost the whole time. One of which I do in HEELS while singing "Boop Boop Bee Doo" all day long. Both of which I am burning an average of 420-850 calories a day doing. 420-850 calories a day? While at work? I never need to exercise again!! You mean, if I am on a 1250 calorie diet, but I'm burning 600 calories a day at work I can eat 1850 calories a day if I just want to break even?! Bring on the pizza! Bring on the sourdough bread bowl! Someone's saying yes to dessert tonight!
There were a few dark weeks after this "epiphany" where I'm not even going to tell you what calorie counting Ashley thought was okay to eat. I'll just say there were a lot of soft pretzels and pork belly involved. Eventually, I crawled out of that dark place and realized that maybe counting calories wasn't the best thing for me.
So, as we travel deeper and deeper into this Christmas cookie eating, latka making holiday season, I will leave you with this:
Portion control and an active lifestyle are incredibly important, not only for the way you look, but more importantly for your overall health. Eating an entire pizza and realizing that you've exceeded all of your calories for the day and then proceeding to go hungry for fear of going over is not okay. Eat that pizza, once in awhile. Maybe eat half of that pizza and then eat light, healthy snacks for the rest of the day. Don't torture yourself, especially during the holidays. If you want to eat that cookie, or cookie(s), eat them. More than anything, just be aware of balance. I'm no expert, but as someone who's gone through the extremes, that is my advice. As far as we know, we only live on this Earth once, so enjoy it, with moderation. Take care of yourselves but don't be afraid to indulge a little.
Happy Holidays everyone!
Namaste,
Ashley
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