Kitchen Scale: I think this is a must!!! The chances you will underestimate what you are eating are HIGH...A scale is a cake way to ensure you are calculating the best you can. The one we use is http://www.amazon.com/Ozeri-Professional-Digital-Kitchen-Tempered/dp/B003MSZBSI/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1330378758&sr=8-4 . You don't have to get this one, but for us it looks clean on our counter and has an easy "tare" feature. For those of you that understand the tare feature bear with me...but you throw your plate on the scale, hit tare and it takes away the weight of the plate, then toss on what you want weighed, hit tare and it takes away that weight as well, etc, etc. Shelley uses it for her cream for coffee, cereal and milk and even for baking and it just makes things quick and keeps you legit. Chips are a perfect example for a reason to use it!!! On the bag it says "about 14 chips" soooooo...is that 14 large chips, little chips or medium size????? On that same bag an exact weight is printed as well (example 28g). Just throw those on the scale and you have your LEGIT number! There are plenty of other killer scales out there, the point is, I would never want to do life without one. Once you get one you WILL understand!!!!
Restaurant nutrition info: This information is EVERYWHERE! If we're eating "out," we plan our meals long before entering the restaurant. For places we know we'll go to often, we save the info in our iPhones. If you have a smartphone, there are apps such as, "Livestrong , My Fitness Pal, Restaurant Nutrition," (the list goes on) are all there to help you with your calorie calculations. One word of advice though, the calculation they give you is a ball park number. I will crank up the number if I feel I've received a larger portion!!! For local joints, which we like better than chains :) we use the best guesstimate possible while comparing to the "chain" places.
Regular Scale: I weigh in every week or at least every 10 days. This is critical to knowing I am heading in the right direction and accountable. I don't weigh in less than 7 days, because the reality is if you are losing weight less than a week, then you are at too high a deficit or you are seeing water weight loss, which will only frustrate you when that weight comes back. If I have had a ton of sodium the night before I plan to weigh in, I won't weigh in until the next day or 2 after that. Sodium does nothing for weight loss, but can cause you to retain water and throw your weigh-in (and mood) off!
Write down everything that goes in your mouth: For us, we use an app on our iPhone, but even if it's a notebook, journal, piece of paper...WRITE EVERYTHING DOWN!!! Your memory is not that good!!! ANYTHING that enters my mouth I enter in my app. Even the mints I have at church on Sundays to keep my breath nice and fresh :) get written down. I recently had a cold and needed to eat cough drops, each one is 15 calories and I ended the day eating 200 calories of cough drops!!! Write it down, and keep it legit. I began this journey on February 28th last year and can go back to that day and pull up EVERYTHING that has entered my mouth since then. Side note...even if you have a day that you eat over your goal, write it down!!!!!
These things are CRITICAL to your success and might seem inconvenient or difficult at first, but I promise you, with consistency they will just be a part of how you do life and something you can maintain!!!
So excited to hear how so many of you are changing your life 1lb at a time!!!!! Keep rolling!!!
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