Ask a Dietitian

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Week 1 – TAKE INVENTORY

Know where you are at and were you want to be in terms of fitness level, food habits and body shape/% body fat.  If you want to know your body fat % go to the pharmacy at Save On Foods and use the body fat analyzer.     

-Set some realistic goals.  Try not to make them weight focused.  It is okay to know what you weigh but don’t base your success only on getting those numbers down or you will feel like a failure.  Some weeks you may not lose weight but you will have improved your lifestyle. 

-Ask yourself what is really important to you.  Is it to be healthy, to have more energy, to enjoy life and love yourself?  What is the point of looking good on the outside if you don’t look good on the inside.  If your bones are porous and your arteries are clogged, if your lungs are black and your is liver fatty, what good does it do you to worry about how you look in a bathing suit?  Keep the perspective.  Remember, our bodies are not infinitely malleable.  Keep your genetics in mind.  We are not meant to look like supermodels.  Ask yourself how you will know when you have been successful.

-Keep and food and activity log for 5 days.  Indicate the date and time you ate, what you ate and how much you ate.  Also indicate when you did exercise, what you did and for how long.

-At the end of the 5 days, highlight all the extras you consumed.  Extras are foods that provide too much sugar or fat and very little of anything else.  They are called empty calorie foods and should be limited.  This would include foods such as potato chips, chocolate, cream sauces on pasta, pastries, high fat meals like fast food burgers and fries, deep fried foods, sausages or bacon, candy, pop and other sugar beverages such as lemonade or iced tea, milk shakes etc. 

-Replace your sugar beverages with a glass of water.

-Tally up the number of extras you had each day and take an average for the 5 days.  If you had an average of 4 extras per day try to reduce it to 1-2 per day.  If you are already at 1-2 extras per day, your ultimate goal is to have no more than 2 extras per week.

-Keep working at this and improving your score for the next 8 weeks.  Continue to keep a food and activity log.  Go to www.dietitians.ca/eatwell and do the EATracker.