How To Eat Healthy Calories

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“I can’t eat that; I’m on a diet…”

I would like to start right off by making one very distinct clarification. Eating HEALTHIER and eating BETTER does not always mean eating LESS!! I feel that all too often we associate “diet” with cutting down our food intake, starving ourselves, being hungry all the time, and utter and complete misery. I want you to hear me well right now – THAT IS NOT THE CASE!! My goal with today’s post is not to help you eat LESS food; my goal is to help you to eat the RIGHT food and make the RIGHT CHOICES to ultimately decrease your calories and help you to lose weight. It is very possible (in fact it’s welcome!) to eat more food but consume fewer calories. Interested? Good – keep reading!

To illustrate this point, please consider the following two examples. 

“100 calories” seems to be a popular buzz in our society today, but are you aware of what 100 calories really looks like? Check out this image to see what 100 calories of some popular candies looks like (photo credit)…

Now, if you’re anything like me your initial reaction to this picture is “wait – that’s IT?? One peanut butter cup or a small handful of M&M’s??” That’s not a snack, it’s a warm-up; am I right?!

So now – here are some things to consider. When was the last time you had these candies and stuck to this size of portions and JUST this size of portions? Follow-up question – if you had these snacks according to these 100-calorie portions, how would you feel immediately afterwards? How about 10 minutes afterwards? 20 minutes? 30 minutes? An hour? My bet is you probably felt pretty hungry after you were done with them.

Now consider this image. Just like in the picture above, this image is photographs of what 100 slightly different calories looks like…

(Photo Credit)

I’m hoping your jaw dropped like mine always does whenever I see stuff like this (#easilyamused). For the exact same 100 calorie equivalent you get a whole apple, a whole banana, 2 kiwis, 25 strawberries, or 2 oranges!

Now let me ask you the same questions I did above – when was the last time you had fruit and stuck to these portions? One banana? One apple? 25 strawberries (I don’t know about your, but I dont’ think I’ve ever eaten 25 strawberries in one sitting! That’s a lot!)? My point is these portions are a little easier to stick to. And my second question – how would you feel immediately afterwards? 10 minutes? 20 minutes? 30 minutes? An hour? I’m willing to bet you felt much more satiated after eating some of these larger quantities but equal calories. By eating the right amounts of the right foods you will feel fuller longer and ultimately cut down on the snacks throughout the day.

Hopefully now you see why I DO NOT necessarily stress eating less (granted there are certainly instances where that applies), but I want to completely and utterly scream from the rooftops the importance of eating RIGHT!!

So stop dieting and start eating healthy. You  body, mind, and RESULTS will thank you for it!