In December I visited the doctor for an ear infection. He didn’t have much to say about my ears, but my increasing weight was another matter. He was concerned that it could start impacting my health.
It’s not like I hadn’t been worried about it. I had. But my efforts to “eat less and move more” hadn’t been enough to “weight less and feel better”. It seemed that, over time, my weight would either plateau, or go up. The doctor suggested myfitnesspal.com as an option. I had downloaded the app and looked at the website, but hadn’t done much with it beyond that. The New Year was coming up and I decided to make a resolution: do myfitnesspal for a full year.
I started counting calories. I know how many I can have each day, and I keep track of my food to make sure I don’t go over my allotment. There isn’t anything specific that I can’t eat as long as I stay under my number. In just over 3 months I’m down about 30 lbs. For the first time in a long time I feel in control of what is happening and I’m getting results with a program that is super simple. There are times when I am tempted to eat more, but in general I am satisfied and very happy.
Some people like to talk about eating less as a theory, but when you start talking about keeping track of how much less, you find yourself crossing a line into forbidden territory. They don’t want to hear that sacrifice could be part of the plan. They seem to feel it is wrong to deprive yourself of anything your body wants,
The dirty little secret of counting calories is that it works. If counting them is wrong, I don’t want to be right.