1.5 pounds a week

My favorite online calorie counting tool is Calorie Count.  I stumbled across the website while interning with the Illinois government summer of 2006.  I had one of those coupons for a free any size coffee drink at Caribiou Coffee and googled "Turtle Mocha" to see if it was acceptable to my calorie-counting-self.

Holy 90 grams of sugar!  16 oz of that mid-day snack had 587 cals, 15 gs of fat, 98 carbs, and did I mention - 90 gs of sugar.  The sugar alone lead me to abandon that free ride to a diabetes.  I don't remember what I got that day, but I do know it didn't have the words Turtle or Mocha in it.

A lot of times foods are so misleading, especially when it comes to eating out.  Yesterday I spent time comparing the calories in different tortillas at Jewel-Osco (or is it just Jewel now?).   A corn tortilla the size of my palm somehow managed to squeeze in 250 cals whilst a multigrain tortilla as big as my head was only 100 cals.

What about a Bagel vs. donut?

Test your calorie-counting skills here

I'm still working towards my weight loss goals so I can someday say, "I used to weigh 30 pounds more".  Ok, so that's not as dramatic as MTV's "I used to be fat", where kids lose 80-100+ lbs and then parade around saying "I used to be fat"...but I watched an episode yesterday and wanted my own mantra to picture saying.

Motivated by the desire to slim down and MTV's show, I created some personalized calorie-burning analysis to meet my weight loss goals:

My general calorie analysis (from Calorie Count )
You should consume about 1,209 calories a day to reach your goal weight. This is at a reasonable weight loss average of 1.5 lbs per week, which should be reached by July 19, 2011.

My Daily Caloric Expenditure
You burn 1960 calories during a typical day.  (Remember that this estimate is based on your body weight, height, age, gender, and your average level of activity.)

*These analysises was based on my age, height and activity lifestyle. I characterize myself as having a "sedentary" activity lifestyle since I met the following: At work - you work in an office; At home - you're usually sitting, reading, typing or working at a computer; Exercise - you don't exercise regularly (As of last week, I do exercise regularly...sometimes turning until always)

So here's what I did today.  I counted out all my calories, which involved some planning ahead of meals, i.e. no brainless snacking today.   Then I subtracted the calories I ate from my daily caloric expenditure.  Re: Calorie Expenditure, normally I'd add the estimated calories burned during exercise to the caloric expenditure, but today I did a light balance/flexibility class so I left it out.  I took this number and divided it by 3,500 (the amount of calories a body needs to burn to lose 1 lb).

MY STATS for 1/18/2011
Today's workout: light 30 min. Balance and Flexibility Class
Today's food:  Breakfast - Slim Fast (190 cals), Lunch -Tortilla and mozzerella (275), tomato soup (320), Snack - Dannon's light and fit strawberry yogurt (80), 100-cal kettlekorn (100) dinner:  mashed potatoes (100), green beans with olive oil (100), boneless pork loin (122); Zero calorie items:  Water, Berry La Croix, Diet Coke = Total cals: 1287 

Deficit: 673 calories = 0.19 lbs

Today I lost (will lose) 0.19 pounds.  I like the sound of that more than, "Today I burned xyz calories."
1.5 lbs per week. 30 pounds lighter by July 19, 2011. Do it to it.