Spark!

So I have to gloat for a moment. My pants no longer fit! ( I mean that in a good way.) I mentioned a while back that I was going to start working out and be healthier and I have been a very good girl. I started working out pretty consistently in March and was feeling better but not really losing any weight. On May 1st I signed up on www.sparkpeople.com which is a FREE health website which is so cool. It helps you manage your fitness minutes and also has a nutrition tracker where you input food you eat and then it tell you how many calories you are eating. It helps you balance what you need to eat versus how long you need to workout to reached your desired goals. It's super easy to use! It has lots of other tools as well like message boards and articles too. Once I started tracking my food calories and fitness minutes I started losing weight immediately. I have now lost 20 pounds! (That works out to be over 10% of my previous body weight - doesn't that sound cool?) An article last month reported a recent study which showed that if you record your food intake your chances of losing weight doubles!

I had no idea how many calories I was eating in a day. I had to be pushing 3,000 calories per day easily. Now I've learned how to judge portions and I basically eat what I want just not as much. People have no idea what they are putting in their bodies. New York City just enacted a law which makes food establishments print the calories with the prices of their food. Check out this article. People's reactions to the postings are hilarious.

So I am adjusting to my new lifestyle change. That what it's called, it's not a diet, it's a "lifestyle change". Whatever it's called I'm liking it.