A New Favorite Site

I haven’t been on here in a while. I have been swamped with work, hockey games, shopping for wedding dresses with my niece, and just life. I’m not the most consistent blogger in the world but I always come back eventually.

What I have been doing consistently is counting calories. Ever since my doctor told me my blood pressure was borderline hypertensive, to the point of possibly needing to go on medication, I’ve been watching my sodium and trying to exercise and lose some weight. I know that many things contribute to hypertension, including family history, which I can’t change, and stress, which I don’t always have control of either, but he also told me to watch salt and I was telling him I don’t add salt to anything and he opened my eyes to read labels and see how much salt is in the food I eat without me adding salt and even with eating diet food. I’m often shocked when I read a label of something I thought was fine, so much salt in so many foods. With my job, I type a lot of people in this same situation all the time and many times they get a chance to bring it down by diet and exercise alone so I begged my doctor to let me try that first and then if I know I’ve done everything that I possibly could I’ll know I need to take medicine. It’s for sure in my family history, my Mom had it, my Dad has it, my sister had it and my oldest brother takes medicine for it as well. I don’t want to mess around with it but I do want to at least try. I go back the first part of July so that’s my goal right now. I have done Weight Watcher’s off and on for as long as I can remember and it’s worked many times but because I have to watch sodium, the Lean Cuisine’s I live on when I’m on that diet don’t work for me anymore and the 2 point snacks are so high in salt so I decided to try something different. I do love WW though. I love watching the Biggest Loser show and I get how counting calories would work good because you know how many calories it takes to gain a pound and working out and burning calories would have a different meaning but I also knew I wouldn't get very many calories each day and with WW I could always work it in with flex points.

http://www.thedailyplate.com/

Anyway, I’m so excited about this web site. My sister-in-law Michelle told my sister-in-law Angela who told me and I’m obsessed with it. It’s perfect because it’s exactly what I’m doing and it also keeps track of calories, salt, fiber, etc. and it’s free! When I first started counting calories I bought all the Biggest Loser books and the small Calorie King book for my purse and a notebook to keep my sodium levels and calories written down. As time goes on, I find myself sitting at night catching up on my day and totalling everything instead of adding it as I eat it, I don’t look forward to that part at all!!. I keep it in my head a lot and am bad at writing it down. This site does it all for me and even tells me how many more calories I have left for the day. I LOVE it. Since I’m at my desk the majority of the day working I just keep it minimized and when I eat something it’s so easy to put it in there. I love the history on the side because I’m a creature of habit for sure and eat a lot of the same things so they are right there. It even found my Golden Spoon yogurt nutrition information and my chocolate raspberry creamer that I refuse to give up. There are so many foods in the search section that it finds for you. It’s great. The reality aspect of what I eat is right up there in a circle of how much percentage of my intake is fat, carbs and protein and I’m way up in the carb department, which doesn’t surprise me!!!.

Now, I have to tackle the exercise part. I really hate to exercise. One of my best friends and I try to walk together every day but some days we are just swamped and we decide to do our own thing at home and although I do have an elliptical machine and a treadmill at home, it takes more motivation than I have sometimes to do it. I’ve been trying to do the elliptical while watching a show I have taped on Tivo to take my mind off it but I hate it. When my friend and I walk we talk and talk and catch up on things and time goes by fast, sometimes we are in the middle of a story and decide to do an extra lap so we can finish the story. I’m not that motivated at home. Anyways, thanks Michelle and Angela!