No Calorie Counting

No calorie counting for this old goat. This practice of counting calories is not correct. Changing to a better way of eating is the right way.

No Calorie Counting

My mirror
Accuses me
My mind
Ever young
My body
Ages
I will be
As I should be
Strong
In all things

One Two
Three
I cannot
Count these
Calories
Too many
Ragged edges
What do I do?

OH FOOEY

Moderation
In all things!

Family Influence

Our grandparents and our parents presented us with a set of body characteristics that we are pretty well locked into. Our body, our mind and our food requirements are unique—because of this, no one else can know our personal dreams or how many calories we need.

Now we are journeying into our future—a journey that we can alter at will. This is what we have to work with.

Dieting

No calorie counting to restrict the diet. Just change your eating habits. If I try a restricted diet to lose fat, my body will re-evaluate its use of energy and go into a famine mode. As I try to reduce, my body tries to save, and I become lethargic in order to conserve stored up energy. A weight reduction diet will keep a prisoner placid and it saves food, but this works best under forced conditions. Better to try another way—like healthy eating and healthy living. No calorie counting is going to manage my health for long term results.

Metabolism

We don’t know how many calories we burn “our rate of metabolism” over a twenty-four-hour time frame. There are too many variables like our monthly cycles, our body reactions, like giving off extra heat after eating a hot pepper. How many drinks of caffeine we consumed and how it affected our metabolism. Did I recently get a shorter un-insulating haircut or let my hair grow longer, or did I wear a hat? How angry I got when I stepped in something on the sidewalk—getting angry consumes energy by raising the temperature of my ears. Remember, our daily activities all burn calories at differing rates. To many variables come into play so I won’t do no calorie counting.

Experts

No calorie counting for me. The experts don’t ask how many calories go straight through our digestive track and end up in the commode? How do we count these wasted portions? Some folks go to the bathroom several times a day hoping to expel food before it turns to fat. Maybe the human weight equation involves more than calories ingested and calories burned.

A “grill cook,” might ingest airborne food through his or her skin—or breathe it in, as we do with some modern medicines?

Now we are learning more about active bacteria in our bodies and how to feed and care for them. They play an essential role in the body’s processing and extracting value from food. (Probiotics for Breakfast, Dr. Kelly Dowhower Karpa.)

Diet Industry

The diet industry is slowly coming to grips with the fact that we need calories in the form of oil in our diet. Their  experts talk about calorie counting like it makes all the difference in the world. Will we need to wait until this whole generation of “experts” dies off before we can escape from the invalid concept of the “fat free” diet? Without enough oils (fats) in our diet, we have a difficult time starving ourselves into weight loss. We will always be so hungry that all we can think about is food. Oils such as olive oil and the oils in walnuts can be important to good health.

Other Factors

We haven’t even mentioned ethnicity, sex, bone structure, body size, and other background traits. We haven’t talked about how much physical action we saw in any given period of time and whether we worked outside in the snow or the desert heat.

Water

Water is important and needs careful thought about when and how much to drink. Some experts advocate drinking water a half-hour before food and never with food. Water can play an important roll in how well the body processes food. My dog knows when to drink and how much—and when not to drink—smart guy. He does not ask for clean water, nor seek for whom do the bells toll. (Read more about water HERE.)

Why do I say no calorie counting? Because of all these unholy alliances, a calorie by its lonesome self is as meaningless to us as fresh air is to a mummy. For our purpose we will need to re-define the word “calorie” with all its manifestations. If you must entertain yourself with the calorie, just remember that one calorie will raise one gram of water (less than one thimble-full) one degree in temperature.

Exercise

We need to look at exercise in our effort at weight control and health. Don’t get the idea that you can easily reduce body fat through exercise. With the wrong diet, exercise might result in simply building a nice layer of muscles under the big layer of belly fat—like a linebacker.

My body can be very efficient and can do a lot of work with only a fist-full of calories. There is a lot of foggy and misleading information out there that can make weight loss difficult if not impossible. It’s not about how much we eat—it’s about what we eat—and when we eat. I am boiling this down to the realization that if we eat a sensible diet of decent food, our weight and health can reach an optimum that would make an Irish ditch digger proud.

Lifestyle Changes

We are talking about lifestyle changes. If you want a good physic and happiness, you have no choice but to adopt a healthy lifestyle—mind and body.

This magnificent house is yours and chances are with all your negativity and condemnations, you are a beautiful person. You are reading a book that will help take you into your future. You must bare your soul to yourself in the quiet of the night and decide where you desire to take this temple that your parents and society worked so hard to bring to fruition.

Until we know which foods are good for us and which aren’t, we can’t make good decisions about what to avoid and what to eat. Although each of us is unique, some foods are not right for any of us and some foods are good for most of us. We will work on finding the right food and we will not count portions. We will work with simple methods to learn to like almost any food that comes down the pike. Most of the choices are easily understood.

A New Start

Make a new beginning with no calorie counting. Starting this day, at every meal, you could eat some of the types of foods that your great-grandparents ate. These are simple basic foods flavored with your chosen condiments. You will find these foods to be delicious and nourishing. Your body will award you with health and vitality. (Read more about better food choices.)

Do you think we are getting useful and accurate information from our government and the food and nutrition industry? Sometimes we call in the experts and they perform miracles. But sometimes the experts are wrong. And that’s why it’s crucial that we begin taking back control of our life—and our health.

Prescriptions

Doctors write an average of 12 prescriptions annually for every person in the United States. It may seem hard to swallow, but prescription drugs can cause people to gain weight––fast—sometimes a pound a week. That would be about fifty pounds each year. A healthy lifestyle might avoid this.

I will add some of the foods that are healthy for me and remove some of the foods that are unhealthy for me—today. No calorie counting for this old goat.

Having a dieter count calories is like having an alcoholic person tend bar. Remember—moderation in all things.

1. Survival of the Sickest by, Dr. Sharon Moalem.
2. Natural Cures. Kevin Trudeau.
3. www.MensHealth.com
4. Probiotics Revolution p.189. Gary Huffnagle PhD
5. Water for Health, for Healing, for Life. F. Batmanghelidj. MD.