Finding Hidden Calories
Finding Sneaky Pesky Calories
counting calories can sometimes be super simple, but only if you know they are there. It is easy for anyone to miss calories and when you’re trying to count them missing them sort of ruins the process. Here we are going to go over a few tips to finding them calories.
Calorie finding tips.
Here we are going to focus mainly on liquid calories because they can be the easiest to really go overboard on. I really don’t believe in the idea that you have to give up everything that tastes great in life just to lose weight or “Live a Healthy” life. Moderation is key. Sugar can have huge effect on the body and truthfully it doesn’t have any place in a human diet. But we just have to acknowledge the fact that it is in our life. Yes, a can of your favorite drink or those chocolate cookies with cream in them are really unhealthy for you. But if you can cut them 100%, fantastic for you. You have the will power better than tons. But for the rest of use we just have to understand we shouldn’t over do it. Yes 1 small can of soda can have about 10 teaspoons! of sugar but a 44oz (convenient store/gas station/fast food size cups) of it can contain over 37 teaspoons of sugar. My cookies aren’t much better they have the sugar content of more than 5 teaspoons of sugar per two cookies. Again the food item may be really unhealthy, but they can add up to extremely unhealthy very fast.
It’s amazing how much sugar they can really squeeze into something.
But it Sounds Healthy
Just because something sounds healthy doesn’t mean that it is. Many places and products tend to put titles that can over sell certain aspects of their product. Even though they may not be lying or even bending the truth you should know what else in that product. A perfect example is when places sell all natural of fresh fruit smoothies. These can seem like a fantastic after workout treat its fruit right? It probably true that it has fresh fruit, but you have to account for everything else in it. Perfect example would be a smoothie advertised as Real Fruit Smoothie made with healthy ingredients. But when you look at they nutritional content, you can find 1,200+ calories, 150+ Carbs, and tons of sodium in your smoothie.
Tip:
Most restaurants will give you the nutritional information readily. Many can easily be found by simply Googling the “calories (product)”
Count It All!
Count everything that is added to what you consume. This may sound complicated and time consuming but after just 1 or 2 times you will be able to do this almost automatically. A perfect example of this can be as simple as your morning coffee. When I started to look out for calories I missed this one because I really thought its just coffee. Coffee by its self has like 1 calorie per cup, maybe 50 calories for extras, I was pretty wrong. I use to like my coffee pretty sweet, but the container looked like it wasn’t that bad. Over a typical day I use to drink about 4 cups (8oz at a time). And when I added the amount of calories of each cup, I was quite surprised. A typical cup would be about 1 calorie for the coffee, 80 calories in coffee creamer, and 65 calories in milk. Thats 146 calories a cup, when you multiply that by 4 or 5 cups a day you get 584 to 730 calories. Thats about 5,000 calories a week, and about 20,000 calories a month. When this happens everyday this is easily enough to throw your entire diet plan off track. This is where exploring alternatives can be super beneficial.
Alternatives
My number one alternative is learn to drink unsweetened tea, because for me personally water can get a bit boring. I know that there are going to be a ton of people that say that they could never drink unsweetened tea, I was one of them. But it really isn’t that hard and it is actually pretty good. Theres a post about it if you would like to try, Just Click below.
Learn How to Drink Unsweetened Tea
The next alternative is trying to just limit the sweetness without changing ingredients. You can accomplish this by adjusting your tolerance to sugar. There are two ways of doing this and my recommendation would be number one.
First
You just go cold turkey for a few days maybe even a few weeks. Instead of having your super sweet morning drink try to enjoy black coffee, unsweetened teas or water. Even though it is a good idea to limit your caffeine, you can still get caffein from tea.
Second
The second way is slowly adjusting the amount of sweetener you add to your morning drink. This may take a bit longer to lower the amount of sweetness you add but you will become accustomed.
Sugar Addictive?
Because of the addictive nature of sugar it is a really good idea to lower the amount you eat. Normally when you consume something sugary you will normally get even greater cravings for more sugar. Aside from just the calories that this causes, too much sugar can have many health effects on you. If you would like to read more about the addictive nature of sugar you can read this article from HealthLine
Conclusion
You should really understand everything you eat, at least for a few meals you should count everything. Understand that even something that may seem insignificant can add up really fast. From the 20 calories per tiny ketchup packet to a regular 600 calorie frozen coffee. Just record these for a few days and you will be able to find areas that you can cut calories.