I started out working on this article to satisfy my own curiosity and
to provide information to other people who are blind who may want to
know how much nudity is acceptable in communal locker rooms. It's a
situation at which people who are blind are at a disadvantage in that
we can't just observe what others are doing and figure out the norm.
It's the same situation I find myself in when trying to determine if I
am under- or over-dressed at professional functions. Others can just
look around and see that most people are wearing suits or business
casual or very casual clothes, but unless there is someone to whom I
feel comfortable asking for this information directly, I just have to
guess. To be on the safe side I probably typically over-dress as it
is more acceptable to be dressed in a suit while others are in casual
clothes than the reverse.
In a locker room, though, undressing to change clothes is the whole
purpose for being there, and I think it helps to have some feedback
from others regarding what is generally considered acceptable. To
this end, I asked several women I know who have had some experience of
locker rooms around the country and in at least one instance in other
countries, and here's what I learned.
1. Most women who need to use communal locker rooms spend some time
adjusting to and getting comfortable with nudity, usually their own in
a public setting. In locker rooms you change clothes, often including
the step of taking a shower, and some nudity is expected. If no
private changing rooms are provided, then public nudity is
unavoidable. Everyone experiences it regardless of their personal
level of comfort with public nudity.
2. How much nudity is acceptable is driven by both culture and
personal preference or comfort.
A. Culture: Different parts of the country and different countries
vary in the culture of nudity. My friends tell me that the West Coast
of the USA is fairly open about nudity in locker rooms and that in
Japan, in hot mineral spring baths called Onzen, nudity is often the norm.
Other regions are more conservative and I suspect that this includes
my East Coast region. So in California while nudity exposed going to
and from the shower is mostly acceptable, here in DC, wrapping up with
a towel for this little trip is probably more the norm. Another
cultural consideration is the location of the gym such as one that is
provided for use of professionals working within a particular office
complex versus a public gym open to anyone. Co-workers who see each
other every day often to conduct business are less comfortable seeing
each other nude than might be the case for strangers who only meet in
the gym.
B. Personal preference or comfort: Within the scope of what is
generally acceptable for a particular gym or location, is the comfort
level of the individual with exposing her body in public. This is a
call that you make for yourself, and as long as you stay within the
norm for the gym you are using, no one else will have a problem with
whatever you choose.
3. More women than not, at least here in the USA, seem to prefer
maintaining some level of privacy. It is typical for women to change
clothes in stages so that at no time are they completely naked.
Another expression of this modesty is to turn your back to the others
using the same changing area so that only your back is exposed while
changing clothes. If even this level of exposure is uncomfortable,
then there is usually a toilet stall that can be made private in
women's locker rooms and you can sometimes use this for changing
clothes. However, be sure that there is another toilet stall open for
people to use and come out as soon as you are covered enough to manage
the public areas so that the toilet stall can be available for it's
intended purpose. Again the bottom line here is that some level of
nudity is expected in even the most conservative locker rooms and so
therefore you are well within the norm to expose your body to some
extent while changing clothes in the public places provided.
4. Usually by the time women get to the sinks to dry hair and put on
make-up, they are mostly dressed. It is pretty common to wait to put
on your top after putting on make-up and drying your hair, but
otherwise you probably want to be fully dressed. Remember that at
this point you are typically facing one or more large mirrors and so
whatever you are exposing is on display for anyone and everyone.
5. Women often help to increase the sense of privacy in a public
changing area by not looking directly at one another or by looking at
faces. Of course, being blind, I know that I'm not looking at
anything, but others often don't know this as it is not readily
apparent that I can't see. Even if they've noticed my cane, people
often think I can see a little. So I make an effort to be sure that
I'm not facing people directly. I usually tuck my chin down a bit as
though I need to look at what my hands are doing, or I stay slightly
turned away from the people around me even if I'm talking to them.
Even if they know I can't see, this is following the norm and puts
everyone at ease.
In summary, public changing areas make most women a little
uncomfortable and some very uncomfortable. Nevertheless, if we want
to take advantage of the awesome facilities provided in a public or
private gym, then communal locker rooms must be navigated. If you
can't see what's going on around you, know that none of the other
women there have any kind of magic remedies for covering nudity. At
some point, to some extent small or large, everyone is exposing parts
of their bodies as they remove one set of clothes and put on another.
It's okay to find your own level of comfort to do the same, and like
most things, it gets easier over time. I don't know if men have
similar issues or their own set of issues around nudity in communal
locker rooms, but if any men are reading this, feel free to comment on
your experiences. I don't intend to investigate men's locker rooms
any time in the near future!
Monday, May 31, 2010
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Shin Splints
I have long been prone to getting shin splints, and while I rarely
push myself hard enough for this to become a real medical condition,
it nevertheless interferes with extended walking and exercising. A few
years ago I met a guy while getting one of my Seeing Eye dogs. He was
a fellow student in the class and his profession was sports massage.
He showed me a little massage trick that has been a shin saver for me
ever since.
Before starting your exercise, use your thumbs to press steadily while
moving from the knee to the ankle, pressing along the muscle that runs
along the outside of your shin bone. My understanding is that this is
actually a group of muscles called the Tibialis muscles which connect
between the Tibia (shin bone) and the Fibula (a slender bone which
runs alongside the Tibia from knee to ankle.) The Tibialis muscles
are used to move the foot. To find the spot at which to start this
massage, put both hands around your leg just below your knee with your
thumbs together just to the outside of your shin and then flex your
foot. You will feel a definite movement that let's you know where to
begin. Relax your foot and then press both thumbs in, slowly working
your way down to your ankle. Repeat this at least three times for
each leg and voila! no more shin splints!
Another massage therapist told me that at the beginning point of the
massage described above, is a pressure point known as the three-mile
march point. The story is that Chinese foot soldiers use to stop
every three miles to press this point to gain energy to continue
marching. I usually find this point, press and hold for a half a
minute and then continue the massage down to my ankle. I admit to
being skeptical at first, but I was having trouble keeping up with my
new, young dog in class and was ready to give it a try. It worked then
and has continued to work for me ever since.
Now when I get ready to use the treadmill, I first do my stretches and
then give each leg the massage described above and I just never have a
problem with tightening muscles any more. It's definitely worth
sharing!
For more in-depth information about shin splints, check out:
http://www.eorthopod.com/content/shin-splints
push myself hard enough for this to become a real medical condition,
it nevertheless interferes with extended walking and exercising. A few
years ago I met a guy while getting one of my Seeing Eye dogs. He was
a fellow student in the class and his profession was sports massage.
He showed me a little massage trick that has been a shin saver for me
ever since.
Before starting your exercise, use your thumbs to press steadily while
moving from the knee to the ankle, pressing along the muscle that runs
along the outside of your shin bone. My understanding is that this is
actually a group of muscles called the Tibialis muscles which connect
between the Tibia (shin bone) and the Fibula (a slender bone which
runs alongside the Tibia from knee to ankle.) The Tibialis muscles
are used to move the foot. To find the spot at which to start this
massage, put both hands around your leg just below your knee with your
thumbs together just to the outside of your shin and then flex your
foot. You will feel a definite movement that let's you know where to
begin. Relax your foot and then press both thumbs in, slowly working
your way down to your ankle. Repeat this at least three times for
each leg and voila! no more shin splints!
Another massage therapist told me that at the beginning point of the
massage described above, is a pressure point known as the three-mile
march point. The story is that Chinese foot soldiers use to stop
every three miles to press this point to gain energy to continue
marching. I usually find this point, press and hold for a half a
minute and then continue the massage down to my ankle. I admit to
being skeptical at first, but I was having trouble keeping up with my
new, young dog in class and was ready to give it a try. It worked then
and has continued to work for me ever since.
Now when I get ready to use the treadmill, I first do my stretches and
then give each leg the massage described above and I just never have a
problem with tightening muscles any more. It's definitely worth
sharing!
For more in-depth information about shin splints, check out:
http://www.eorthopod.com/content/shin-splints
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Avoiding Empty Calorie Excess
Call it what you will, munching, carb loading, fulfilling a craving, snacking, having a treat … it’s all the same thing …. Taking on excess calories. Of course, if we only reached for carrots or apples to meet this “need,” then it really wouldn’t be a problem. But the food that usually appears in our hands and subsequently in our mouths is more typically chips, ice cream, cookies, candy, etc. Do we enjoy this? Yes. Have we been inundated since early childhood by advertising to do just this? Absolutely. Is it smart, thoughtful, useful, beneficial to our bodies in any way? Hardly! Other sources address the “why” of this behavior. This article addresses ways to control it so that it no longer subverts our efforts to achieve fitness.
First, take a close look at what you eat every day. Just write down all that you eat. Next, look at what you are doing while you’re eating, (e.g., sitting at the dining table, working at your desk, watching TV, browsing the web.) Your list might look something like this:
• Cereal, coffee and juice, 7:00 a.m., sitting at the dining table
• Coffee and doughnut, 8:00 a.m., grabbed in the break room and taken to my desk
• Soda, 9:30 a.m., at my desk
• Sandwich and chips with soda, noon, eating with colleagues
• Soda, 1:00 p.m., taken back to my desk after lunch
• Coffee and M&M’s, 2:30 p.m., at my desk trying to get an energy boost
• A beer and a couple of jalapeño poppers with friends after work
• Chicken, rice, squash and broccoli, 7:00 p.m., sitting at the dining table
• Popcorn and soda, 8:30 p.m., sitting on the couch watching TV
• Milk and cookies, 10:00 p.m., getting ready for bed and watching the local news
Looking at this all written out makes you want to say, “I don’t eat like that. That’s way too much food!” But I am willing to bet that if you’re concerned about those pants which just don’t fit like they use to, that your list, if you’re honest with yourself, will be very similar. Pick up an old grocery receipt and really look at what’s on it. Look at what’s on your kitchen shelves or in your refrigerator. Large or small, the behavior is there.
Once you’ve made such a list, cross out the meals and then look at what’s left. This is the part that contains most of the excess empty calories (i.e., the calories that have little to no nutritional value and serve no purpose for your body except to pack on extra weight.)
Once you clearly recognize and acknowledge this behavior in yourself, then you can work to change it. Here are some tips that can help you make this change.
• Keep a list going every day. Believe me, your conscious mind doesn’t want to keep seeing that junk on your list.
• Start reading the nutrition facts about the extra foods you choose to put in your mouth. Read the package or check it out online.
• Once you know what’s in the food you are thinking about eating, ask yourself, “what does this do for me?”
After you have repeated the above steps enough, you can boil all of this down to one simple question. “Is eating this food a smart choice?” If the answer is “no,” then consider taking another action. Here are some tips on other actions.
• Choose to eat something else to which the answer to the “smart choice” question is “yes!” Try fruit, yogurt, nuts or seeds, a protein drink, an energy bar or some other small snack that you know to have nutritional value (i.e., something that feeds your body with protein or vitamins.)
• If you’re not really hungry, then do something else. A lot of this munching behavior is driven by the need to be doing something in addition to or other than what you’re already doing. Find something to do with your hands … crafts, crossword puzzles, games, web-surfing, etc. At work I keep a star-shaped slinky on my desk and when I feel the need to reach out and grab something, I pick it up and run it through my hands till the urge passes. It’s much better for me than M&M’s and co-workers love to play with it, too. At home I crochet to keep my hands busy while watching TV. It’s all about finding something to do instead of picking up worthless food and putting it into your mouth.
Here are a couple more tricks to break this unconscious behavior.
• Don’t keep that kind of food in the house or office. This can be a problem if you live or work with others who don’t have the same commitment to improve eating habits, but see what adjustments you can make. You don’t have to stock the foods that really tempt you. If chocolate is your thing, then buy cookies for the family, but don’t buy chocolate cookies. Minimize your bad options so that at 10:00 at night when you find yourself in the kitchen looking for something to munch, there just isn’t anything there that’s bad for you.
• Choose the time when it’s okay (i.e., the least damaging to your fitness and health), to eat the things you really like. If you really love ice cream, then use it as a treat for yourself after you’ve gone a whole week without excess eating. I definitely like sweets and so I limit myself to only eating sweets that are really very good and therefore worth expending the empty calories. This means that I don’t munch doughnuts just because someone brought them into the office, but if we go out for lunch to a restaurant that has great tiramisu, then I let myself have it. But it has to be really great as opposed to just on the menu!
Finally, no discussion of consuming empty calories is complete without discussing alcohol. When, where, what and why you drink alcohol is your own business and not the topic of this article. Being aware of calorie intake when you drink alcohol, is. Hard liquor ranges from 25 to 110 calories per shot, and liqueurs are closer to 150. Mixed drinks really start to escalate caloric intake and those with several kinds of alcohol, sweeteners and whipped cream start to rival rich desserts for calories. 16 ounces of beer averages around 200 calories and 4 ounces of wine ranges from 65 to 100calories. The important thing to remember here is notwithstanding claims of benefits to health from wine, these are all empty calories, and should be given the same choice test above for eating snack food. Any perfectly nutritionally balanced day topped off with consuming 500 calories of alcohol will result in weight gain. But don’t take my word for it, just step on your scales!
We’re talking about replacing a bad habit with deliberate action to improve fitness. It’s not easy, but it is the smart thing to do. There are basically three steps:
1. Identify and define the behavior of consuming excess, empty calories for yourself.
2. Identify what triggers this behavior.
3. Either eliminate the trigger or replace the behavior it triggers with something more beneficial to your health.
The goal is to be able to say, “I make smart choices about what I eat!”
First, take a close look at what you eat every day. Just write down all that you eat. Next, look at what you are doing while you’re eating, (e.g., sitting at the dining table, working at your desk, watching TV, browsing the web.) Your list might look something like this:
• Cereal, coffee and juice, 7:00 a.m., sitting at the dining table
• Coffee and doughnut, 8:00 a.m., grabbed in the break room and taken to my desk
• Soda, 9:30 a.m., at my desk
• Sandwich and chips with soda, noon, eating with colleagues
• Soda, 1:00 p.m., taken back to my desk after lunch
• Coffee and M&M’s, 2:30 p.m., at my desk trying to get an energy boost
• A beer and a couple of jalapeño poppers with friends after work
• Chicken, rice, squash and broccoli, 7:00 p.m., sitting at the dining table
• Popcorn and soda, 8:30 p.m., sitting on the couch watching TV
• Milk and cookies, 10:00 p.m., getting ready for bed and watching the local news
Looking at this all written out makes you want to say, “I don’t eat like that. That’s way too much food!” But I am willing to bet that if you’re concerned about those pants which just don’t fit like they use to, that your list, if you’re honest with yourself, will be very similar. Pick up an old grocery receipt and really look at what’s on it. Look at what’s on your kitchen shelves or in your refrigerator. Large or small, the behavior is there.
Once you’ve made such a list, cross out the meals and then look at what’s left. This is the part that contains most of the excess empty calories (i.e., the calories that have little to no nutritional value and serve no purpose for your body except to pack on extra weight.)
Once you clearly recognize and acknowledge this behavior in yourself, then you can work to change it. Here are some tips that can help you make this change.
• Keep a list going every day. Believe me, your conscious mind doesn’t want to keep seeing that junk on your list.
• Start reading the nutrition facts about the extra foods you choose to put in your mouth. Read the package or check it out online.
• Once you know what’s in the food you are thinking about eating, ask yourself, “what does this do for me?”
After you have repeated the above steps enough, you can boil all of this down to one simple question. “Is eating this food a smart choice?” If the answer is “no,” then consider taking another action. Here are some tips on other actions.
• Choose to eat something else to which the answer to the “smart choice” question is “yes!” Try fruit, yogurt, nuts or seeds, a protein drink, an energy bar or some other small snack that you know to have nutritional value (i.e., something that feeds your body with protein or vitamins.)
• If you’re not really hungry, then do something else. A lot of this munching behavior is driven by the need to be doing something in addition to or other than what you’re already doing. Find something to do with your hands … crafts, crossword puzzles, games, web-surfing, etc. At work I keep a star-shaped slinky on my desk and when I feel the need to reach out and grab something, I pick it up and run it through my hands till the urge passes. It’s much better for me than M&M’s and co-workers love to play with it, too. At home I crochet to keep my hands busy while watching TV. It’s all about finding something to do instead of picking up worthless food and putting it into your mouth.
Here are a couple more tricks to break this unconscious behavior.
• Don’t keep that kind of food in the house or office. This can be a problem if you live or work with others who don’t have the same commitment to improve eating habits, but see what adjustments you can make. You don’t have to stock the foods that really tempt you. If chocolate is your thing, then buy cookies for the family, but don’t buy chocolate cookies. Minimize your bad options so that at 10:00 at night when you find yourself in the kitchen looking for something to munch, there just isn’t anything there that’s bad for you.
• Choose the time when it’s okay (i.e., the least damaging to your fitness and health), to eat the things you really like. If you really love ice cream, then use it as a treat for yourself after you’ve gone a whole week without excess eating. I definitely like sweets and so I limit myself to only eating sweets that are really very good and therefore worth expending the empty calories. This means that I don’t munch doughnuts just because someone brought them into the office, but if we go out for lunch to a restaurant that has great tiramisu, then I let myself have it. But it has to be really great as opposed to just on the menu!
Finally, no discussion of consuming empty calories is complete without discussing alcohol. When, where, what and why you drink alcohol is your own business and not the topic of this article. Being aware of calorie intake when you drink alcohol, is. Hard liquor ranges from 25 to 110 calories per shot, and liqueurs are closer to 150. Mixed drinks really start to escalate caloric intake and those with several kinds of alcohol, sweeteners and whipped cream start to rival rich desserts for calories. 16 ounces of beer averages around 200 calories and 4 ounces of wine ranges from 65 to 100calories. The important thing to remember here is notwithstanding claims of benefits to health from wine, these are all empty calories, and should be given the same choice test above for eating snack food. Any perfectly nutritionally balanced day topped off with consuming 500 calories of alcohol will result in weight gain. But don’t take my word for it, just step on your scales!
We’re talking about replacing a bad habit with deliberate action to improve fitness. It’s not easy, but it is the smart thing to do. There are basically three steps:
1. Identify and define the behavior of consuming excess, empty calories for yourself.
2. Identify what triggers this behavior.
3. Either eliminate the trigger or replace the behavior it triggers with something more beneficial to your health.
The goal is to be able to say, “I make smart choices about what I eat!”
Counting Calories: The Bane of Any Fitness Program
Let’s face it. None of us like to do it. Some of us don’t know how to do it. Some of us know how, but aren’t any good at it … all those numbers and conversions and deciding when to add, subtract, multiply or divide! Some of us are pretty good at it, but get really tired of all the time it takes to count everything that goes into our mouths every day. To overcome this kind of bad calorie karma, there must be a very strong “why” behind the need to do it. Fortunately, there are several, very good whys.
Like any other goal we want to achieve, the outcomes are strongly tied to what we put into it. Our pets’ social behavior is much enhanced if we put time and effort into training them. That big project at work is more successful if we put in the right amount of time, research and energy to get it done. Our cars run better if we spare the expense to maintain them properly. Similarly, our bodies become more fit if we make smart choices about what we feed ourselves, and the only way to make really smart choices about what we eat, is to become very familiar with the nutritional content of the food we prepare. Sure, we can read the nutrition facts on the package and we can read books about nutrition and all that is very worthwhile, but to take it to the next level, to be able to determine exactly what all this means in terms of our daily intake of food, we have to turn that microscope on ourselves and what goes into our mouths.
For years, we have associated “good food” with what tastes good. It’s mostly about what we like to eat, which is strongly driven by the types of food to which we are exposed. I’m not going to go into how food can be tied up with all kinds of psychological aspects of our lives, but it is, and therefore our lifetime of experiences with food very much drives the choices we make today. In order to change those choices, we must first understand what it is we’re eating and what it is we can eat that will help us be more fit.
The good news is that we don’t have to count calories forever. Once you’ve done it long enough to be aware of the basic nutritional content of the things you typically eat, and once you’ve made enough smart choices about food to know what to eat to achieve the daily caloric intake that works for you, then the daily counting is no longer necessary. You will be able to think back over the day and mentally assess both the quantity and quality of your food intake and decide what if anything you should add to it.
How long does this take? That depends on you and how much work is needed to boost you over the learning curve. I can tell you that it takes real commitment initially. I counted and charted calories for about 2 years, charting daily intake for stretches of six weeks to 4 months, with breaks between, before I reached the point where I can do this without charting. That’s not to say that I won’t ever chart again, but by being fully aware of everything I eat, stopping to choose whether to eat it or not, and looking up the nutritional value of new foods, I can effectively keep myself at or under my daily goal.
Here are some tips for counting calories.
• Find a good, go-to source for nutrition facts. This can be a book or a web site or a phone app, or a combination of several such things, but it’s important to know where you can go to find the information you need. I have found that putting “(food name) nutrition facts” into a search engine will do the trick most times.
• Decide whether you want to count your intake in calories or grams. There will always be the need to convert grams to calories to get the full picture, but on your chart, you can choose to record in calories or grams. I like calories. You’ll notice that nutrition facts typically give you total calories, fat calories, and then everything else in grams. This isn’t really enough information. I convert the grams into calories and count calories from fat, carbs, protein and total calories.
Converting Grams to Calories
Fat G X 9 = calories
Carbs G X 4 = calories
Protein G X 4 = calories
• Decide your method for keeping track of calories. There are a number of web-based methods for tracking your calories. If this is for you, find a site with nutrition information you trust and then sign up to track your daily intake. Most of these are free. Excel spread sheets are good for tracking as well as you can put in formulas to do the calculations. If you’re comfortable using Excel, this method may work for you. It’s my preferred method and I have a set of spread sheets that will help you calculate what your daily intake should be as well as chart your daily intake for free at http://groups.google.com/group/health-scape. There’s also nothing wrong with a pen and pad. Put it somewhere handy and just jot down what you’ve eaten, look up the caloric content and keep a running total each day. The method is only important to the extent that it works for you. Find one and stick with it.
• Be honest with your tracking. You don’t have to show this information to anyone else if you don’t want to, but you must be honest with yourself. It’s not okay to leave out that mocha frappuccino you grabbed after lunch just because you don’t usually do that. You need to know what you were putting into your body when you drank it and therefore you will be able to decide whether you want to do it again and how often. It’s not about taking away the things you really like; it’s about learning how to manage the things you really like so that they don’t interfere with your over-all fitness. (BTW, 16 ounces of Mocha Frappuccino Light with no whipped cream from Starbucks is 167 total calories, with only 18 fat calories. Not a bad thing to know, huh?)
I’m not trying to tell you that counting calories is easy, but I am trying to tell you that it is necessary. Understanding and regulating our daily nutrition is not a skill set that most people have. If we really want to get fit and maintain that fitness, it is a skill set we need to learn. Counting calories is how it’s done. Give it a try and I think you will be surprised at what you discover!
Like any other goal we want to achieve, the outcomes are strongly tied to what we put into it. Our pets’ social behavior is much enhanced if we put time and effort into training them. That big project at work is more successful if we put in the right amount of time, research and energy to get it done. Our cars run better if we spare the expense to maintain them properly. Similarly, our bodies become more fit if we make smart choices about what we feed ourselves, and the only way to make really smart choices about what we eat, is to become very familiar with the nutritional content of the food we prepare. Sure, we can read the nutrition facts on the package and we can read books about nutrition and all that is very worthwhile, but to take it to the next level, to be able to determine exactly what all this means in terms of our daily intake of food, we have to turn that microscope on ourselves and what goes into our mouths.
For years, we have associated “good food” with what tastes good. It’s mostly about what we like to eat, which is strongly driven by the types of food to which we are exposed. I’m not going to go into how food can be tied up with all kinds of psychological aspects of our lives, but it is, and therefore our lifetime of experiences with food very much drives the choices we make today. In order to change those choices, we must first understand what it is we’re eating and what it is we can eat that will help us be more fit.
The good news is that we don’t have to count calories forever. Once you’ve done it long enough to be aware of the basic nutritional content of the things you typically eat, and once you’ve made enough smart choices about food to know what to eat to achieve the daily caloric intake that works for you, then the daily counting is no longer necessary. You will be able to think back over the day and mentally assess both the quantity and quality of your food intake and decide what if anything you should add to it.
How long does this take? That depends on you and how much work is needed to boost you over the learning curve. I can tell you that it takes real commitment initially. I counted and charted calories for about 2 years, charting daily intake for stretches of six weeks to 4 months, with breaks between, before I reached the point where I can do this without charting. That’s not to say that I won’t ever chart again, but by being fully aware of everything I eat, stopping to choose whether to eat it or not, and looking up the nutritional value of new foods, I can effectively keep myself at or under my daily goal.
Here are some tips for counting calories.
• Find a good, go-to source for nutrition facts. This can be a book or a web site or a phone app, or a combination of several such things, but it’s important to know where you can go to find the information you need. I have found that putting “(food name) nutrition facts” into a search engine will do the trick most times.
• Decide whether you want to count your intake in calories or grams. There will always be the need to convert grams to calories to get the full picture, but on your chart, you can choose to record in calories or grams. I like calories. You’ll notice that nutrition facts typically give you total calories, fat calories, and then everything else in grams. This isn’t really enough information. I convert the grams into calories and count calories from fat, carbs, protein and total calories.
Converting Grams to Calories
Fat G X 9 = calories
Carbs G X 4 = calories
Protein G X 4 = calories
• Decide your method for keeping track of calories. There are a number of web-based methods for tracking your calories. If this is for you, find a site with nutrition information you trust and then sign up to track your daily intake. Most of these are free. Excel spread sheets are good for tracking as well as you can put in formulas to do the calculations. If you’re comfortable using Excel, this method may work for you. It’s my preferred method and I have a set of spread sheets that will help you calculate what your daily intake should be as well as chart your daily intake for free at http://groups.google.com/group/health-scape. There’s also nothing wrong with a pen and pad. Put it somewhere handy and just jot down what you’ve eaten, look up the caloric content and keep a running total each day. The method is only important to the extent that it works for you. Find one and stick with it.
• Be honest with your tracking. You don’t have to show this information to anyone else if you don’t want to, but you must be honest with yourself. It’s not okay to leave out that mocha frappuccino you grabbed after lunch just because you don’t usually do that. You need to know what you were putting into your body when you drank it and therefore you will be able to decide whether you want to do it again and how often. It’s not about taking away the things you really like; it’s about learning how to manage the things you really like so that they don’t interfere with your over-all fitness. (BTW, 16 ounces of Mocha Frappuccino Light with no whipped cream from Starbucks is 167 total calories, with only 18 fat calories. Not a bad thing to know, huh?)
I’m not trying to tell you that counting calories is easy, but I am trying to tell you that it is necessary. Understanding and regulating our daily nutrition is not a skill set that most people have. If we really want to get fit and maintain that fitness, it is a skill set we need to learn. Counting calories is how it’s done. Give it a try and I think you will be surprised at what you discover!
Why Train Your Brain?
You can make me do what you wanna do
But you got to know how,
You can make me cry, you can make me sigh,
But you got to know how,
You can make me do like this, you
can make me do like that,
Woh, baby, but you got to know how.
(Lyrics from “You Got to Know How” by Bonnie Raitt)
I don’t think Bonnie was writing about fitness and nutrition, but the underlying premise still holds true. How can we expect our bodies to do the smartest things (e.g., buy, prepare and eat the best food, respond appropriately in the physical world to maintain balance and prevent falls), unless our brain has all the knowledge necessary to give out the best instructions?
How many of us did the absolute minimum required throughout our formal education regarding physical education and nutrition? If you’re like me, you took what was absolutely required, did exactly what was needed to get through, no more and no less, and then promptly forgot about it once the necessary credit was obtained. How can we expect this limited introduction to fitness and nutrition to help us make the smartest choices about what we eat and how we exercise for the rest of our adult lives, not to mention making choices for our children?
Of course, the simple and apparent answer is that it doesn’t. Sure we all know that vegetables are good for us and doughnuts aren’t, but our choices about what we put in our mouths are rarely that obvious. Which vegetables are best and what happens during the preparation process? What’s really in all those packaged foods? Out of the hundreds of varieties of bread on the grocery store shelves, which one is really the best for us? What kind and how much exercise is right for us? What are the muscles that help us maintain balance and how do we strengthen them?
These are the kinds of things we need our brain to know so that it can better direct our bodies to take the most informed and appropriate actions. I frankly find it hard to make deliberately stupid choices, and I don’t think this makes me unique! We learn all sorts of things about our jobs so that we can perform our duties in the safest and most productive manner possible. When we decide to have children or buy a house or choose a university, we learn all that we need to know to make smart choices. Our health, the one thing that will have the greatest impact on the quality of the rest of our entire lives, is certainly worthy of the same if not a greater level of acquired knowledge and skills.
I finally connected all these dots around age 47, and I’m not proud that it took me so long. However, if better late than never is really true, then I’m glad to give it my full attention now. It’s been a slow growth process and I’m not done yet. I decided though, that I wanted to share what I’ve learned through this blog and hopefully pick up more information from those who will comment and perhaps guest blog.
So let’s make our bodies do what we want them to do by learning how!
Posted by Donna Smith
But you got to know how,
You can make me cry, you can make me sigh,
But you got to know how,
You can make me do like this, you
can make me do like that,
Woh, baby, but you got to know how.
(Lyrics from “You Got to Know How” by Bonnie Raitt)
I don’t think Bonnie was writing about fitness and nutrition, but the underlying premise still holds true. How can we expect our bodies to do the smartest things (e.g., buy, prepare and eat the best food, respond appropriately in the physical world to maintain balance and prevent falls), unless our brain has all the knowledge necessary to give out the best instructions?
How many of us did the absolute minimum required throughout our formal education regarding physical education and nutrition? If you’re like me, you took what was absolutely required, did exactly what was needed to get through, no more and no less, and then promptly forgot about it once the necessary credit was obtained. How can we expect this limited introduction to fitness and nutrition to help us make the smartest choices about what we eat and how we exercise for the rest of our adult lives, not to mention making choices for our children?
Of course, the simple and apparent answer is that it doesn’t. Sure we all know that vegetables are good for us and doughnuts aren’t, but our choices about what we put in our mouths are rarely that obvious. Which vegetables are best and what happens during the preparation process? What’s really in all those packaged foods? Out of the hundreds of varieties of bread on the grocery store shelves, which one is really the best for us? What kind and how much exercise is right for us? What are the muscles that help us maintain balance and how do we strengthen them?
These are the kinds of things we need our brain to know so that it can better direct our bodies to take the most informed and appropriate actions. I frankly find it hard to make deliberately stupid choices, and I don’t think this makes me unique! We learn all sorts of things about our jobs so that we can perform our duties in the safest and most productive manner possible. When we decide to have children or buy a house or choose a university, we learn all that we need to know to make smart choices. Our health, the one thing that will have the greatest impact on the quality of the rest of our entire lives, is certainly worthy of the same if not a greater level of acquired knowledge and skills.
I finally connected all these dots around age 47, and I’m not proud that it took me so long. However, if better late than never is really true, then I’m glad to give it my full attention now. It’s been a slow growth process and I’m not done yet. I decided though, that I wanted to share what I’ve learned through this blog and hopefully pick up more information from those who will comment and perhaps guest blog.
So let’s make our bodies do what we want them to do by learning how!
Posted by Donna Smith
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