Calorie Counting

The Bodybugg

Weight: 155.6 lbs. (same as Monday... not up!! But not down...)

Wondering what else I am doing besides cooking all this yummy stuff and eating it? I am a calorie counter! I believe in calories in - calories out. I try to have a 1000 calorie deficit at the end of everyday, which means I have BURNED 1000 calories more than I have eaten.

This is the website I calorie count with.

This whole process used to be a little bit of a guessing game... how do you know how many calories you have burned? Well, I invested in a little gadget called a

Bodybugg. You wear it around your arm and there is a digital display you can wear (either as a watch or a clip that goes on your clothes, bag, etc.) that tells you minute by minute how many calories, steps and minutes of activity you are logging. The power of the bodybugg is that you can look down and see that you are only at 1900 calories and it's 8 o'clock at night (as I did last night) and you might choose to work out, go for a walk, something to get that calorie burn higher! I chose to play some EA Active last night on my wii. The Bodybugg is 97% accurate at calculating your calorie output. No more guessing for this girl!

A little plug for AE Active... if anyone out there has a wii and it contemplating using it for working out, consider AE Active! I purchased AE when I was trained for the Death Race (probably the most fit I've ever been) and the first time I tried it, it worked me over! It is definitely a great workout! In addition to EA Active, I have a heavy bag in my basement. A 20 minute sesh of boxing + some EA Sports Active on my wii logs about -500 calories. Not too bad for just an hour of work!

Since I read Michael Pollan's book

In Defense of Food I have been crazy about eating local, eating organic and eating clean. He mentioned that food companies are so embedded in our lives that we don't even realize it.

Example: Yesterday I was teaching in a grade 9 classroom. Do you remember the hand clapping game where you stood in a circle and sang:

Stella, ella, olla, clap, clap, clap
Singing es stigga, stigga,
Stigga, stigga, clap, clap.
Es stigga, stigga,
flow, flow, flow, flow, flow, flow
1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Well these grade 9's were singing that only it went something like this:

Stella, ella, olla, snap, crackle, pop
Singing es stigga, stigga
Stigga, stigga, snap, snap.
Es stigga, stigga,
Bologna, Bologna, Cheese and Macaroni
1, 2, 3, 4, 5

I don't know why this bugged me so much! Maybe because such unhealthy foods are being embedded into something as innocent as a children's school yard game? Not only the names of food but the advertising slogan "Snap, Crackle, Pop". Maybe it was just because it was not how I used to sing it.

I am going to my sister's house for dinner tonight which is slightly scary... I can't control what is in the food. But I have compensated by eating lightly all day long.
I don't work tomorrow so I am baking bread! Mmmm... stay tuned!