If you’ve followed my blog for a while… you know I can sort of contradict myself while posting workouts AND pie, cookie, and delicious recipes!😂 Well I want to share my secret today. There is a way to balance health with a little bit of indulgence every once in a while! And we all know with all the yummy baked goods constantly available this month, the holiday parties and dinners, it’s hard to keep track of what you should and maybe shouldn’t be eating and to maintain a healthy diet! BUT that’s not to say you shouldn’t indulge every once in a while. Today I’m going to share a really easy way to keep yourself accountable this holiday season… a way to indulge just enough to not go overboard and enjoy the best of both worlds!
I discovered this My Fitness Pal app several years ago and have found it to be SO helpful when trying to either lose weight or maintain- especially during the holidays. By keeping a food journal you accomplish a few things- 1) You can monitor your caloric intake, 2) you start to think twice about even just taking a few m&m’s out of that office candy bowl, cause you know it has to go in your log and 3) you feel less guilt about indulging on a holiday treat.
It’s so incredibly easy, you just have to be diligent that first week, after that it’s second nature. To start you input your current weight and your goal weight. From there it will calculate how many calories you should consume each day- it does this by using your body weight and age to determine the calories necessary to maintain weight, then subtracts 500. This 500 calorie deficit can come from exercise or by cutting out foods. It will give you a goal number to reach each day. Now this doesn’t mean that if you exercise and burn 500 calories in an hour long workout that you get to make up those calories with junk food- obviously you need to be making up for it with healthy choices! By inputting your foods the app will also calculate how many fats, proteins, carbs, etc you have consumed so you can see maybe you went a bit overboard on fats today (even if they are healthy fats) and didn’t get enough protein- you can switch up your meals for the next day.
Now- how do I actually use the app to track my food?
There are individual categories for each meal! So during your breakfast you can go in and quickly search, or scan the barcodes. For example, typically for my breakfast I have a couple of eggs and a piece of peanut butter toast. This is a typical breakfast for me-so the first time I input it I click on “meals” then “create meal.” You pick a name for the meal then add your ingredients. So I search “egg” and select 2. Then I actually scan the barcode on my bread and on my peanut butter and just select the serving size. It’s so simple! After that you add it to your breakfast and immediately can see your proteins, carbs, fats left for the day.
I do this for every meal throughout the day, if it’s something you don’t typically eat you can simply click on “add food” on your diary home page and either search ingredients or scan barcodes. I will also input my recipes that I make for dinner in the “recipes” tab. Once you input the recipe the app finds and matches the ingredients for you, so you don’t have to search every single one! It’s very simple, it only takes 3 minutes before or after a meal- 3 minutes that you probably are spending on your phone anyways!
As you start to get the hang of it, you can start paying closer attention to the nutrition portion to make sure everything is balanced- fats, proteins carbs, etc. You’ll track your actual calorie intake to stay at that goal number and you can even start inputing your exercise so the app can calculate and integrate your caloric loss. There are even options to link up your exercise related apps or your Fitbit- my Fitbit automatically sinks my workouts to my food diary for me!
How do I use it to keep myself accountable?
Once you get the hang of the app and you are consistent with keeping a food diary- you can see how many calories are still allowed or needed at the end of the day. When you go to a holiday party or dinner- you can have a better understanding of how much you can or should eat and will have more self control. If you know you’re going to indulge a little bit on some holiday treats- take it easy on carbs and fats early on in the day! If you know you’re going to a party or want one of those Christmas cookies in the office- don’t have pancakes for breakfast, make an omelet. For lunch- a light soup or small sandwich so you aren’t spoiling your diet for the rest of the day! One way to make this easier is to actually input your food for the next day the night before. I found that sometimes I would be tracking and eating regularly during the morning and afternoon, then something would come up and .I wouldn’t get to workout, then I’m stuck having to restrict my dinner! So to prevent this feeling of restriction, plan out your meals and snacks ahead of time so you know you will meet your calorie goal or know your have planned accordingly to have that holiday treat.
Like I said, the more consistent you are, the easier it will become. You’ll start to just ‘know’ how much you should eat and what you should eat, and the diary is there to keep you accountable. This app has been one of the biggest tools I have seen to actually promote healthy habits long term. By using it you get a better understanding of nutrition in general and can actually start living a healthy lifestyle without guilt or restrictions!
So enjoy those holiday treats- but plan accordingly so you don’t go overboard! The holiday season doesn’t need to be a time to gain weight or feel guilty. I recommend using this app to start instilling healthy habits this holiday season, to not gain weight, maybe even LOSE weight and not feel guilty eating that Christmas cookie! It’s so easy to take control of your diet when you gain an understanding of what you should be eating. If you have more questions about this topic, drop a comment below or send me an email! christen@familyfromscratch.org
Merry Christmas!
