It just might count for something

I was at my girlfriend’s house for lunch. Her sister made some fried rice that was impossible for the mind to comprehend… Yes, it was that good. As we sat and talked about everything while really talking about nothing, Tina switched it up and asked me why she had not lost any weight in the last month.

See, she had a baby 2 months ago and had been working on getting back in shape by doing insanity and eating well. She had lost a lot of weight but this past month just wasn’t the same.

Confused, she explained to me “Moren, research shows that you burn 800 calories breast feeding, I’ll be conservative and say I burn 500. Insanity promises you burn 1000 calories; again let’s say I burn 800… Moren! 1300 calories a day! And I have not lost any weight in the last month??”

Immediately, I asked her how many calories she was eating a day.. “Not sure of my daily calories, but every morning I have oatmeal, then a sandwich or something for lunch and no carbs at night”. I was confused, how could she be eating just enough and burning so much but not losing any weight?

I asked her to start logging her meals to get a real picture of what she was eating. She agreed, “Yea Moren, I’ll log it but I can’t be overeating. Like I told you, that’s all I eat and I just snack on boiled peanuts”… A light bulb went off… Peanuts? How many calories are in those? “I don’t know, but they probably don’t count for anything”

Curious, I pulled out My Fitness Pal app… 1 measuring cup of boiled peanuts = 200 calories and that was a very low estimate. She was amazed and so disappointed at the same time. She pointed to an oversized drinking cup and said “Moren, I eat a full cup of peanuts even right before I go to bed”. It was a hard pill to swallow, putting in effort to get fit and so easily countering it with a snack that she assumed was “healthy”

It’s too easy to think a food is good for you or shouldn’t have many calories but you never really know, it just might count for something. Don’t render your efforts useless just because you missed a little detail. Use My Fitness Pal, Google it or Read the nutritional information on the packet when possible. It’s simple math, Calories burned>Calories eaten = Better looking you. Let’s do this!