COUNTING YOUR PENNIES

Over the past few years I have written about diets, making changes in my eating style and approach, eating a more plant based diet, exercising and general nutrition.  I have also recognized that for my metabolism I need to include cardio into my daily routine if I want to lose any weight or even maintain my weight if I am overindulging.  Cardio for me includes using machines or apparatuses such as an elliptical, rower or rebounder.  Increasing my heart rate is key to budging the number on the scale.  Even though I walk every morning with my best four legged friend, the cardio is needed.

In June I decided I needed a nutrition coach to help me be accountable and lose those persistent ten or so pounds that have been my companion for the past decade.  This companion comes and goes and as I have gotten older, it is getting harder to get rid of these companion pounds.

I did find a nutrition coach who does not live in the same city as me.  The coaching has been done through telephone calls.  It has been a slow process to lose these pounds.  I call them my Velcro pounds.  I literally need to peel them off to see progress.  To help with accountability, I write down everything I eat and the exercising I do.  I don't find that difficult as I am an old hand on recording food consumption and exercising.  This diary gets shared with my coach who reviews my progress.

I had an 'ah ha' moment last week.  I get so focused on eating properly and exercising but I realized that I needed to focus on the smaller things, the smaller picture.  I needed to watch and count the extra bites or in other words, my pennies.  By counting my pennies the dollars would look after themselves.

Counting pennies is an analogy to watching the extra small bites or snitches of food.  Taking in an extra 100 calories or so can stall progress for me on losing those ounces (or grams if you use metrics).  I was consuming a few too many almonds, my Saturdays were a challenge at times between sharing a muffin with the DH while out getting a latte and sampling at Costco and I was not paying enough attention to the balance of carbohydrates and protein at supper.  I was likely having an extra ounce of protein at supper when I was having two servings of carbohydrates.  

For this past week I have been telling myself to watch the pennies, and the dollars will look after themselves.  The 30 or 40 calories of extras can add up during the day.  

As the tee shirt in the photo says, 'remember where you come from' and I would add, remember where you are going in order to see some positive outcomes.  I am hoping to build the dollars over the next number of weeks.