in pursuit of wild things

This week’s chapter is titled “What in the World Does That Mean in Dog Years?” I had to chuckle a bit through this chapter because I completely related. So many times (not recently) I have watched doctors or nutritionists on one of those morning talk shows and could not understand what they were saying. The language was so technical that I could not relate to it in a practical way.

In this chapter I learned that 4 grams is about one teaspoon. So to figure out how many teaspoons of sugar is in a food you need to divide the number of sugar grams by four. My favorite coke (soft-drink or soda for you non-Southern folk) is a Dr. Pepper and it has 40 grams of sugar per serving (can size). That is ten teaspoons of sugar in each can!!! Before reading this chapter I did not really understand what a gram or milligram looked like in a relatable way. Now that I know how to read how much sugar or salt is in a product I can make healthier choices for myself and my family.

I really do not want to keep up with how many grams of each nutrient I need to consume each day. I just do not have time for that sort of mental gymnastics. I found an app that is fairly easy to use that does keep up with all of that information. All I have to do is enter the food I eat and it tells me the nutritional facts and the number of remaining calories for the day. The app is called “myfitnesspal” and so far I like it. When I actually use it I am much more aware of what I am eating and less likely to snack on junk because I know how many calories remain for me to enjoy. I just need to start using it again…another habit to work on.

Speaking of habits…I met my water goal four times this week and on the other days I was only off by a glass or two!!! I was really happy and having a spot on my planner to check off my glasses of water was a helpful reminder for me. So this week I will set my goals to keep my water intake up and to start using the app on my phone to log food.

I made some cute weight loss planning pages for my planner this week. On the first of January I will weigh in and then set my goals for the rest of the year. I found a printable of a mason jar on Google images and then glues it to a page in the back of my planner. As I lose a pound I will put a sticker in the jar. I like the idea of the jars of stones on the counter and you move a rock from “pounds to lose” to a “pounds lost” jar. But I really didn’t want to clutter my counters so I made this paper version in my planner (ideas inspired from Pintrest).  Next to the jar I have some flip pages where I can record my measurements every month. The rest of the page and next page are for recording my target and actual weight each month. I used washi tape to pretty it all up and added a couple of my favorite quotes from Ellie’s book. I am really excited to use these pages for 2015!