In this episode of the iCantCU Podcast, I talk about how I’ve lost nine pounds since February and I’ll tell you how I did it. I still have another nine pounds to go to get me where I want to be. The weight gain came after retina surgery and a change in my medication for psoriatic arthritis.
EatSmart Kitchen Scale
When I started my weight loss journey back in December, 2009, I didn’t know how I was going to figure out how much of any specific food I was eating. Single serve packaged items were easy, because they had how many calories were in the package. After a month or two, a friend of mine talked about using a food scale. I thought that was a great idea and went to Amazon to have a look. Keep in mind that as an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. I found the EatSmart Kitchen scale. I never realized how easy that would make keeping track of what I ate each day. What really surprised me was it helped me with things like sauces, dressings, and drinks. I know, you’re saying, “You don’t measure liquids by weight.” That is true. But, what I did, with Eliz’s help was measure out a serving size of dressing, for example, and then weigh it. Once I got a number in grams for a serving, I then could use that number each time I had that specific item. It made it especially easy for larger amounts of liquids, When a Tazo Ice Tea bag said 32oz of water, we filled a measuring cup to 32oz and weighed it. Now I know that roughly 930g of boiling water is about 32oz, I am good to go when making my daily ice tea. While the scale doesn’t talk, the numbers are large enough that I usually see them. Not always, but usually. That is more often than a measuring cup, which I can’t see at all. I sometime even over pour water into my hot tea mug. I don’t use the scale for that and rely on the contrast of the tea against the white mug.
Since I eat many of the same things on a daily basis, I soon got to know the calorie per gram values. Each night, for example, I love to have what I call a berry bonanza as my treat. I have blueberries (.57 calories per gram,) raspberries (.52 calories per gram,) and blackberries (.43 calories per gram.) We buy most of our berries from Costco or BJ’s, so they are pretty big containers. As long as I had enough calories remaining, I eat 170g of each. That would keep the per serving of each berry at or below $2 per serving. Raspberries are the wild-card and out of season are more expensive than that, so I would drop down to 113g per serving to stay at the $2 threshold. I know, it sounds like a lot of work, but once you get the spreadsheet setup it really isn’t. Look, it helped me go from 235 lbs to 155 lbs in about nine months. Then down to 143 lbs when we were going to the gym three or four times per week. And, it has helped me go from 173 lbs to 164 lbs since February. I was weighing everything while I was gaining weight over the last two years, but I wasn’t entering into the spreadsheet. Keeping track with the food diary is the key for me. I have a sample of the spreadsheet below that I received from EatSmart after I bought the scale in 2010. I emailed them for the electronic version, since I couldn’t use the printed one that came with the scale.
EatSmart Food Diary
Sample EatSmart Diary Use this spreadsheet to help you track calories, protein, and fat. I mainly use it for calories, but when someone was telling me I wasn’t getting enough protein since I was eating a primarily plant-based diet I also tracked protein. And that person was very wrong, by the way.