Week 2 of My Fitness Challenge! What's your daily carbohydrate goal?

My fitness challenge Week #2

This week I realized that I eat way more carbs than I actually need. This post is dedicated to those of you who also have a carbohydrate heavy diet!

I have been using MyFitnessPal and every day by lunch, I was already approaching my total daily carbohydrate limit. This was a huge predicament, especially because I still had dinner and snacks to look forward to during the 10-12 hours left in my day!

I never realized how much carbs I have throughout my household. Carbs in the fridge, carbs in the pantry, carbs in my car. When I need a snack, it seems like everything I own has carbs!! Carbs are an easy option... most don't require preparation, they are available EVERYWHERE and are delicious. My vices are corn, pop chips, rice, bread and crackers (especially w/ cheese).

Here are some tips for you in setting your carbohydrate goals for the day:

1. Figure out what your daily calorie goal is: use this calculator to help you

2. 45% of your total daily calories should come from carbohydrates (remember the goal is not to get rid of carbs, the goal is to have a balanced diet)

3. Figure out your total daily carbohydrate goal. Keep in mind that 1 gram of carbohydrate = 4 calories.

So...let's do some math:

• Assume your total daily calorie goal is 2000 calories
• 45% of your total daily calories should be calories from carbohydrates
• 0.45 x 2000 = 900
• So 900 calories in your day should come from carbohydrates
• Divide 900 calories by 4 to get the total grams of carbohydrate you can consume for the day
• 900/4=225...So your total carbohydrate goal for the day is 225 grams!
• Then if you divide 225 by 3 meals, you can determine the maximum # of carbs you should eat with each meal
• In this case 225/3 = 75...so we should allow for 75 grams of carbs maximum with each meal
• But remember that through the day you will likely eat carbs outside of your 3 main meals (with the snacks you eat, juice you drink, etc.) 
• Thus, I would recommend deducting 10 grams from each meal depending on how much carbs you eat and drink through the day (you can deduct less, if you tend not to consume carbs between meals)
• 75-10=65 grams...thus you are left with a limit of 65 grams per meals! And you have 30 grams of carbs left over which you can use for snacks, juice or a sweet craving!

4. Educate yourself on what you eat. Our diet doesn't change that often so you won't be looking up new things every day! Read nutrition labels for carbohydrate amounts, use nutrition apps like MyFitnessPal or use the internet to tally up the carbs in everything you eat.

Here's an example of the information you can find in a nutrition label. Always be aware of the serving size!

5. Start carbohydrate counting today!

Any questions, email me at DoctorDeenaMD@gmail.com 
or ask/follow me on Twitter @Doctor_Deena.
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Week 1 of my fitness challenge!

Hi everyone! Are you ready to join me for a fitness challenge? Today I set my goal to lose 1 pound per week using this online calculator . Based on my sex, age, weight, height, and level of activity--- in order to reach this goal I have to consume 1,200 calories NET daily. 

Day 1 was really tough! I discovered how hard it is to count calories, and how many calories I consume that are not worth it!

What I learned this week:

A tablespoon of sugar has a ton of empty calories and its not worth it!

I take way too much sugar in my coffee -- about 2 tablespoons to be exact. I just love it sweet, and I figure drinking coffee once or twice a day w/ that much sugar shouldn't be a problem. However, now that I am calorie counting -- EVERY calorie counts. I never realized how many extra calories 2 tablespoons of sugar adds -- it adds 90 extra calories to my coffee every day and 24 grams of carbs.

I started to think of some of my favorite foods that were equivalent to 24 grams of carbs, that I would actually enjoy eating (and would feel more satisfied with) than the 2 tablespoons of sugar I was taking every day with my coffee. 

There are so many options both in the healthier and unhealthier categories. Here are a few of my favorite things that have 2 tablespoons of sugar per serving! Looking into this made me realize that 2 tablespoons of sugar goes a really long way to add sweetness.

Fruits:
-2 slices of ripe watermelon
-1 1/2 cups of juicy pineapple
-2 large peaches
Snacks:
-1 cup of yogurt covered raisins
-1/2 cup of craisins
-A peanut butter and jelly sandwich on white bread!
Desserts:
-1/2 cup of Haagen Daz Sorbet (my favorite, in mango!)
-1/2 cup of Ben and Jerry's ice cream
-6 Chips Ahoy cookies

My intervention:

Decrease my sugar intake!
I've been doing this for years so I'll start slow. I will try doing 1 and a 1/2 tablespoons  with my coffee every day and slowly decrease this to 1.  I am not a huge fan of sugar substitutes like Splenda or Nutrasweet....but that could be the other intervention you might choose.

Advice for you:

-Find the empty calories in your diet that might not be "worth it." This could be extra sugar, juice, alcohol, etc. 

-Find out what those calories or carbohydrates equate to (an easy google search can help figure that out)
-When you put these empty calories into perspective...it makes a huge difference
-Attempt to cut out the empty calories SLOWLY. Don't get rid of it completely...do things in moderation
- Instead of drinking 3 sodas daily, cut to 2 a day, then 1 a day, and then 1 every other day, etc. Cutting out the calories slowly will allow you to satisfy your temptation and cut calories at the same time.

It's tough making changes after all these years, but knowledge about what you are eating can really change your attitudes and preferences for food!

Any questions??

My fitness challenge!

As an Endocrinologist, my job involves taking care of many diabetics. Its one of my favorite conditions to treat, because it is the toughest! It goes far beyond just looking at fingersticks and an A1C (a marker of diabetes control over 3 months)....but it involves one's lifestyle, career, family, stress, culture, social factors and so much more! I know more about the lives of my diabetics than I know of my closest friends because every detail is so important in how to manage them.

The key to diabetes control isn't about medications or insulin it's about...LIFESTYLE changes! It's never too late to make lifestyle changes, no matter how many years you have been overweight or how many medications you take!

In my eyes- lifestyle changes with diet and exercise is key to 
helping control and prevent many diseases.  Obesity has been linked to many diseases:

Many studies have shown that losing as little as 5% of your weight can improve diabetes control and lower your risk for many other illness associated with obesity. This means, that if you are 200 lbs, even losing 10 lbs can help improve your fingersticks. 

No one is perfect when it comes to lifestyle, myself included. So I took it upon myself to do a lifestyle challenge. If I expect my patients to make lifestyle changes, I should be able to do it myself too! So I decided that I want to lose 10 lbs in 1 month. 

How will I do it? Exercise and diet with the use of MyFitnessPal. This is an app that's used to help keep tabs on total daily calories and following a well-balanced diet! You can use any nutrition app, this is just the one I happened to choose.

I think we should all try to do this together...would be a fun experiment. Set your goals on MyFitnessPal or any other app of your liking. The app will tell you how many calories you should consume a day based on your goals, time frame to achieve goals, weight and height! 

Ready to start to lower calories and lose weight starting tomorrow???