A very dear friend of mine has been trying to lose weight for years to no avail. He has never been on a true diet, but he said he has tried to watch what he eats and exercise on a regular basis. He told me he has had a little success, but nothing close to the amount of weight he wants or needs to lose.
One day, we sat around brainstorming possible reasons that he was not losing weight. After a few minutes, he confessed that he never looked at the food nutrition facts listed on practically every package of food he bought. He said he just ate the amount of food that felt right to him and got plenty of exercise.
I asked him to prepare one of his usual lunches, which was a turkey sandwich, potato chips, iced tea, a piece of fruit and a snack cake. I counted up how many calories he was consuming, and it came to over 1,000 for that meal alone. He could not believe it, and I think he finally started to understand why he was having a hard time losing weight, especially when he said that his dinner typically had even more calories than lunch.
I decided to buy him a little gadget that weighs food, and told him to read the food nutrition facts on each item of food that he bought. If the serving size was measured in ounces, he could use the gadget to weigh out one serving of food. I also gave him two bits of advice.
The first thing I asked him to do was that to eat four or five small meals per day. I am not a doctor, but I have always been told that eating smaller meals more frequently will speed up your metabolism and allow you to lose weight quicker.
The second thing that I suggested was to eat between 1,400 and 1,600 calories per day, and continue on with his exercise routine. I was really not sure how many calories he needs for a day, but I had seen on a television show that had to do with weight loss that people were asked to consume that number of calories per day, and some of them were around his size.
He started to read the food nutrition facts, followed the advice on his caloric intake and kept his exercise up, and after the first week, he had lost five pounds. He said he could not believe it when he stepped on the scale and saw the number, saying it would have taken him a month to lose that amount before.
Within a year, he had dropped 85 pounds and was in a great shape. He told me that he read the food nutrition facts every day and kept his calorie count down, and that is what helped him. I think sometimes the answer to such things are right in front of you, if you'll just look for them.