So honestly my biggest problem is eating. Yes, I do need to increase my activity. But if you’re curious, you should go look up how many calories you burn running for an hour. It’s not honestly that many more than you burn just sitting around. Turns out, your metabolism (to put it crudely keeping your meat warm) is the biggest burner of calories you’ll have unless you are training for the Olympics – and we’re talking several hours a day of intense exercise. Exercise is still a good idea, for other health reasons. But in the end, the real way to control your weight is controlling what you put in your mouth.
Past experience tells me that I am driven to eat by a variety of factors.
- I love food. I like to cook delicious things and share them with friends. I like trying new foods. Nothing wrong with that, but my portion control isn’t the greatest. I will need to work on that.
- I eat when I’m sad or depressed. This was especially true this past Winter, when I was in a particularly bad mental space and I put on quite a bit of weight.
- I eat when I’m happy. Yes, I don’t just eat when I’m sad, I eat when I’m happy too. It’s a bad combination.
So clearly, I can’t be trusted to make decisions about food without actually stopping and thinking about it. So that’s what I’m planning on doing, for every meal.