Counting Calories?

In recent years there has been an increased hype over diet regimens- pretty much anything you can think of, from low-carb diets to raw vegetable diets, etc etc etc. While the intentions of these diets (to make one lose weight) is usually positive, I don't think that exercise is emphasized enough in most diets. Sorry, but I don't think you can lose weight and keep it off without regular exercise. You might find huge success with the Atkins Diet, but only temporarily, unless you stay on the diet forever. ick!

So, my non-expert opinion and guide to losing weight is to eat consciously, and exercise often. That's all there is to it. No need to drink one shake per day or eat frozen dinners with one inch of meat and two pieces of broccoli. Just watch what you eat. And when you exercise too, you can enjoy what you eat.

We all know how much I love to eat. One thing that I must rant about is counting calories. I believe that counting every single calorie that you intake and burn off in a day is a bit much. Who likes to wake up everyday starting a mental calculation of calorie intake? Who can possibly enjoy food when constantly thinking about the number of calories is in it? I personally cannot make an educated guess as to how many calories anything has in it. I never look at the nutrition contents. (It's not a bad thing to look at the nutrition contents... it can be a very good thing, in fact, but as long as it's not done obsessively.) I really believe that if you are simply careful and conscious of what you eat (lots of fruits, veggies, grains, and lean meats and fish), there is no need to count calories, when exercise is combined. I would go as far as to say eat to your heart's desire. But exercise too.

Now before you all scream and shout about how I don't understand what it's like to be overweight, I do at least have some sense of what it takes to lose weight. Five years ago, when I had just graduated from college, I weighed more than 15 pounds more than I do today. My college years were filled with cafeteria food, desserts after every dinner, snacking constantly, and minimal exercise. I never thought of myself as overweight, but looking back, I was a bit pudgy!! How did I lose the weight? Without even trying, really. Without altering my eating habits, I began running for recreation (not for the sake of losing weight, since I didn't see a need to), and soon people were saying things to me like "You look great!" And I would think to myself, "Huh?" It just happened. Again, regular exercise combined with conscious, healthy eating. That'll keep you healthy and fit, without counting calories.

Take me out to the ballgame!

This poost is long overdue, but it's a fun story.

Before the baseball season started, The Husband and I picked out one Astros game that we wanted to see in the first couple months of the season. We chose a home game against the Rockies, and bought our tickets a couple months in advance, and stored them away.

The exciting day arrived, on a Saturday, where at 6:05 pm we would go to our first ball game of the season. We were pumped. The night before, we had watched on tv the Astros lose to the Rockies, and while I was hoping to watch a live Astros win, The Husband was hoping for another Rockies win.

We decided to get to Minute Maid Park early to catch some batting practice, and at about 4:15, I grabbed our tickets and my purse. But I was horrified to see that the date on the tickets was FRIDAY. Ohhhhh noooooooo! Somehow, we either got tickets for the wrong day, or, we forgot which day we were supposed to go! Sheesh. Let-down #1.

At this point, neither of us knew what to do. I found the entire situation very funny, but The Husband seemed much more disturbed. We decided to go out to the ballpark anyway, and get tickets at the gate. That's $14* down the drain, and more money for another pair of tickets, but we had been looking forward to this game for so long, that we decided... what the heck, why not?

We arrived downtown and discovered that our usual free* parking spot along the street had a "no parking" sign by it. That was let-down #2. We drove around the next couple blocks and found some parallel meter parking. We parked, walked over to the meter, and it said "2-hour limit." Argh! Let-down #3. As we were both standing in front of the meter looking dazed, and trying to figure out how to go to a 3-hour game (which we didn't even yet have tickets for) while parked at a 2-hour meter that we didn't even have enough change to pay for, a woman ran up to us from across the street. This was redemption #1. She and her family were just leaving downtown, and had about 45 minutes left on their meter. She handed us her receipt and told us to put it on our dashboard. This was wonderful, however, we weren't sure what to do after 45 minutes. Eventually, after carefully reading the meter and talking to a parking attendant at the lot next to us, we realized that we only had to pay for parking up until 6pm, and after that, it was free. Yes! Redemption #2. We were clear. We put the receipt on our dashboard, and scurried on over to the ticket booth.

As we were walking, I felt a bit guilty that we had just wasted $14 on tickets that we didn't use, and we were still going and spending more money. I thought back to my Nashville summer days when I was the queen of winning raffle drawings and getting free concert tickets. I thought about how wonderful it would be if my luck would come out again, and somehow, we would land some free tickets to appease my guilty conscience.

Redemption #3: We hadn't even been standing in line for 5 seconds when an older couple walked up to us and asked if we needed tickets. I kind of shied away, wondering if these were scalpers. "You just need two tickets?" the man asked. "Here, I've got two tickets, on the second level, and they're directly behind homeplate." "How much do you want for them?" The Husband asked him. "Oh, you can have them. We're season ticket holders and our friends who were coming with us cancelled and asked us to give them away!"

Wow. We just scored 2 free tickets, in awesome seats, and we couldn't have asked for better timing. Here we were, disappointed in ourselves for missing the game the night before, but none of that seemed to matter anymore. We had our parking issues resolved by a kind woman, and our tickets issue resolved by a very generous couple. Off to the races!!

Here's a view from our fabulous seats. Unfortunately, the Astros lost, but it was definitely a memorable evening!!

I must mention (to tease The Husband some more) one final thing that happened while we were at the game. Around the 4th inning, I decided I wanted some popcorn and a drink, so The Husband kindly got up to get it for me. I asked him to get me any kind of drink with no caffeine (I'm thinking in my head either Sprite or Root Beer). He came back and I took a drink, and immediately knew it was Diet. And, that it was likely Coca-Cola. Ick! I absolutely hate diet drinks. That artificial sweetener tastes like just that- artificial. Plus, nutra-sweet has a history of giving me terrible headaches. I asked what kind of drink he got. "Diet Coke!" he confidently exclaimed. Uhhh.... are you serious? "Yes! What did you want me to get? Coffee? I didn't think you'd want coffee at a baseball game!" Hm. If you're like me, you are totally confused. First of all, who said anything about coffee? Second of all, he knows I don't ever drink diet drinks unless I'm dying of thirst. Third, didn't I ask for something without caffeine? Well, I let it pass, thanked him gratefully for my popcorn and drink, and consumed my food and drink, praying that I wouldn't go home with a headache, and that I'd be able to get to sleep that night.

Well, I had no problems getting to sleep, and no headache, so all was well. After a couple days, I asked The Husband about that incident. Apparently, he got me Diet, because he thought diet drinks had less caffeine!!! Er. Ok. Lesson learned. Diet drinks do not have less caffeine, in fact, most have more! :)

*That's right, we're cheap. We refuse to pay $10-20 just to park, and we prefer the cheapest tickets as possible.