Is it important to "count" my calories?
Depending on which dietary program, nutritional weight loss program, counselling group you belong to, they'll all have varying degrees of what they determine to be important as far as counting calories. I agree it's important and only to an extent. If you are so consumed with counting calories, you're certainly not enjoying the process of eating and being human. What's important is that you learn what is an exchange of food which is a given amount, not a serving size but exchange is what the American Dietetic Association uses to determine the quantity of food, you know, like you have two exchanges of protein and one exchange of a carbohydrate, for example. But the calories only matter so much. Once you understand and you can see somehting, like you're at a restaurant or you see something on a menu or you see a plate in front of you over at a friend's house, you say, OK that has approximately x number of calories which would mean that that's one exchange and once you learn that, it takes a couple of weeks to learn it, and then I can just look at something I can tell you exactly what the nutritional content is and the amount of calories. And everyone should take a little bit of time, figure out what it is and then just remember and put it in the back of your mind and enjoy food and don't be so consumed with it. People who are overly consumed with counting calories and staying within that really strict caloric requirement end up driving themselves a little crazy and, in the long run, I don't know if they are really that much better off when it comes to managing their weight.
