Where to Start: How Much Should I Eat?

Do you wonder how much you should eat? Eating until you were full used to work when you were younger and before food became so processed. Recent studies have shown that in a world of quick to eat - shelf stable food, eating until you feel full no longer keeps you from eating more calories than your body needs. The extra salt, sugar and fat found in many foods we eat today interfere with our feeling full! Just for fun, take a few days and write down everything that you eat and drink. Click here for a printable food journal page. Choose at least 1 weekend day and 1 week day because diets vary on weekdays and weekend days. Use the food labels on the side of the packages of what you are eating to determine the number of servings you are eating or the grams/ounces and the number of calories for the amount you are eating. Click here to go to the FDA's website that explains how to understand and use the nutrition labels. (The DV values they refer to are OK for some diets and not OK for others so don't rely too heavily on them). If there is not a nutrition label, you can get this information on the internet at http://www.nutritiondata.com/ (you don't have to register or log in) or you can buy a calorie book or get one at the library. (You can also do this online at Sparkpeople.com -they make you do a free registration to access their information - or at Nutrition Data .)

Now that you know how many calories you are eating each day the question is are you eating too much or too little? The first step to finding this out should be to determine how many calories your body needs to function well based on how much you currently weight and how active you are. I have found a great website where you can get this information. Visit Ask the Dietitian Website at http://www.dietitian.com/calcbody.php fill in the questions it asks and put their Healthy Body Calculator to work for you. (If you don’t have a computer or don’t know how to use the internet, we can help you fill this information out at Kemper Drug). You will be provided with a printout of the total number of calories that you should be eating along with essential nutrients. This is important to know so that you make sure you are getting these nutrients during the day.