Calorie Counter

I've never been a calorie counter. While I think that calories are a good gauge of daily food intake, I personally do not believe that calories are the be-all-end-all to lower or maintain your weight. My reasoning for this is because if I ate Snickers bars totaling 300 calories at every meal I would be a larger person than the person who ate the same 300 calories in wholesome nutritious food. It's not about the calories, it's about what your body will process, absorb, utilize and then get rid of. Empty calories do not cause one's metabolism to ignite, empty calories slows down your system and causes fatigue which means the body is not only NOT using the energy you're taking in, but it's making the burning of excess (stored fat) even slower. When eating wholesome nutritious food, more calories can actually be eaten and the 'eating' of this food will promote weight loss. Your body burns a lot of calories processing foods packed with nutrition. Now, with all of that being said, I have been asked on a couple of occasions for calorie counts on the recipes that I have posted. Because I do not count calories, I do not keep track. But for those who do use daily caloric intake as a gauge (if you're trying to gain weight for example), the calorie count IS important!

There is a wonderful resource available to us online called Calorie Count. It is an awesome database of foods, their servings and, well, their calorie counts. It even allows you to input ingredients (and their amounts) in recipes to process the calories for a particular recipe. How great is that?!? Oh, and this is a free service... all you need to do is register. I just registered and will try to be sure to include this information in future recipe posts. But if for some reason, the calorie count doesn't quite make it (sorry in advance... I just don't count calories), everyone now can get the information free of charge and within minutes! ;)

For those of you who are curious, I prescribe to the Body for Life eating method. Body for Life can be found at any bookstore and is usually on sale at Amazon.com. Author: Bill Phillips <---Great Read; HIGH FIVE! **** The image on this blog post is a super cute poster that can be purchased in a 15" x 20" from Zazzle.com.