Tag Archives: calorie counting

With a 90 Pound Weight Loss, Brigette Underwood is About to Hit ‘Onederland.’

I’m just throwing it out there, I adore Brigette Underwood. Today’s true weight loss story comes to us from deep in the heart of Mississippi. This southern girl knows her food triggers (fried chicken), but now instead of yo-yo dieting, she’s finding balance and a healthier relationship with food than she’s ever had before. Look at that smile. I want to sit and sip on some sweet tea with you, girl.

Peggy Bradford Used Facebook to Rally 3,000 People to Better Health

Peggy Bradford of Sewell, New Jersey hasn’t always been the avid promoter of health that she is today. Before losing 70 pounds the 47-year-old mother weighed close to 220 pounds and suffered from severe depression. The weight gain came after a major surgery that required her to be on a hormone replacement for one year, which left her feeling terrible both physically and emotionally.

After facing resistance from her doctor about getting off of her medications, Peggy told her husband she was going to take matters into her own hands, and that’s exactly what she did.

Peggy almost instantly began eating healthier and watching her calories, cutting out soda and choosing protein bars over candy bars. For exercise she purchased a pedometer to encouragement more daily movement.

“I started out doing 10,000 steps a day with 4 pound weights,” she said. “I’ve built myself up to between 20,00-30,000 steps a day and 12-15 pound weights. I not only jog in place when I do my workout, but I jog in place when I talk on phone, iron, do dishes, etc.,” she said. “It sounds crazy, but the steps add up and have been a huge part of my weight loss journey.” (more…)

Posted on January 24, 2024 by Dana

Ashley McLellan Fell for Turbo Jam and Lost 135 Pounds

Weight has been a lifelong struggle for Ashley McClellan who fell into a pattern of yo-yo dieting at a young age. Despite committing to change time and again, she always found herself heavier than she was before. Then, one evening she came across a TV ad for a workout program called Turbo Jam and felt compelled to buy it. Though she loved it initially, she eventually grew bored with working out and eating healthy again and put it back on the shelf.

Then in the summer of 2024 Ashley, now 24, knew she needed to make a serious change. Her health was failing and she was on multiple medications for severe depression, pre-diabetic conditions and heart disease, which runs on both sides of her family.

A common doctor’s visit served as a big wake up call when she was confronted about her weight. “That was the first time somebody had ever told me out loud I should lose weight,” she said. “I was nearly 300 pounds at 22 years old. After that I decided I needed to do something different.”

Ashley feared she’d end up with heart disease or worse if she didn’t lose weight. She also had very low self esteem and felt horrible about herself, which began to take a toll on her marriage.

Around that time Ashley’s sister had caught the Turbo Jam bug and became a certified instructor after first being introduced to it by Ashley. Knowing she was struggling to get healthy, she convinced Ashley to pick it back up along with her at the gym she was teaching at. This is where small change began to happen. (more…)

Posted on December 19, 2023 by Dana

Sisters Cara and Brianne Lost More Than 200 Pounds by Committing to Change Together

For sisters Brianne Canepa – a 32-year-old paramedic and quality manager for Kaiser Permanente – and Cara Garcia – a 31-year-old communications specialist at Stanford Life Flight – weight loss has been a joint effort. In the last year the pair has managed to drop more than 200 pounds together, and it all started with a life-changing visit to the Biggest Loser Resort in Malibu, California.

At their heaviest, Brianne weighed 361 pounds and Cara, 308 pounds. However, it’s a totally different story now ever since the sisters embarked on a weight loss journey that transformed their health and their lives for the better. Today, Brianne weighs 258 pounds and Cara, 197, which is a combined weight loss of an amazing 214 pounds.

In the process of shrinking down together, these sisters have not only kept each other motivated but also bonded and became even closer friends than they were before. To tell this inspiring story, we’ve asked Cara and Brianne to share about their journeys in their own words starting with where it all began: The gain.

left to right: Cara and Brianne, respectively.

When did your individual struggles with weight begin?

Cara: I was a skinny mini most of my childhood and through high school. Wearing size 12 was the biggest size I wore. I was very active and could pretty much eat anything I wanted to. In 2000, I left home and lived in the dorm at San Jose State University. It was my first experience making my own schedule, my own food choices and none of it was good. I was eating crappy food and taking naps between classes. I think I went to the gym once that whole first year. The freshman 30 turned into 10 years and more than 100 pounds. (more…)

Posted on October 17, 2023 by Dana

Julia Kozerski Documents 160-Pound Weight Loss With Her iPhone

Julia Kozerski, 28, doesn’t share a weight loss story like many others. Over the course of a year, not long after her wedding in 2024, Julia embarked on an incredible weight loss journey that left her half her original size. In the process of losing nearly 160 pounds, Julia documented the entire experience in an unlikely place: In dressing rooms using her iPhone.

Julia works as an advertising and marketing manager in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and received her bachelor’s degree from the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design. It was during her time spent there, mostly researching beauty, body image, and identity, that she underwent her incredible transformaton.

To slim down, Julia says she stopped eating junk food and cleaned up her diet. She also began counting calories and weighed and portioned her food to stay on track. For exercise, she began walking and biking, also employing a BodyBugg, which she wore to help keep track of her daily calorie expenditure.

As an artist and photographer, it felt natural for Julia to document her body’s changes. Though she never meant to share the photos publicly, she later released them as two artistic galleries on her personal website JuliaKozerski.com. Snippits of the more than 200 photos taken in dressing rooms between 2024 and 2024 can be found in “Changing Room.” The mostly nude series titled “Half,” documents her body’s changes in a much more intimate way.

We recently spoke with Julia to gain a more in-depth look at her inspiring journey. (more…)

Posted on October 3, 2023 by Dana

Joy the Baker’s ‘Friend Diet’ is Like “Calorie Counting Without the Calories or Counting”

Joy Wilson, of the widely-recognized food blog Joy the Baker and author of “Joy the Baker Cookbook: 100 Simple and Comforting Recipes,” is one of my absolute favorite bloggers. Her delicious recipes, candid narrative and quirky personality are enough to make me swoon over everything she shares.

One of Joy’s latest projects is the “Joy the Baker Podcast” on which she discusses recent happenings in the kitchen, in friendships and in life.

On her latest episode titled ‘The Friend Diet,‘ Joy discussed a new diet she’s trying out to become more aware of what she’s eating on a day-to-day basis. It’s called the ‘friend diet,’ and it’s a system she and her blogger friend, Tracy of Shutterbean, dreamed up one day.

The pair essentially takes photographs of everything they eat and text it to each other for accountability. As for whether or not it actually works, we talked with Joy to find out.

What sparked the idea of the friend diet?

Let’s see, I text message with my best friend Tracy all day long. It’s nonsense really. We noticed that a hearty majority of our texts revolved around the food that we were feeling guilty about eating. One day we just decided to flip the script. Now we tell each other, with pictures and with words, exactly what we’re eating all day long. From a huge cheeseburger lunch to a handful of granola, we lay it all out there. We needed a way to be accountable to ourselves and bringing someone else in the loop seemed like the best friend way to do it. (more…)

Posted on September 26, 2023 by Dana

Zach Bohannon Lost 100 Pounds by Making Health His Top Priority

Hollywood’s sappiest love stories begin with two beautiful, hot-bodied actors running toward each other on the beach. Romance sparks when they accidentally bump into each other while not paying attention to where they’re going and then, as they say, the rest is history: marriage, pets, 2.5 kids and a white picket fence ensue.

But the type of love stories we prefer to tell are the ones that play out in real life, like the one between Zach and Kathryn Bohannon from Nashville, Tennessee, who, earlier this year, started a dedicated journey to health and have since collectively lost more than 160 pounds. And the best part about it? Once they reach their respective goal weights they’re going to get remarried and take new wedding photos to celebrate their new, happier, healthier selves. Now that’s the kind of romance I think the world should know about.

This true weight loss story focuses first on Zach, 28, who had been overweight his whole life, mostly due to the fact that he was an extremely picky eater as a child which made it extremely hard for his parents to get much healthy food on his plate. (more…)

Posted on July 27, 2023 by Dana

MyNetDiary May Be A Step Above Other Diet Trackers

MyNetDiary is a food diary and calorie counter available online or through a mobile app. Diet tracking apps are very popular and there are several on the market. MyNetDiary feels they have one of the best on the market and they took some time to explain why they feel this way.

“The power of MyNetDiary’s detailed food and exercise tracking service is its ability to document precisely what we eat, how many calories we burn and even when we eat,” explains Katherine Isacks, Registered Dietitian with MyNetDiary, “and people can track calories on-the-go with MyNetDiary’s mobile apps for iPhone, iPad, Android and BlackBerry.”

These functions sound similar to most tracking apps. However, Isacks explained how NyNetDiary takes extra steps in ensure accuracy as many tracking sites allow for user-entered totals on many dishes and foods.

“I absolutely love our humongous database. I can pretty much find any food I want (generic, brand, and restaurant foods). If I bring up a ‘user contributed’ food versus a system-entered and quality assured food, I can easily identify it as such, and check and edit the values for accuracy. When I played with the other apps, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out which items where user-entered (which means a higher risk of inaccurate values) and which were system-entered.”
(more…)

Posted on March 22, 2024 by Lacy

Eating Healthy is About More Than Just Calories

Anda T. writes about her weight loss struggles, victories and every day life at www.leavingfatville.com. She also runs www.greatclothingexchange.com in her spare time when not chasing a toddler, cooking, cleaning, working and trying to take over the world.

I had no idea how little I knew about nutrition until I started to count calories. Sure, I had a general concept that 2000 calories was acceptable for a day of food. But, really getting down to the nitty gritty, I had no idea how much of each type of food I should have been eating.

I saw no problem with eating a salad. And I’m sure you won’t either, if you’re thinking of just a small green salad. That was not my salad. My salad was iceberg lettuce (no nutritive value whatsoever), cheese, tomatoes, cucumbers (a few good things), sunflower seeds and gobs and gobs of ranch dressing. That was healthy to me. That was my effort of eating light.

That was not eating light. That was eating a 500 calorie salad with little or no protein, vitamins, or good, healthy fats to show for it. It wasn’t until I started to track my food did I start to see the calories add up, and the weight go right along with it. I had no idea what were healthy fats and what were bad fats. (Luckily, I had stayed away from trans fats as a byproduct of a lack of a gallbladder, but I still couldn’t point one out if you asked me.)

(more…)

Posted on August 23, 2023 by GuestBlogger

Restaurant Menus Inaccurately Count Calories

In an effort to meet consumer expectations and comply with new state regulations, most restaurants and fast food joints have begun listing calorie counts on their menus. This information is used by consumers to make educated and well thought-out decisions about their meals. It’s supposed to help fight obesity by allowing the health-conscious population to enjoy eating out without entirely giving up on their nutritional goals.

A study was recently published in the Journal of American Medical Association that exposes the truth about restaurant menus. According to CBS News, nearly one in every five restaurant menus contains inaccurate calorie counts. In most instances, the laboratory results revealed a measly 10 calorie difference. However, some menu items (close to 20 percent) contained more than 100 calories over what the menu claimed, with one dish setting the record for inaccuracy at being 1,000 calories off.

(more…)

Posted on July 21, 2023 by Theresa

Restaurants are Lowering Calories before Posting Numbers on Menus

If ignorance is bliss, many restaurants are scrambling to adjust their menus before the law states that their patrons can be ignorant no more.

The Food and Drug Administration is expected to require any chain restaurant with over 20 locations to post calorie counts on their menus by the end of 2024. Even though this rule is pending, it is already leading to some very positive changes in the food industry.

While many restaurant goers probably knew the loaded nacho platter, cheesy pasta, or battered chicken dish they ordered was high in calories before, it’s possible that seeing just how high the totals get will influence their decision in the future. If consumers see that the one meal they’re ordering contains more than half of their day’s calorie requirements, restaurant owners are assuming their sales will decrease.

Currently, many chains are quickly attempting to rework their menus. Many favorite items are being lightened up so that they contain fewer calories. Some establishments are attempting to balance the menus more by offering more healthy items along with high calorie fan favorites.

(more…)

Posted on June 28, 2023 by Lacy

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