They say "Ignorance is Bliss"

I know this is true in many cases. As I look back, I now realize that not knowing how many calories certain foods represented made it much easier for me to enjoy eating. That way I could eat what and when I wanted without being held accountable for any of my choices! Wow, what's not to like about that? Well, extra fat for one thing and forty additional pounds of fat on my body that I carried for close to two decades. At times I looked just like our grabby octopus!


When I was younger my dad would take me out to a restaurant with a friend or two and allow us to order. He would always say, like clockwork: "Your eyes are bigger than your stomach!" He was so right of course, he was always right and he would sit and wait while we finished only 1/3 to 1/2 of our food. Dad never ordered because he knew that we could never finish what we had ordered and Dad didn't like throwing money down the drain. Dad was funny like that but he was also one of those rare type people who ate properly in the correct amounts, left out the extra oils and fats and exercised before it was really popular to do so. I think Dad was way ahead of his time.


Over time I realized Dad was right about that time in my life, my eyes really were bigger than my stomach but as I grew older something eventually switched over. Somewhere along the way my stomach did become much larger than my eyes. Somewhere along the way, I wasn't leaving so much on my plate, in fact, there were many occasions where my eyes strayed to my children's plates and I managed to eat what they had not eaten. It's one thing to not order or not eat and then eat the leftovers of your children, then to eat your meal and add other's leftovers! Gee whiz! What was I thinking at times.


Many people, especially when raising a family or dealing with the stresses of everyday life, eat for emotional reasons or voids in their lives. I have no idea of what the actual percentage is but I can imagine it's a whopper. No pun intended!


Well, I sure hope Dad has been looking down on me. Maybe he's saying, "That's my girl; she has finally figured it out!" "It took her over half a century of her life but at least she did it!" I know he and my mother would be extremely proud. No one is perfect, that should never be our goal. All we can aim for is to be the best we can be each day.


It's been well over a year now that I've learned to be accountable for what I eat and I keep my intake at the proper level 95% of the time. I'm here to say that "ignorance is not bliss."


Approximately 66% of our nation is overweight or obese. The 1/3 of obese is now larger than the merely overweight. Prediction's by experts are that by the year 2015, approximately 75% of our nation may be overweight or obese.


Ignorance is not bliss. We need to know and we need to become accountable for our health and the health of our loved ones.


All of us have the ability to educate ourselves on the amount of calories our bodies need each day in order to maintain our own particular ideal or healthy weight. I pulled all of my information in order to set up my healthy eating pattern from http://www.mypyramid.gov/ it is there where you can determine what your body needs to eat from the different categories on a daily basis. It is listed for you by your particular age group. From there, you can choose where you would like to cut back in order to create a deficit in order to lose any unwanted pounds or set up a balanced healthy eating pattern if you don't need to lose weight but wish to maintain.


I'm very happy that I took a time out to learn how to set up a healthy eating and fitness pattern for my own personal use based on the foods and exercise routines that I like.


Anyone can do this and it sure makes life so much nicer.


I had a half of a toasted English Muffin today with 1 teaspoon of Smucker's All Natural Peanut Butter. I added a third of a sliced banana on top and sprinkled it with a teaspoon of honey. I had a half of a cup of 5 minute grits with about 1 teaspoon of whipped butter. The total for this breakfast was @ 300.

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Have a great day!