CalorieCount - staying on target guest post during the Healthy Families, Happy Kids Event!

When it comes to losing weight, staying on target, or maintaining your weight, I know from previous experience that keeping a food journal is the best way to really understand what you consume!  It's amazing how many calories you consume until you document your daily intake....the coffee creamer, the handful of M&M's, or not measuring your salad dressing can really add up quickly!  I know when I take the time to write down everything, I am much more in control of my weight....now I just need to get better at it!

Calorie Count Director of Nutrition Mary Hartley, RD, MPH wanted to pass along a few tips during the Healthy Families, Happy Kids event and encourage everyone to stop by CalorieCount.com to join the site!

There are so many great features at CalorieCount.com, so if you're looking for a site to help you along your journey to healthy living, stop by and check it out!  Key Features of CalorieCount.com FREE site:

Personalize Diet and Weight Loss Tools:

• BMI
• Body Mass Index Calculator
• Burn Meter – Daily caloric expenditure/target
• Customizable nutrition settings
• Calorie Coach – provides healthy timeframe to reach your goal
• Nutritional Analysis
• Detailed nutritional analysis of users’ daily food choices
• Logs to track daily caloric intake
• Ability to track users’ weight history and activity expenditure
• Nutrition Report – Graphs and charts that show daily nutrition intake and needs
• Food and Recipe Database
• Ability to search food from restaurants, supermarkets, home-cooked meals, and user-submitted recipes
• More than 100,000 searchable items
• Recipe Analyzer
• Instant analysis of a recipe’s nutritional information
• Interactive Community
• Social networking capabilities include profiles for each member, personal journals, and direct messaging.
• 1,900,000+ Calorie Count Members
• Calorie Count Blog
• Features daily dieting articles and other helpful health and nutritional information.
• Calorie Count’s Director of Nutrition, Mary Hartley, answers users’ questions with “Ask Mary”

Here's what Mary wanted to pass along:

Counting calories is a proven and highly effective way to lose weight. Calorie Count offers free, weight management tools, social support and nutritional information to help users achieve their personal diet goals.  At Caloriecount.com, you can find nutritional information on your guiltiest holiday pleasures (since the holidays are fast approaching) that will help you pick and choose the ones that will help you most closely stick to your diet goals.  Mary also has these five tips for staying on target during the upcoming holiday season:

1. Don’t say, “It doesn’t matter, I’ll lose weight after the holidays.” One of the biggest keys to dieting success is staying on track.

2. Don’t deprive yourself of treats only available to you during the holiday season, like sticky pudding or pumpkin pie. Just make sure to exercise portion control and taste in moderation.

3. Do keep up your fitness schedule. There’s no better time to ramp up your cardio routine than during the holidays, when you’ll likely need to offset additional calorie intake.

4. Do set boundaries. For instance, alcoholic drinks can be packed with hidden calories. At holiday parties, curb them by exercising a two drink maximum.

5. Don’t arrive at holiday parties hungry. Eat a small, healthy meal in advance so that you’ll be less likely to indulge and make bad food choices once you get there.

I hope you'll check out CalorieCount.com and let me know what you think about the site!