Smart Choices
by Connie Lehman, Registered Dietician, with Luke Pamer
Small Changes Make Big Difference
H
ave you ever tried to
change your eating and
exercise habits? Often we
are “gung ho” for a short
time and then we quickly fall back to
old, negative habits. One way to approach this for success is to choose a
series of small changes you know you
can succeed at and work to make those
changes permanent before you add
other changes.
Every 100 calories you use up or
eat less of daily, adds up to ten pounds
of body fat in a year, so you can see
how small changes can add up, either
for the good or for the bad. Can you
find some 100 calorie changes to make
to your health habits?
To use up 100 calories, there are
many different things you can do.
You could walk one mile, bike three
miles, walk around a shopping center
for thirty-five minutes or walk up
and down stairs slowly
for ten minutes. You
could also scrub your
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floors by hand for twenty-five minutes,
rake the lawn for twenty-five minutes,
or walk behind your push lawn mower
for thirty minutes. Other things you
could do include, play disc golf for
thirty minutes, play golf (no cart allowed!) for twenty minutes, swim laps
for fifteen minutes, or even have some
fun and dance around the house to
your favorite music for fifteen minutes.
Exercising goes hand in hand with
cutting back on portion sizes as well.
Did you know ½ of a small muffin, ½ of
a donut, ½ of a small fast food restaurant serving of fries, and ½ of a hot dog
(without a bun) are all 100 calories?
¼ of a cinnamon roll is 100 calories.
Two small sandwich cookies are 100
calories. Both 1/3 of a cup of ice cream
and 1/3 the slice of a piece of pizza are
100 calories. Perhaps you can see how
small changes in eating can make a big
difference.
If you’ve been gaining weight
slowly, you will need to cut back on the
excess calories and then some before
you start to see a loss. So if