Labels

I admit it. I never read food labels before. I didn’t care to know how much fat, calories, carbohydrates, sugar and protein was in the food I was eating. All I needed to know were 2 things….Did it taste good? And did it satisfy my craving at the time? If it fell into one of those categories, I ate it. It’s as simple as that. But shortly before my surgery, I slowly started reading the labels in anticipation for what I knew I would have to do afterwards. It started out just checking how much protein was in something because that was the main requirement that my doctor gave me. I knew I would have to consume 50-60 grams of protein per day. And admittedly, I only did that because I knew I had to, not because I wanted to. But something has happened to me since I’ve been weighing myself and seeing the number on the scales go down and down and down. I’ve started to want to know what I’m putting in my body. You know the old saying, You are what you eat? There’s some truth to that. I ate foods with lots of fat in them and I was umm, well, let’s just say…..FAT! What I’ve discovered in this new obsession of mine is that sometimes if you just make small changes, they can add up big time! For example, we used to use the Great Value brand of butter flavored pancake syrup. I did the switch gradually, first changing to reduced calorie, then finally to sugar free syrup of the same brand. My family never noticed the difference. Here is the difference in the nutritional information for ¼ cup serving size. Calories….regular syrup-188, sugar free syrup-35. Carbohydrates….regular syrup-50g, sugar free syrup-11g. Sugar….regular syrup-27g, sugar free-0g, These numbers add up in the long run.
I’ve made another small change as well. For the "soft foods" stage that I’m on right now, one thing that I’m allowed to have and that I love is chicken salad. I’ve been having it every day for lunch. But what is the main ingredient in chicken salad other than chicken? Mayonnaise. Anyone knows that mayonnaise is high in fat. So I’ve made a compromise. Again, I did this gradually. I am now using fat free sour cream instead of mayonnaise. I started by taking away just a little bit of the mayonnaise at a time and adding more sour cream until I was using the sour cream entirely. Here is the nutritional breakdown for these two…Hellman's’s Real Mayonnaise and Great Value Fat Free Sour Cream
2 tablespoons of mayo has 180 calories. The same amount of the sour cream has 25 calories. The mayo has 20 g of fat and the sour cream 0. The mayo does have less carbohydrates than the sour cream at 0 for the mayo and 6 for the sour cream. The mayo however has no protein and the sour cream 2 g. So you can see overall the sour cream is much healthier. And honestly, your not sacrificing flavor. I know this is the boring stuff, and if I were reading something like this before surgery, I would have just skimmed over it, not paying much attention, but now that I’m on the fast track to a healthier me, this is very interesting to me. And I hope it is to you too. My hope is that if you get anything out of this, it’s that there are little changes that we can make every day to be healthier and make better choices. Better choices for ourselves and our families. It is my goal to teach my children while their young the value of eating healthy so that when they are adults, they don’t have to go through some of the same struggles I have. Remember, just one small change each day can lead to a lifetime of health! Read your labels!