Hello friends. I hope you are doing well and continuing on your journey to wellness. Today I wanted to talk to you about something that gets us in trouble, food labels. No one wants to count calories every day. However, it is wise to take a peak at what we are eating. Many of us don’t even know what serving sizes are or what we are eating. All products sold in stores require a nutrition label. Most restaurants have their nutritional information online. Set aside the calories and think back to some previous posts. Sugar and salt (sodium) get us into loads of trouble. The excess sugar causes our blood sugar to spike and drop-leading to fat storage, and excess sodium causes water retention. Some foods say fat free and they are loaded with sugar and sodium. It’s also beneficial to see if the food we are eating has any vitamins or fiber. Both are beneficial for our health.

I decided to talk about nutrition labels because this past week I had to stop by a local fast food chain for food. I picked something from their “Fit menu.” What I ordered seemed healthy from an ingredient perspective. However, a few days later I decided to check the chains website for nutritional information. OMG-oodness! The one item had 760 calories, 27 grams of fat, & 1,960 grams of sodium. The sodium alone was more than I normally eat in a day. I try to have 5 meals a day with calories of each meal equally~300-400 calories.  The moral of the story is that it’s important if you’re monitoring calories, sugar, salt, or fat to read labels.

Oh, and one item we fail to think about the calories are beverages. I had a friend who loves frappucinos. So, we decided to look up his favorite beverage on line. His drink of choice had over 600 calories for a small with, are you ready for this, ~60 grams of sugar. In one drink he was consuming the same calories as two of my meals and 3 times more sugar than I allow for in a day.

Let’s talk a bit about serving size. We don’t always know what one serving is. Here is a chart to help.

Most of the meals we eat are several portions instead of one. I truly believe this is why other countries who eat smaller portions but richer foods are thinner than Americans. The USA is the land of “Super Size Me.”

Our portion sizes matter and so does the information pertaining to what we are eating. I hope this post helps you make wise choices with food. Stay Healthy!