The basics of it

There is one rule in the quest of weight loss, just like there is one rule in the quest to weight gain. It is simply this: Calories in VS Calories out.
All this means is, I must burn more calories throughout the day than what I eat to lose weight
I must burn less calories throughout the day than what I eat to gain weight.
Why? Because your body is like an energy bank... It takes calories to function just like a light bulb functions on units of joules. The amazing thing about the body though, is that if we take in too many calories by eating or drinking too much, then we store it as fat! Well this is wonderful news for us if we were going through famine! It is like saving up money for a vacation or retirement, or stocking the refrigerator with bottles of water and the pantry with canned goods. When we eat more than the body burns it can do nothing else more with it than to store it for later use. Now if you are on a quest to build muscle and put on some size, this method of eating more than you burn is very relevant to you because the extra calories are used to rebuild the muscle that you broke down during your workout. In this case, when done right, it works very well... but when your quest is to lose the extra storage, you don't need to keep stocking the shelves if you know what I mean. Use what you have and reduce your storage slowly.
Think about it like this, say you were in charge of setting the spending budget for your family. You notice that money is being spent frivolously and you know that if it continues to be spent in this manner, you will soon have problems. One way to get the budget back under control is to organize the spending into different categories. Then you might set "limits" on each category starting with an amount that everyone can agree on. When this "limit" is set in place, your family member, if they are in compliance, will know how much they can spend on a particular item in a specified period of time. For example, if you give you daughter a credit card and tell her to go shopping without specifying a limit, you might not know what was put on credit until you look online at the statement. If you give her a $100 bill and send her on her way, you know exactly what she has to spend.
If you know how many calories your body burns in one day, you can know how many calories you need to eat in order to lose, gain, or maintain your weight. It is that simple. Just as a budget has multiple facets, a calorie structure does, too. This we will get into later. For now, consider the concept that your in order to be in control of your weight, you must grasp the fact that it is all about Calories in VS Calories out.
Consider this and take a look at what calories you might be taking in and what you can do to offset any unwanted gains or losses with it.

The first consideration

When you first decide that it is time to revise your diet, you have got to look at some of the obvious items to kick out. Do you drink sodas? I don't mean diet sodas, but I do mean full-fledged sugar sodas... Do you eat sugary snacks like donuts, candy, snack cakes, or do you put sugar in your coffee, or your cereal? Some of these obvious things are good to toss. What about when you eat out at restaurants, do you order appetizers, the entree and a dessert? What do you drink with your meal? Are you eating the bottomless chips without giving it much thought? Are you ordering an entree with fried food, or do you notice that you go heavy on your salad dressing? When you order a dessert, do you order one just for yourself or do you split it with friends?
Take a look at your regular eating habits. These could be causing you to gain unwanted weight or it could keep you from losing weight.
What I have noticed with my clients is that sometimes when they sit down with me for an initial assessment, it is their knowledge of food that needs improvement. A lot of the time, they are confused on what to eat and what not to eat! This is completely understandable for someone who generally doesn't take an interest on the subject of nutrition and health. I personally do not enjoy talking about savings plans or investments... they bore the ever-living snot out of me. Thank God my husband has that all figured out, because he is there to make sure everything is in order when my attention span goes bye-bye on the subject. Don't get me wrong, I do try to learn about it by going to personal investment classes here on base and reading books on the subject, but it is hard for me to grasp something that I don't naturally have an inclination to study.
I want to teach you about nutrition in a way that you can easily grasp so that you can carry the information with you for a long time. When you genuinely grasp it, it is more likely to stay with you for longer instead of slipping out the window after a couple of days.
First consider the obvious hang-ups in your diet, then work on eliminating a hang-up one at a time. For example, if you drink sodas, then switch to drinking iced tea with a non-calorie sweetener. Then after you're comfortable with that, then cut out a couple of sugary snacks throughout your day. After that, consider splitting a dessert with your friends, husband, boyfriend, girlfriend, or whoever so that you don't eat the whole thing.
Consider, identify and eliminate one by one until you're comfortable for more change. Stay tuned until tomorrow.

My Start

Everyone likes to start off with why they decided on starting a blog... I wanted to start one because there are ideas that I have, that I feel can help you some. I'm not a very skilled writer, even though I do enjoy getting my thoughts out on paper. I wrote sporadically in a journal for many years, but that was just about the growing pains of my life. Here, I want to bring something specific to the table. I want to introduce my thoughts, theories, opinions and ideas about my passions and interests.
One of my passions started when I was extremely young, as I would sit on my parent's bed flipping through one of my mom's medical books. I loved that book and found health conditions to be extremely fascinating. It was a pretty big book, and at the time, I was mostly interested in the pictures of the skin rashes, the goiters, or the eye diseases. Pretty gross stuff, but for some reason I loved it.
As I grew up, food became intriguing and I took an interest in a healthy diet for myself. I wasn't always a healthy eater... oh no, I used to frequent fast food restaurants like it was cool, and usually my mid-day snacks consisted of Starburst, Skittles, Reese's PB cups, sodas, chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream, pepperoni pizzas, cake mix (just the mix), and toast-butter-honey sandwiches.
It wasn't until my Junior year of high school that I finally decided to start cleaning up my diet. I switched from the typical chicken-finger basket and curly fries, to a salad, water and granola bar. Still wasn't the most structured diet, but it certainly was a step in the right direction. I just knew that if I wanted to start feeling better, I needed to start eating better. I remember going to a girlfriend's house with a bag of Taco Bell in my car, chomping down on a bean and cheese burrito, when I finally came to my senses and asked myself, "What am I doing eating this thing?" At that moment, I rolled down my window and I messed with Texas.
I had to make a decision... it was either keep eating the way I was eating and deny the fact that it really did matter what I ate, or change and toss not only the burrito, but my lazy eating habits.
I began buying health magazines like, Shape and Self and started teaching myself. I became a dry sponge soaking up every drop of information that I could get my eyes on. I began to help my friends with their eating habits, and drew up small meal plans for them. I even got a part-time job at GNC in the summer to learn even more. After that, I obtained my Bachelor's Degree in Nutrition and Foods from Texas State University in San Marcos.
I developed an interest, then a love, and then a true passion for health. This was the foundation that started me on the right path to helping others with their quest for a healthier life.