When someone is unhappy with their finances, the key is to track carefully, do the budget, and not spend more than you bring in.
When someone has a weight issue, the key is to track the intake and outgo and not eat more than you can expend. Identical concepts.
Going over what you can afford by just a little bit on a regular basis gets you into trouble.
If you want to eat more than your calorie budget allows, you can work on increasing your allowance through exercise. It is like getting extra income on the side.
But why is is that someone who has no problem with the one, often cannot do the same with the other?
The willpower that extends to not buying that purse often fails when it comes to fries. Is it simply that one wants fries more than one wants a new purse?
Weight and budget, are they the same?
April 9th, 2013 at 03:22 pm
April 9th, 2013 at 03:39 pm 1365521978
Where the willpower part comes in is that if you have a plate of delicious food in front of you, you may have to stop halfway through. Saving money is about discrete purchases that you avoid; not about only buying half a coat or whatever!
But, that said, I've managed to use the same basic "budgeting" technique to get to my ideal weight! So it's harder, but by no means impossible. I'm now a big fan of calorie counting (calories burned as well as consumed) because this has been my smoothest and most consistent weight loss and maintenance period of my life.
April 9th, 2013 at 03:47 pm 1365522447
I personally find "dieting" works well for me financially but would probably never go on a food diet. Why? Because it's a sure way to screw up your metabolism and get frustrated and to increase your weight for the long-run. I approach physical health very differently, and that is watching many loved ones screw up their bodies with dieting over the years.
April 9th, 2013 at 03:51 pm 1365522701
And tracking calories is not that hard after a while. You need a food scale and an some tools, like MFPs food tracker.
Calculating a home cooked meal is not hard at all. The challenge is only in going out. As far as it being time consuming, it gets a lot faster with experience.
Also, if you are on track with your savings and budget, sure, you don't need to log every dollar to see where it is going. But if your debt is growing, you just need to bite the bullet and track it, no matter how time consuming you think that is. Same applies to weight and calories. If you are fine with your weight, no need to spend time on that. But if you are not, "time consuming" or not, that's what has to be done.
April 9th, 2013 at 03:55 pm 1365522923
April 9th, 2013 at 04:01 pm 1365523312
April 9th, 2013 at 04:37 pm 1365525430
April 9th, 2013 at 04:39 pm 1365525584
Sure it gets easier, but you can't convince me that weighing/recording all the nutrients in a meal and dividing by portion is ever going to be as easy as looking at a price tag!
That said, it worked for me. You just have to be willing to put in the effort. And now, I have a pretty good feel for how it feels to eat the right amount of food in a day, so I only count calories if I go above my ideal weight. I've been pretty much on track since last fall, with only a few slip-ups!
April 9th, 2013 at 09:57 pm 1365544673
Also, sometimes losing weight means spending money to lose the weight. I'm thinking of "wasting" food instead of eating it, for example. Sometimes, you do need to spend money to lose weight. Yes, it is possible to lose weight on the cheap. No, you don't need a gym membership or weight watchers. However, if the gym membership and weight watchers are what work for you--then I figure I'd better spend the money on the way to keep my weight in check than to say "I shouldn't spend money on it."
Some "food" seems cheap now (it's only $2 for those fries), but we can't figure out the cost of how much those fries could cost us later in health issues. We are a very immediate society. If every time you ate french fries there was an immediate negative consequence, you would stop eating the french fries. With money, we see the money leave our wallet. With a purse, we see that the purse is say, $20 or $200. But the fries are only $2. Doesn't seem like much of a hit.
This is written from a woman that LOVES french fries. Love them. I could eat them for dinner every single night--and sometimes that is all I'll order in a restaurant.
May 5th, 2013 at 01:35 pm 1367760918
We've had the financial part pretty much nailed for years, however that doesn't mean the urge to let money slip through our fingers doesn't arise on a regular basis. It does! The same is true with maintaining my weight - the urge to have just one more 'whatever' also still arises on a fairly regular basis. In both cases, it's in my best interest to withstand the urges and let them pass.
With regard to weight, it really is as simple as Nika has presented. Calories in vs calories out will always prevail. If you think it's not that simple, diligently track your eating and activity in a website such as SparkPeople.com for a few days and see for yourself.