You have made up your mind. This is your year. The year you are going to lose weight, you are going to make it happen no matter what!

Here we are in the middle of February, perhaps you've joined the gym or maybe you're even involved in something more intense like Blackhawk Fitness! Yet the pounds don't seem to be falling off like you thought they would! What's going on?

Well, the answer is "Several things". The simple fact of the matter is, there is an ENORMOUS (pun completely intended) industry set around food in this country. Look around at the recent movies who have gone out of their way to bring this "food trap" to light in recent years. The guy who gorged himself on McDonald's for 30 days and almost died because of it...the movie that shows just exactly how the industrial food machine manipulates you into thinking you NEED the crap they put out there.

Everyone (or almost everyone, I suppose) KNOWS the junk we eat is bad for us, and many people want to do something about it. There are countless stories of people who are literally going to die, eat themselves to death, but don't possess the know-how to fight the problem. Obese children have little hope of ever being healthy because they aren't educated from day one on how to eat and exactly what is and is not truly heatlhy.

How many times has this happened to you:

1) You're at a resturant and the meal you order comes out and you say something to the effect of "Holy cow, that's HUGE" or "Wow, that's a lot of food." Yet, when it's all said and done, we do our best to clean the plate..eat the whole thing.

2) You're eating your meal and you start to feel full, but there is still food on your plate. You continue eating until your stomach feel like it's going to burst. Our stomachs are polite when they start to tell us we've had enough to eat, but many (probably even "most") people don't listen.

Portions are the key to losing weight. Period. It's not this new fad diet or that new pill. Put simply, we have this nagging legacy thought process ingrained in us to eat everything put in front of us...this is an unfortunate side-effect of culturally leaner times when food wasn't NEARLY as plentiful, and it was important to eat everything because there might not be the same amount of food tomorrow.

Most of us don't have that problem any more. Food is plentiful! So much so that the portions we receive in resturants or make for ourselves at home are FAR TOO MUCH FOOD for one person in one sitting. Test yourself on the following five (5) questions and see what you think about the answers.

QUIZ:

1) 20 Years ago a BAGEL (something many people see as "healthy") was 3" in diameter and about 150 Calories! Today we have chocolate bagels, caramel bagels, iced bagels (!!), yet the PERCEPTION is that we are still eating healthy. Did you know the average diameter of TODAYS bagel is over 6" ?? How many calories do you think a modern day bagel has (just plain jane bagels with no chocolate)?

Muffins are another "healthy" food people believe is good for them, yet that 5" diameter muffin you buy at the super market is probably as UNHEALTHY as eating a cheeseburger and fries meal!

2) How big is a healthy portion of meat? Many people order super-duper deluxe sized steaks (20 oz porterhouse? COME ON!) that cover most of their plate with maybe a single sprig of broccoli on the side. In reality at least 1/2 of your plate should consist of vegitables and fruits!

3) How long should you wait before deciding you "need" a second serving (or "seconds") of food? Many people still feel hungry when they've finished their meal (whether or not they are actually watching their portions). Why is this? Food actually travels fairly slowly down the esophagus (sometimes in excess of 5 minutes!) and so it takes your body a little while to register that food in your body. We eat and eat then all of the sudden feel like we're going to explode!

4) How many calories should the average person consume in a given day? Many people don't understand that what you put into your body is converted to energy through digestion. What your body doesn't use it stores. Everytime we consume 3500 excess calories, we've gained a pound of weight. Doesn't sound like a lot? At Blackhawk Fitness we burn between 400 and 700 calories per session. At the MAXIMUM burn, it will take us FIVE DAYS to shed one pound of weight caused by excessive eating.

5) Exercise is a CRITICAL component to weight loss and a terrific way to combat aging as well as heart disease. Everything we put into our bodies needs to be burned in order to not gain weight. We are putting ourselves behind the curve by taking in worthless calories like ice cream, cola,  and french fries. They may taste good, but at what cost? The food industry is never going to change their tune as long as we are willing to pay for it. How far would we have to run in order to burn just ONE can of cola (12oz.)?

 Answers: 
1) 350 CALORIES
2) Roughly the size of a deck of cards! 
3) You should wait roughly 20 minutes before helping yourself to "seconds".
4) Varies by age and weight, but a sedentary (little or no exercise), 40 year old female of average height and average weight should only consume roughly 1600 calories per day to maintain weight. That's NOT MUCH! Participating in activities like Blackhawk Fitness jumps that number to 2000 calories to MAINTAIN weight.
5) We would have to run or walk 1 mile in order to burn off the worthless calories in one can of cola.