Exercising and eating well

I'll start off by saying I am not a health nut by any means, nor am I a fitness expert.  I'm just an average Joe trying to make the best choices I can with the lifestyle I lead.  A few years ago we made a choice in our home to stop eating crap.  Granted there is still quite a bit of it going on but we've reduced it by at least 75% which is a huge endeavor considering we are a family of seven.  We can do better, and we are slowly working that way.  You can check out my wife's blog over at Tales from a Misfit Housewife for all the lowdown on how things happen around our homestead.  I'll just sum it up by saying we try and buy free range meat as often as we can, and limit our eating out as much as possible, get lots of fruit, and some vegetables, although I've never been a fan personally, I try and choke them down.  I'm more of a meat eater.  We got our own egg chickens last spring, and this spring we will start our garden beds.  It's been two years since we've been to a fast food place such as McDonalds, Burger King, Wendy's, etc.  We have been to restaurants which I'm not saying are any better but with having to pay more this really keeps us from eating out very often, mostly just special occasions.  Wild fish and game helps fill the voids too which is very helpful.

Since I don't go to the gym, and mostly do as much exercising at home that I can do as well as watching my eating, I needed to look for some help.  So I found a few programs that helped make keeping track of these things a little easier.  One tool I use is myfitnesspal, which I use to keep track of my calorie intake.  It also tracks carbs, fat, protein, sodium and sugar, among other categories you can choose.  This is all based on items people have already entered in by using the nutritional information on the item.  It is a huge database, chances are that it's already in there if your eating or drinking it.  If not then you can add it, or do a quick calories and enter it in.  You can really customize this to your needs, whether it's maintaining or losing 1-2lbs a week.  There are also apps for the iPhone and other smart phones so you have no excuse to not get your data entered even if your out and about.  Another tool I like to use is runkeeper.  This is useful for tracking your walking, hiking, or running.  It offers some easy setup to get you going. Once again apps for the iPhone and other smart phones are used, or you can buy their own gadgets to use.  I use it as a compliment to enter my exercise into myfitnesspal.  There are plenty of ways to do it without having to have a smart phone, but the apps are free...and we all know that free is good!

So those are the two tools I really use to help me with maintaining weight and exercising.  These are only tools though, you have to personally make the commitment and keep yourself dedicated to it to see results, it doesn't take much to get off track take it from me.  Life is too short to waste it eating high fructose corn syrup and mono sodium glutamate.  I won't deny that food that has that stuff in it taste really, really good.  But it's not good for you at all.  Your body was meant to eat fruit, vegetables and meat, not processed garbage.  I think I may have started getting into a rant.  I hate to see anyone out there ruin themselves, stay healthy, and stay fit and I hope to see you around in our western lands.