Some of us are numbers people. We like the tangible, the finite, the try it with a formula and I’ll believe it mentality.

Honestly, there’s nothing to be ashamed of about that. Personally, I lean towards the numbers side just because it’s something that can be counted and tracked. Sometimes the numbers can play in our favor and help motivate us to keep going and strive for more.

For example, if you were to time yourself while running a mile and found that you can cover that distance in 7.35 minutes, you now have a specific number. Having that now gives you extra motivation as you will strive to exceed this amount the next time you take a test. You can then train for another week or two and then test again to see if you beat the initial test time.

All this is possible thanks to the tracking of numbers.

As I personally gained momentum during the first few months of the weight loss process, I naturally began to focus on eating in a healthier way because I knew I had to be in good control of the types and amounts of food I was eating. putting on my body This was priority number one, especially since my eating habits for the past decade have been nothing if not gluttonous.

Even though she knew for the most part what was considered healthy, she still didn’t know how much food she should be consuming on a daily basis. So, I was inevitably forced to start concentrating on how many calories I was eating per day.

Now you may be wondering why it would be important to know how many calories you should eat daily if all you plan to eat is healthy and nutritious food. As surprising as it may seem, even overeating healthy foods will not guarantee effective weight loss, since your body will continue to consume an excessive amount of calories.

So a few months ago, I started using one of those handy calorie counter websites that also had a phone app to use – all for FREE! I simply entered some of my physical stats, type of work, and exercise habits, and then I was provided with a number of calories that I should strive to eat on a daily basis.

In other words, if you were to maintain this daily amount of calories as best as possible, you would lose weight every week.

Better yet, I can use this calorie counter/app to look up the nutritional content of the food I plan to eat. This is where a calorie app. it really comes in handy, especially for those times when I’ve been tempted to eat at a fast food place. On more than one occasion, when I discovered the nutritional content of an unhealthy option, the decision to avoid that option was much easier.

For example, once I came up with a quarter pound meal with cheese, I connected the meal to the My Fitness Pal app and found that this UNIQUE meal has 1570 calories along with 67 grams of fat and 1900 mg of sodium. After learning this valuable information, changing my mind to something else was much easier to do.

If you’re interested in finding out what your FREE daily calorie allowance is, just go to http://MyFitnessPal.com and see what they offer. You can even use their FREE app if you have a smartphone like an iPhone, Blackberry, or Droid. It literally only takes a few minutes to set up your user account to learn your daily calorie allowance, helping you stick to your weight loss agenda.