I'm beginning to check those calories now more and more. I read there are four ways to keep my blood sugar under control. All deal with portion control of some sort. Calories counting, carb counting, plate portioning, and an exchange system. Of course weight watchers came up with a point system and first place for health uses a combination exchange/amount of serving per nutrient you need per day system. Anyway you look at it, you have to know what a serving of a bread is, fruit is, protein is etc for any of these systems to work. You also need to know the amount of calories you have to eat to lose weight. ALL of them require measuring for success.

I found out I lose more weight when I pre plan the weeks menu and stick to it, than when I eat, then record. Sure, I have days when that happens, but pre planning gets me where I want to go quicker. I tell you though, after a few years of this, I did get tired and burned out. Thus, the reason why I still haven't reached my goal weight yet. I have taken two years off and now have gotten back to the routine. This time I have a few short cuts I have developed out of necessity and hopefully to keep from burning out. I will share a few of them with you.

I have some routine meals that I switch out and rotate on a monthly basis so as not to get tired of my meals now. Over this past three years I have finally come up with enough favorites I can do this. I cook and freeze meals for such occasions as well. This gives me a stock pile of easy to put together pre planned and easy to fit into my plan meals. One week end of cooking and I have a month's worth of freedom. For example I make a new soup every month that can be used for lunches and dinners or a base for a sauce. This adds variety to my meals as well as helps me when I'm too tired to plan out a meal. I figure out the cal count and put it into the ck data base for that month etc.

I pre measure my food for lunches and snacks for several days. I do this while I watch TV.
I make enough dinner to cover several lunches and pack them up for my husband and I to have the next day. This helps with the next days planning too.
I make and freeze meals for days I won't be able to cook. This goes along with the soup thing.
I grill up a whole bunch of chicken or turkey breast over the weekend to use as sandwich meat for the week. Cold weather places you can cook up a turkey breast after brining it in under 2 hour on the weekend.

In other words I am learning to live with my new life style a bit by adding that variety and still with the basics so as not to get bored. I'm learning the time saving methods so I'm not spending great amounts of time that burn you out and make staying with this for life doable. As a diabetic, I don't get to ease up on a few things> I will always have to portion out the amount of carbs I get each day. I will never be able to eat a lot of processed sugar or eat a lot of calories. I have come to peace about that. Doing these things that I have mentioned have kept me from feeling sorry for myself and from making me feel trapped by my circumstances. I actually now am very joyful now that I watch my eating and consider it a blessing. It has taught me self control, not to let food control me, not to let food comfort me but find my comfort in other things, and to take my joy in My Lord rather than in a substance that can only bring me a moment of pleasure. Now, when I get a little tired of weighing and measuring, I remind myself of the joy this will bring me and it changes my attitude.