Last summer I started doing Weight Watchers because I wanted to lose weight. At the time, I was exercising and watching what I ate – thinking that I was eating really well – and completely befuddled as to why I wasn’t losing weight. A friend of mine was doing WW and suggested I give it a try.

WOW WAS IT EVER EYE OPENING!!!

I used to think that if I ran 3 miles, I could then eat whatever I wanted. I mean, I just ran three miles! So after my run I would duck into Giant and grab a huge cinnamon chip muffin. YUM! I deserved this muffin.

What I learned from WW is that the calories burned in a three mile run is equal to just ONE slice of bread! To compensate for my cinnamon chip muffin, I’d need to run 10 miles!

A few other eye openers:

• My scrambled eggs with mushrooms and spinach + 2 pieces of toast with a tad of butter equals 12 miles of running.
• A 2 mile walk equals just ONE small banana!
• Thirty minutes on the elliptical machine equals 1/2 cup of marinara sauce (and that’s not including the pasta!).
• To work off ONE tablespoon of peanut butter, you’d need to run 2 miles.
• Ate a slice of carrot cake? That’s SIXTEEN miles of running for you!

So maybe this info will help if you are trying to lose weight and can’t figure out why it’s not peeling off. In general if you want to lose weight you need to exercise more than you think, and you need to eat less than you think. It’s not that you can’t eat things like muffins and carrot cake, but just know how eating those kinds of foods will impact your efforts. Writing down what you are eating and how much you are exercising or joining a program like WW can really help you build awareness around your habits.

(By the way, I have to confess that as I wrote this I ate several handfuls of peanut butter m&ms. Guess I’ll be running 10 miles tomorrow!