| Jun. 27th, 2007 @ 05:41 pm Second half of Mona's Answers |
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The second thing he proclaimed was I should record or journal EVERYTHING I ate so we could see what and when I was eating. He gave me statistics about people underreporting calories in and overreporting calories out. He talked about nutritional values or ratios, fat/carbs/protein. I wrote down what I ate for a week but not the amounts or calories. That didn't help much. I dragged my feet and rebelled against having to write my food habits down. (again I always go the tough route) My biggest issue was I knew I wasn't eating much, how dare he think I was bingeing or lying about my food? We (I) played this game for a few more months the metformin was helping some but I still wasn't losing enough.
During this time I started swimming and working with a trainer who also happens to own a nutrition store. One more tool, I downloaded an e-book Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle by Tom venuto. Things were finally starting to make sense about the nutrition. I finally caved and started logging my food using myfooddiary.com (excellent site for $9 a month by the way) I found I was not eating enough calories 500-600 a day and what I was eating was not healthy. (ok sidebar, I thought Taco Bell was healthier than McD's) Isn't a salad from Arbys healthy? Really more fat than a cheeseburger? How much fat is in that dressing? Two ladles of dressing is how many servings, 4? jeez that is a lot of calories and fat just in my healthy salad dressing. I just ate a piece of chicken, how many ounces are in a serving compared to the breasts in the package? How many people are supposed to share my pot pie? Who shares a pot pie?
My biggest education was in serving sizes. I bought a digital food scale, 20 or so dollars and started weighing my servings. I separate servings and put them in sandwich baggies. Ok I know this sounds OCD but really your idea of a serving and the real thing is way different.
My RMR tested out to be around 1500 calories. This means if all I did was lay in bed all day it would take 1500 calories a day to keep my system alive. Then you add in a multiplier depending on your activity level. I use 1.2 because even though I exercise a lot I am sedentary, in my chair, desk job, etc. My daily calorie intake should be around 1800 to maintain the weight at my activity level. (a little math lesson here) It takes 3500 calories to make a pound. if you divide it by 7 days of the week you get 500 a day. In order to lose weight you must have a calorie deficit. They (the experts) recommend losing 1 pound a week. So lower your calories by 500 a day to get your new target amount of 1300. Now remember the experts say there is a lower limit for men and women, women are not supposed to go under 1200 a day.
I keep track of my exercise calories burned and "eat back" those calories. I try not to go under 1200 net calories everyday. Somedays stress hits me or I forget to eat and I go under but not usually. There are days I eat to maintenance 1800 calories and if I swim I eat those calories back too. That means some days I eat 2300 or more calories. OMG that is so hard to eat 2300 calories of good food.
My food typically consists of oatmeal, bananas, protein shakes, protein wafers, chicken, turkey patties, broccoli, mushrooms, pizza, wheat bread, grapefruit peanut butter, almonds, pecans, walnuts, steak (usually moose), halibut, salmon, brown rice and sometimes white rice. I still eat taco bell sometimes. I even eat McD's but what I do is look at the calorie values and eat moderately. I assess the need and see if it is worth the calories I will use up. If I want chocolate I eat it but I also account for the numbers. I plan it into my day ( now I am really sounding OCD aren't I)
The experts recommend specific percentages of fat/carb/protein ratios. Because of my insulin resistance I find 40% protein, 30% carb and 30% fat give or take a % is best for me. This is not the typical recommendation! but it is what works for me. I guess why I have said this is because if I didn't log my food I wouldn't have had any way of finding this out, now I know.
I started at a very snug (popping buttons) size 14 (I am 5'2") and today I bought a pair of size 6s. My 8s are comfortable but I bought the 6s for inspiration. I NEVER thought I would ever be back into a size 10 let alone a 6.
I am sorry for the long answer and hope you have a great time on hiatus (sp).
Mona McAleese |
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