Counting calories

I've spoken here before about SparkPeople. Counting calories was never manageable for me until I discovered SparkPeople, but now it couldn't be easier.

Here's a truth about me, and maybe about many other people as well: if I eat something sweet or unplanned, I mentally tend to say, "I've screwed up now, I may as well eat anything I want." I feel bad about eating it, and my guilt and feelings of failure push me toward emotional eating as a band-aid for the unplanned eating. It can be vicious.

Here's a truth about calorie counting: when I own up to eating those two lemon cookies (as I did yesterday at lunch, unplanned) and factor them into my calories, it's so much better than my mind made it out to be. An extra 220 calories? This is manageable. It means I have to eat a little less at my following meal, and it means I might go over my daily calories by 100, but it is so much less a catastrophe than my mind tried to convince me it was.

Counting calories and being honest on my food log helped me to avoid going overboard on food yesterday due to guilt. Writing it down, looking at it, and honestly assessing the damage is a great tool. No wonder food journaling has been such an important weight loss tool to so many people for so long!

Twinkie diet helps nutrition professor lose 27 pounds

Haub's "bad" cholesterol, or LDL, dropped 20 percent and his "good" cholesterol, or HDL, increased by 20 percent. He reduced the level of triglycerides, which are a form of fat, by 39 percent.

"That's where the head scratching comes," Haub said. "What does that mean? Does that mean I'm healthier? Or does it mean how we define health from a biology standpoint, that we're missing something?"
Twinkie diet helps nutrition professor lose 27 pounds - CNN.com

An interesting article, though it can't be called a "study". I did read the results of a study last week that directly contradicted this one, that found that the composition of calories was very important. If I can relocate it, I'll add it below.

But I still find this interesting. This should definitely serve as proof that no form of calorie reduction is more valid than another, that any way of cutting calories can give a good outcome. (!)

Always on square one

...is better than never starting at all?

Sometimes I look in the mirror and I say, “I look all right. I look okay. For a woman who has had seven children, I’m not bad at all.” I am pretty average.
Other times, I remember when I weighed 140 right around the time of my high school reunion, I look at those pictures, and I’m not nearly so contented with my current state.

Sometimes it’s so easy for me to adhere to smaller portions, to counting and reducing calories, to periodic fasting.
Other times, I get a twinge of hunger and my brain starts to shout YOU’RE REALLY HUNGRY! EAT! FOOD ISN’T BAD! and I think, that’s true, food isn’t bad. And I eat. And I’m usually pretty empty from fasting or eating tiny portions so I eat a lot.

Sometimes I get a little jealous about all those women in Hollywood who have a lot of money and can just plastic surgery their way through the 25 pounds I want to lose.
Other times, I get a little angry that I feel like I want to look like them at all, that I’ve bought into the arbitrary and unrealistic body standard they portray.

Sometimes I’m so glad I bought a Spanx body shaper, and figured out how to modify it so it worked for me. It goes from right beneath my bra to my mid-thigh, and it does wonders! But it didn't stay up very well. So I sewed on thick elastic straps, and now it’s perfect.
Other times, I wish I’d had this Spanx body shaper at 140 pounds, for my reunion. I only had a tiny bit of tummy then. Holy cow, I bet I would have looked great.

Sometimes I am beyond faithful with exercise—pushing myself to improve, not content with doing as much as I did yesterday. Sometimes I focus on cardio (jogging and walking), sometimes on strength training. For the last four months of the school year and hectic kid schedules I thought, “I can’t wait for summer I can’t wait for summer I can exercise every day!”
Other times, I wonder what the point is. Or I want sleep more than I want exercise. After more than a month building up to a really good speed and distance, for the last three weeks I haven’t exercised at all. This morning I got dressed for it, but here I am writing instead. And I’d sort of like to go back to bed.

---

Last night I decided I’d give a 24-hour fast a shot. Eat Stop Eat has worked for me before, and I know it can work again, if I can get around my sabotaging brain. If I can just train my brain to remember that food is merely fuel for my body, and that I’m not the meanest thing ever for not eating. If I can push past the few early first fasts, that are filled with hunger pangs, and get to those later fasts where skipping food is no big deal.

So I didn’t eat dinner, and made it just fine. This morning my stomach is protesting, and once again I didn’t exercise. So many excuses. But even if I don’t do everything, I can do something. Fingers crossed I can be strong.

----------------
Now playing: Muse - Resistance

A beginning is a very delicate time*

It strikes me this morning that the beginning is the hardest part. It's hardest to cut back on portions and step up exercise in the very beginning stage, when it's all deprivation and no reward. Later with some pound loss under your belt (so to speak, ha ha) it can kind of self-perpetuate, success begets will power which begets continued effort and continued results. But those first steps, where you're doing it and there's been no payoff yet, that's the part where it's hard not to eat the theoretical PopTarts in the cupboard.

* A line spoken by Princess Irulan in the movie Dune. I'm such a nerd.

----------------
Now playing: Muse - Neutron Star Collision (Love is Forever)

Keeping on

I think all is going pretty well.

The plan: to fast breakfast and lunch three days a week (six meals, that's the same as fasting two 24-hour periods, right?). Physiologically it might not be quite the same, since different hormones are secreted with longer fasts; but in terms of calorie-reduction I think it works out the same. And it has the benefit of allowing me to eat dinner with my family every night. Fasting dinners was somewhat difficult to explain to my children.

Fasted two yesterday, eating today, fasting two tomorrow. Exercising. Hoping for good things. Not weighing until Sunday, because I don't want to go "WHAT?!" and have it sabotage me.

New goal: to be able to run 1.5 miles without any walking. Did a mile yesterday, so excited about that. Trying to build.

Finding my limits

So I fasted two meals Sunday (total calories ~500) and walked about a bit, expending more than sedentary would.

I fasted two meals Monday (total calories a bit less than 500) and exercised about double what I usually would. My energy level, despite the previous and current day's fast, was fantastic yesterday.

I was going to eat only fruit leading up to my evening meal today, as a sort of cleanse. Tried to exercise, but could only do about 30 minutes of cardio and really pooped out during strength training. And I got light-headed around 3:00 and decided I needed to eat a meal.

Lesson learned: Just barely over 1000 calories is not enough nutrition to sustain me into the third day.

Lesson number two: I lost a total of about four pounds in two days. That's a good beginning. Am weakish right now, and looking forward to a good, filling dinner.

Oddly, am not struggling with hunger pangs or cravings. No sugar three days now, though the cupboard is full of it. *shrug* I never know why things go well, I'm just glad they do.

How Sugar Ages Your Skin - Prevention.com

...Experts now believe that a lifetime of overeating sugar can make skin dull and wrinkled
How Sugar Ages Your Skin - Prevention.com

Dag nab it. I sugar is still pretty much my favorite food group. Guess now I have to kick my cravings for the greater good.

----------------
Now playing: Broken Bells - The High Road
via FoxyTunes

Excellent articles

http://blog.nutritiondata.com/ndblog/2010/01/snacks-now-account-for-a-quarter-of-daily-calories.html

This is a fantastic article about how we should be eating, and the two articles linked within it are even better. For ease:

Eating frequently does not rev your metabolism: http://nutritiondiva.quickanddirtytips.com/metabolism-myths.aspx

Go longer between meals: http://nutritiondiva.quickanddirtytips.com/eating-frequently.aspx

----------------
Now playing: OK Go - This Too Shall Pass

Feelin' Groovy

This morning just feels different. But then, lots of mornings feel different, and I'm diving head first into the chocolate before lunchtime.

I haven't exercised for a while. Why? I don't know; I had shoulder injuries that made strength training difficult. And I kept trying to change up my strength training and ended up hating it (I like cardio better anyway), but since I'm still intellectually convinced that strength training is way more effective than cardio with respect to changing a body, and since the roads are snow-covered outside...

I haven't exercised in a while. But last week I began to change. I did great cardio three mornings. And this morning I woke up bright and early and did a quite good upper body strength workout that has me still, and hour later, very shaky in the shoulders and arms. (Shaky in a good way.) Good portion control at breakfast. Crossing my fingers that this is the beginning of something, because even my big pants are tight now after the indulgent holiday season I had.

Haven't weighed in months, and I have no intention to. But I do want to exercise, and eat less. Let's see where this goes.

One, two, three...

I'm on my second day of counting calories. I'm not going to weigh myself, because (1) I still don't care what I weigh, and (2) it always psyches me out (if I don't lose weight after counting calories, I eat more the next week and undo all the good work).

I don't want to obsess over what I eat; but neither do I want to feel out of control, like I'm eating the whole world every time I sit down to the table. Was feeling just a little powerless, and this is my way to get the power back.

Am a little hungry (because I left at least half the world unconsumed at lunchtime). But just a little. Retraining the body, retraining the mind.

I'm lovin' it.

I know it makes for a boring blog, to say, "I'm still in the same place. I don't care if I lose a pound." But it feels great. And it's huge, really huge—for me to be larger than what I've always considered "ideal" and to be contented here...it's very freeing. And very healthy, I think.

Last week I spent an hour or so on the SparkPeople website reading blog entry after blog entry. These were written by fitness professionals who compared their post-pregnancy bellies to "rising bread dough" (boy, do I identify with that one!) and who, despite being a very good weight for their height, have cellulite that makes them not wear swimsuits in public. Entry after entry convinced me (again) that the current view of the female body is so unhealthy. We look at the stars on the magazine covers fully knowing that they are photoshopped, they have personal chefs, they have personal trainers, and they can literally devote their lives to having those bodies (which still need to be touched up when photographed) and while our brains say, "Not real!" our emotions say, "I want to look like that!" We set up a mental ideal that is impossible to achieve, but think that if we just exercise enough or cut out enough food we'll get there.

And then when we see the stars in their natural form—in swimsuits on vacation or whatever—and see that they really do have lumps, cellulite, and imperfections, the magazines mock them and rip them to shreds. This can only cement our notion that perfection is somehow (a) achievable by all, and (b) keep-up-able 100% of the time, can't it? We expect the stars to do it, we should be able to do it too.

(Here's a link to get you started, if you want to immerse yourself in these wonderful posts: http://www.dailyspark.com/blog.asp?post=i_profess_that_i_love_to_confess)

Do we even remember what a real body looks like? There are websites full of pictures. If you've searched out and seen the real tummies and real thighs, tell the truth: were you grossed out by the dimples? Or did you feel camaraderie? Did you think, "Maybe I'm more okay this way than I thought I was?"

So what's new since I took a flying leap off the wagon?

1. I'm not weighing myself at all. I have long known what a mind job that weight on the scale is. If I've been working hard all week and it hasn't budged, I get depressed and start inhaling the doughnuts while saying, "Evidently eating less doesn't help! No matter how hard I try nothing makes a difference!" If I've lost weight that's encouragement in itself; if I haven't lost, it just bums me out and makes me overindulge. I may weigh once a month now, or something. But daily and weekly weighing is right out. I just don't need to drag myself into that game.
   
   
2. I'm keeping a paper food diary of what I eat. Not counting calories, not trying to meet any minimums or maximums, just tracking. Tracking has always worked for me. It helps me, somehow, to control my intake. If I don't want to write down that third cookie, I don't eat it. Tracking keeps me honest.
   
   
3. I'm eating less, genuinely. I guess I had turned into a mass of emotions and needs and I was trying to tame everything by eating it. Letting go of weight expectations, letting go of the emotion of what's on the scale, has enabled me to let go of trying to comfort myself with this or punish myself with skipping that. I don't have to overfeed, I don't have to overcompensate. I'm a lot closer to that zen relationship with food—that it is merely fuel for my engine, it is not best friend or social companion or crutch or comforter.
   
   
4. I'm eating less sugar. It goes hand in hand with #3, but it's still notable.

Those are all really positive changes. I'm so at peace with my body. Grateful to it, even, for being so healthy. My body has never stopped me from doing anything I wanted to. How great is that?

----------------
Now playing: Paramore - Misery Business
via FoxyTunes

Shout-out to Angela

Having a conversation with Angela, who commented on my last post.

First could you explain a bit more when you mean you didn't touch your metabolism? As in you never felt a change etc?

I mean that it functioned the same before, during, and afterward. I didn't cause it damage, I didn't slow it down or speed it up. People are so afraid of "ruining" their metabolisms and entering starvation mode. I don't believe it. I believe they're not experiencing the quick loss they want, so they make up other excuses for it like starvation mode or slow metabolism or I lost three pounds of fat but gained two pounds of muscle.

I also can understand what you are saying about not believing in the whole idea of starvation mode but I can't get behind it 100% as i do agree we are resilient but at the same time we are primal and really not that far removed in the scale of life from our primitive ancestors.

We may have to agree to disagree on this one, because to me it sounds like more excuses. It's been millenia and millenia. If we believe that our bodies are adaptable and have evolved since then, why would we claim they haven't adapted or evolved after all, just because our pattern of losing changes?

Losing weight is undoubtedly a complex process, much less predictable than a table in a spreadsheet, I won't lie. I never have the results I predict or hope for. But I know if I eat less, I lose, even if I can't predict how much. And it has nothing to do with ancient history. It has to do with whether we're getting adequate food. Are we? Almost certainly. There are extreme cases under which people are starved, but I don't think any of us [I guess I speak of people without eating disorders] are in those conditions.

But what makes me think you may be right about starvation is I had gastric bypass almost a year and a half ago. I was 366 and am now 190-184 depending on scale, time of week, etc. I went from losing thirty lbs a month, twenty, lbs etc to just 1-3 a month in the last three months.

Congratulations on your fantastic loss!

though I have severly fallen off the wagon as far as excercise! I am trying to find my mojo again and really is there mojo?

There certainly is inspiration, motivation, and dedication.

On Brad Pilon's blog I just watched a video entry that applies here. He talks about the skewed message we're getting these days—that we need to increase our exercise to match our consumption. That's pretty backward. We should reduce our consumption to the level we need, rather than trying to meet some activity quota that brings our consumption into balance. Why?

1. We can never out-exercise our consumption. We are capable of consuming hundreds or even thousands of calories in minutes. (When I was a teen I could eat a half a pizza, probably 2000 calories, in 10 minutes or so. How long does a burger and fries take? Or a heaping helping of cake and ice cream?) Exercising at maximum intensity, we burn maybe 6 calories per minute. You can see how out of whack that is, when it takes less than 60 seconds to eat a 280-calorie candy bar. It would take hours and hours of exercise to balance a single too-big meal.


2. There does exist, for every person, an amount of food that can be consumed daily that will reduce us to or maintain us at our optimal body fat level, without exercise. If eating food is the problem, then eating food should be the solution. We don't weigh more than we'd like because we exercise too little, we weigh more because we eat too much.


3. There does exist, for every person, a minimal amount of exercise that gives them the muscle appearance and mass they want. Doing more exercise beyond this minimal amount doesn't necessarily increase the amount of muscle mass, and may possibly just be a waste of time. And once that mass is established, those developed muscles won't be visible if they're still covered with fat from eating too much. (My own example of this: I have abs of steel. I can mantain my strong abdominals with just a few ab exercises every week; exercising hours and hours more doesn't make them any stronger, I'd need steroids to do anything more than I've done with them. But no one can see them, because they're buried under at least ten pounds of abdominal fat. No one would know, by looking at my body, what a strong belly I have.)

Anyway all those times my body was starved and I kept loosing I did have one plateau though and I had to increase my protein so maybe that was due to starvation mode??

I have no idea. I know when I'm eating reduced calories, a caloric number smaller than the amount I need to sustain my current weight, if I hit a plateau it breaks much faster when I eat more for a week than when I eat less for a week. I think we just need to change things up, give the body something new to process, freak it out a little. Because it isn't a simple equation, or a machine that gives us predictable results.

Knock me over with a feather.

I'm at a complete loss how I could possibly be the exact same weight as last week, how I could not continue to lose at least ounces every day. I have avoided six out of seven lunches this last week. I have regulated my portions morning and night; even a huge meal of 600 calories both times would have yielded me only 1200 calories per day, still certainly an amount that should cause loss. And I believe that my meals were lower than that amount probably every time.

So how my Friday weight was upward, and today up further yet, I do not quite comprehend. Still I shall press onward, and see what happens next.

Blergh.

Was hungrier than usual today, so I decided to make it an intentional indulgence day. The theory of an indulgence day is that the extra calories rev up my metabolism, help me to burn more calories, and freak out my body so it doesn't get too used to any one thing.

So I ate lunch today. Yummy.

And then I ate chocolate and nuts.

And now I feel like crap. Like crap. Was that particular indulgence worth it, it ask you? I think not. I'm no bulemic—oh my josh, I'd rather do anything than throw up—but at times like this I feel the tiniest twinge of sympathy with them. Where's my undo button?

Square one.

I'd moan and thrash about having to start over yet again, but I suppose instead I should rejoice. Right? Opportunities to do things we want to, even things we've done before (sigh) keep coming around. Yay. And right now I have an opportunity to turn my eating life around.

In addition to my renewed vigor for exercise, I've changed up what I'm doing with food. I agree with Brad Pilon that a really valid way to cut out calories is just not to eat sometimes. Food is merely fuel for my body, though I cling to it desperately for a number of other reasons (joy, celebration, socializing, comforting, etc.). Here are two short posts that underline what I'm trying to say:
Food is just fuel
Food is food, it's that simple
So right now I'm fasting one meal every single day: lunch.

• My blood sugar stays a little more stable if I'm eating every day.
  
• I don't get so desperately hungry, because I know I get dinner.
  
• (This might be the best part.) My daily weight loss graph line is a lot more stable than with full 24-hour fasts.

When I was doing full-day fasts with Eat Stop Eat, on a fast day I'd lose 4+ pounds, and then on my following eating day gain back 3.8. Weighing once a week the general weight trend was downward, but it sure went up and down and everywhere daily. This way I get to see a lot gentler but more constant feedback. I'm not losing 4 pounds in one day (shucks!) but I'm not gaining back, either.

(For four whole days now, let's see how it goes in the longer run.)

Here's to new beginnings! Again!

My brain is hungrier than my stomach is.

Fascinating article about how our brains sabotage our efforts to lose weight.

Not that I needed to be told; any time I've given in and ended a fast before I had planned to, any time I've gone off my calorie-calculated food plan for the day when I thought I had it under control, it was my brain talking me into it, not my stomach. My brain wants the pleasure of eating even more than my body does.

Have not had a good week with the calories, with the sugar-free, with the portion control, nor anything else; but I have managed my first real fast in weeks today. Let's hope I can turn it around and find myself some control.

Honey, oh sugar sugar

So I ate more than a bite of dessert at the headmaster's dinner Saturday night. I ate, let's see, three or four cookies at the family tea party we dropped by for a few minutes on our way to the dinner. And then I ate half a [huge] piece of the richest chocolate cake at the dinner.

Woke up Sunday with a sugar hangover, a horrid headache.

Now I'm so glad I didn't eat sugar yesterday. It's so stupid how much self-control it took, but I'm so glad I didn't use this week's sugar day yesterday. I weighed 147.0 on Saturday morning and (despite my efforts, because of the cookies and cake probably) I weighed 147.8 this morning for the official weigh-in. But despite the little jump (which I know is carb-related water retention or something, onward and downward) I feel like I accomplished something. First, I lost 2+ pounds from the previous Monday. Second, I didn't eat sugar yesterday. I was stronger than I thought was. Which is self-reinforcing, now I feel strong because I was strong.

Mixed feelings

Made chocolatey cookies and coconut pudding for the fam for dessert.

OMgosh, it was so hard not to lick spoons or take nibbles. Because today isn't a sugar day. But I did it.

Just tracked my calories for today.

And now I'm so glad that I didn't do a sugar day and don't have to record those calories.

So *WAH* about not eating tasty dessert, but *YAY* about today's calories consumed and not eating sugar today! :)

True confessions.

1. I ate sugar again. Drat. One little bit gave way to one bigger bit, until I was eating sugar every day. Not in the quantities I had been before, so that's good. Sugar wasn't the only thing that was important to me. But I had to start over again cutting it out. I'm on day three. It isn't as difficult this time.
   
   
2. I'm finding it almost impossible right now to fast. I don't know why; lack of willpower? I just get horrifically starving, and then I think, "But food isn't bad!" and I eat and then I make up all the calories I'd so far skipped that day, breakfast or breakfast plus lunch. Oh yeah, I can totally eat an entire day's calories in one sitting. :(
   
   
3. So I'm actively back at sparkpeople.com for the moment, tracking my caloric intake. It is easier for me, right now, to limit my portions than to fast. And I figured since I was just eating like crazy, I had to do something.
   
   
4. I'm also trying to be more faithful with exercise, especially strength training. Spring weather is here and is supposed to stay all week long (SQUEE) and what I really want to do is get out and jog and walk. Though I'm definitely not in the cardiovascular shape I was in last spring when I had been doing cardio faithfully. My shift of focus to strength training, and then my total laziness in not doing it, has made me a little bit winded in places where I used to not be. Sigh. I really enjoy cardio so much more than strength training. Really. But I need the strength training more.

----------------
Now playing: Adam Lambert - Mad World (American Idol Studio Version)
via FoxyTunes

Going, going, gone

It took almost two excruciating weeks, but I've really knocked out my sugar cravings. Sugar cravings are my one and only pre-menstrual symptom; so I was craving sugar all the time, but the week before my period those cravings are much more powerful, almost irresistible. And the week before my period was, not through good planning but because the stars just freakily aligned that way, the first week I went sugar-free. Which made it a very difficult week indeed.

But though I still craved sugar every single day all day long, each day the craving was a bit more manageable. And finally I came through it unscathed, and now sugar is resistible. This is a major, major victory for me. Three examples:

• We spent Friday night and Saturday morning with my sister and her family. I purchased Krispy Kremes for them as a gift, plenty for two Kremes per person, and didn't eat any.
  
  
• Went to a party with friends on Saturday night. The dessert table was full, and there were two of my favorites—homemade oreos (huge, almost as big as my hand) and almond sheet cake. These are things my friends regularly bring and I crave them all the time. But I stuck with food and left the desserts alone, though I wanted that almond cake something fierce.
  
  
• This might sound like falling off the wagon, but I also count it a victory. We went to a cub scout dinner last night with our 9YO son. I drank a root beer with my vegetarian sloppy joe, and ate a piece of apple pie afterward. OH NOES! SUGAR!! But we have to eat like real people, right? The occasional piece of birthday cake or whatever? I could feel I was sufficiently past my cravings that it wouldn't be dangerous, and I was right. It hasn't triggered a sugar binge in me at all. I had an egg with toast for breakfast, am going to have vegetable soup, carrots, and hummus for lunch, and I have zero sugar cravings now. I just frosted a cake to give away, and I didn't even lick the frosting spreader when I was done.

So I am feeling great about that. A little sugar every now and then I don't see as a problem. No sweets makes Jack a very dull boy. Variety is the spice of life, and nothing should ever be forbidden or off-limits, because that just creates an artificial (irrational) mental need. At least, for me it does.

But my sugar cravings went to the next level, very akin to addiction. That needed to be broken. I've taken the first steps. Now I will eat sugar consciously and not mindlessly, choose it and limit it but not freak out about it.

So happy with myself.

----------------
Now playing: Syntax - Pride
via FoxyTunes