calorie needs

So I’ve been playing around with the calorie counter at http://www.myfitnesspal.com tonight and I’m getting so frustrated, thinking in circles. I plugged in everything I plan to eat tomorrow – my usual breakfast and snacks, the lunch I already packed for work, the dinner I have planned on my menu.

In WW Points, I would have counted all this at 24 Points, which is 5 below my daily target of 29.

In calories, it’s 1483, or 273 higher than what I would need to keep my intake to in order to lose 2 pounds a week.

 In order to keep with the WW directions to eat enough to keep my body fueled I would have to come up with another approximately 250 calories worth of food; in order to come up with what the calorie tracker says I should eat, I would have to eat approximately 250 fewer.  That’s a 500 calorie discrepency between the two plans.  What the heck??

I came up with my calorie figure by finding a calorie needs calculator online; for my height, weight, age and level of activity it gives me a figure of 2210.  That’s what my body needs to sustain itself at this weight.  But I don’t want to maintain this weight; in aiming for a steady 2 pound a week loss, I would need to eat 7000 calories fewer each week than my body needs, or an average of 1000 a day.   So, 2210 ( 1000) = 1210; this is the amount of calories I would need to take in each day to achieve that loss.

1210 seems so low to me, especially for my size.  I worry about hitting the dreaded starvation mode, if my body is getting so few calories that it fears letting go of fat.  I also worry about losing nutrition if I cut any of the foods in my meal plan; as it is now I’m getting plenty of fruit, veggies, dairy, protein and fiber; if I start chopping foods out of my plan, I’m sacrificing some of that carefully thought out nutrition.  I really don’t want to have to do that, at least not at this point.

But then, exercise needs to be a part of this equation.  I have to factor in the calories I burn during exercise into calculating that net calorie count for the day.  The problem is, I’ve been SO flaky about exercise lately that I hate to count on it, because I can’t trust myself to follow through.  Ideally I should be able to eat around 1500 calories and aim to burn 300 in exercise so I land at my 1200 NET calories for the day, but I’m scared of this.  Even if I do get my exercise mojo back, I won’t necessarily burn that many calories every day; I’m really unsure of how to factor for that. 

I don’t know what to do.  Weight Watchers was working – when I stuck to the plan, which wasn’t often lately – so I know that my body CAN handle more calories and still lose.  And the WW Points system took into account the fact that you don’t digest certain calories from fiber and gave a break for that … I’d be willing to bet that between all the veggies and whole grains in my eating plan, I’ve got quite a bit of wiggle room from undigestible fiber that isn’t apparent when you’re just looking at the calories.

I think … ugh!  I hate this … I think I will aim for 1400 – 1500 from food and try to get as much exercise in to offset that as possible … and see where I land in a few weeks?  If I find I’m not losing I can always tweak the plan.  For now … like I said, WW was working so I’m scared to cut almost 500 calories out of my day from what I was eating … I fear hitting a plateau.  1500 calories, without any exercise, would leave me with a 710 calorie deficit, which would be 1.42 pounds a week lost if it were a matter of pure math .. which it isn’t, I know, but still.  That’s a bit less than I really am hoping for, but that’s just another reason to get some exercise in, to help close the gap.

So … 1400 – 1500 daily intake with as much exercise as I can get my lazy butt motivated to do to push my net calories down as far as I can go.  That’s the plan for now – go!

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starting over

I can’t believe I’m doing this, but I’ve made the decision to delete my backlog of posts and start anew with this journal.

I’ve hit, if not a roadblock, then a series of speed bumps in my efforts to lose my spare poundage. Lately it’s been such a struggle. I haven’t exercised in just a few days shy of a whole month. I’ve been eating too much and grazing nonstop. I’ve grown careless in tracking and have been letting things slide altogether too much. This simply isn’t working for me.

I’ve been doing Weight Watchers off and on for a very long time, but lately I’ve been toying with the idea of switching to purely counting calories. WW is wonderful but it’s too flexible for me, as absurd as that may sound. I’ve grown too adept at manipulating the system, and lately I’ve begun to worry about all the zero point foods and the things that get rounded down or not counted at all because it’s just a bite here and a taste there that are probably adding up to major calories. I’m going to start using a calorie tracker tomorrow and see if I see better results with that. I have three weeks left of my WW paper journal so I’ll keep tracking points alongside the calories and give it those three weeks to see if I’m ready to let go of the Weight Watchers system. I’m kind of scared by that; I’ve been doing it for so long that it’s so easy and comfortable and natural. But maybe that’s the problem; it’s too effortless by this point, and I’m not required to put any thought into it anymore.

I’m also going to go back to basics. Everything I eat is going to be weighed or measured out first, so I’m certain of my serving sizes and confident that I know exactly how many calories are going into my body. No more being sloppy and careless about what I put into my body and no more mindless grazing out of the cupboard as I go by. Maybe it’s crazy but I’m actually kind of excited about this, intrigued by the idea of breaking this down into pure science, of calories in vs. calories out. I’m hoping too that if I’m truly mindful of the math I’ll be less likely to graze, because I’ll be able to see the real impact of those extra calories I’m sneaking in rather than seeing it in the nebulous terms of being some random fraction of a WW point.

Along with this change I’m implementing a major change in the way I eat; I’m cutting way back on sugar, white flour and processed foods and am aiming to cut out HFCS and artificial sweetners as much as I can, putting an emphasis on whole grains, fresh fruits and veggies, and lean protein and dairy. This is not something I’m doing on a whim; this is a change that I’ve been slowly pondering, culling information and resources and slowly working towards equipping my kitchen for for many months now, and I simply feel like it’s time. I don’t expect to be perfect at this, but my old way of eating just had too many nutritional black holes in it and I just feel like I can’t do that anymore. If I’m limiting the food I’m taking in AND expecting extraordinary things of my body on the exercise front, then it’s important that every calorie I take in count for something.

Lastly, I’m approaching this blog differently in two ways. One, when I was journaling here before I was so worried about creating meaningful and polished posts and not boring people with the day to day details. But you know what – it’s MY blog and it’s only a useful tool as far as it works for me; and what I really need right now is a place to talk about the day to day details so that I stay mindful and present in this process every day. So maybe I’ll drive people away who don’t want to hear about what I had for lunch today or whatever but that’s okay; I’m doing this for my benefit first and foremost and I just have to use it in the way that will help me best without worrying about what anyone else thinks, even if it results in a blog that’s boring and unmeaningful to anyone else.

And two – and this is going to be hardest of all for me – I need to back off on all the tracking and charting and everything that I was doing before. I had my progress charted and graphed and my daily exercise logs laid out in a table and weekly and montly posts outlining goals and detailling results and … it just needs to stop. I NEED to break away from that mindset, as hard as it’s going to be for me to make that change. No more; I need to bring this process back around to something that’s going to be comfortable and sane for the long haul. If this is truly the lifestyle change that I want it to be, then I need to be less uptight about filling every slot in some chart or meeting some self-imposed deadline than about simply making things balance. I want to take the emphasis off of racing towards some imaginary finish line and make it more about eating well more days than I eat poorly and exercising more days than not; and while I will still weigh myself on a regular basis to stay mindful I want to get away from the ‘weekly weigh in’ mindset of beating myself up for not losing enough in any arbitrary seven day period, but rather focus on and be thankful for a gradual downward trend, even if it doesn’t get me where I want to be as fast as I think I should.

I know this is a lot to tackle all at once but I honestly am ready for a change.

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