Monday, July 10, 2006

I hate when that happens

You know the weight-loss advice that tells you to "move more and eat less?" I got that totally mixed up last week, and ended up eating more and moving less. [Insert rueful smiley face here.] It's not as bad as I'd feared, because my mid-week scale checks showed a four-pound gain. It ended up being officially two pounds. Bah.

Average calories eaten: 1304
Average minutes activity: 68

That's 200 to 300 more calories eaten daily than what I've been averaging, and 30 fewer minutes of exercise per day.

Part of those extra calories were holiday food, and part of them were "what-the-hell" food. You know what that is, right? You know you've gained anyway, so you just completely blow it.

I'm glad I've been logging calories and minutes all this time. If nothing else, it proves what I know to be true for me: I don't need as much food as they say I do. [There are other how-many-calories-do-I-need calculators out there; I just picked that one as a likely prospect from my Google search.]

It recommends 2204 calories to maintain my current weight; to lose, I need to subtract 750 calories per day. It also says I'll need to eat 1974 calories daily to maintain my goal weight. Hah! That will so not work for me.

The person/company who/that develops tasty, satisfying food with no calories will make a fortune. I guess the drug companies are working it from the other angle: Create a pill that makes you not want to eat at all.

A little good news. It's been four weeks since I took my measurements, and I've lost 2.5 more inches.

Finally, thanks to everyone who went to Bo's blog. I know your positive, healing thoughts and prayers will help him. Greta, you're right about our weight-loss efforts being about health as well as looks. I've always thought my mother's poor eating habits and yo-yo dieting contributed to her relatively early death at 59. She would have been 75 this past Saturday.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's sort of good that you've had this little experience under your belt now, isn't it? The experience of gaining a bit, going off the wagon a bit, and not totally falling off. This kind of bump can cause me to give up on the whole idea of being fit and stick with the "what the hell" foods for a very long time.

I, for one, am impressed that you feel ok, strong, and focused on what's what.

Mariah, who did, in fact, go to the gym this morning.

Anonymous said...

2 lbs-- I flutuate up to 4 lbs... due to salt, water retention, hormones, less or more sleep--so many things can change the number. this is why how my clothes fit and how much energy I have factors in more.
salt really gets me, esp a salty dinner. I always see it on the scale, even if it was a 1,250 cal day!
but I do keep track of the scale #, and what was happening at the time. almost always there was some salt, & lack of sleep or stress factors. don't worry.

M@rla said...

Hah! Yes, "they" are crazy. I've seen calculators like that too. Oh yeah, I WISH I could eat 2000+ calories a day! The thing is, they are just averages, they're not specific enough, and all that leeway and slippage adds up to an unrealistic number. As we both know!

I think this one is pretty good: it's painfully honest.
http://www.hussmanfitness.org/bmrcalc.htm