Count Calories, anyone?

First of all, today went well. I went to the Y and did the elliptical for 50 minutes. There won’t be any workout tomorrow, but there will be Friday.

My question for today is: should I count calories? I know that calories count – consume fewer calories than you burn, and you’ll lose weight – haven’t we all heard that a thousand times? But does that mean I need to journal all my food and add up all the calories each day. The truth is, I ate whatever amount of calories I ate, regardless of what I record in my food journal. And it’s a big chore to record at the end of each day. Ideally I would journal each thing before I ate it, but that doesn’t work for me, since I’m gone to work all day and then often go somewhere directly after work. So it ends up being that at the end of the day I go back and try to remember everything I ate that day. And I get way too caught up in and worried about the numbers. I worry about whether I had one serving or two of this or that. Here’s what goes through my head:

That hamburger that was served when eating at a friend’s house – was that 85% lean, 75% lean, or worse yet? Well, it didn’t seem to be that greasy, but I bet these folks would buy the cheapest meat there is. Yeah, we’ll go with 75%. And how much did eat? Well, a normal serving is 4 oz, but this seemed pretty big, it could have been 6 or even 8. And the bun – that was a large bun – it wasn’t your average 110-calorie bun. I’ll guess it was 220. I hope that’s not too low. And the cheesy potatoes – those were swimming in butter an cheese. How many calories was that? Well, I probably had about 1/4 cup, which is 4 Tbsp. Pure fat is 120 cals a Tbsp and it couldn’t have been that because there were a few potatoes and some cheese in there that would bring the overall calorie density down. I’m gonna say 80 calories a Tbsp, so that’d be 320 calories. Okay, so 820 calories for the meal. That’s seems awfully high. Was I off on something? What if I was too low? I could have had a 1/2 cup of those potatoes – I obviously didn’t have measuring instruments ….

So I think you get the idea. It just adds stress. If I have to eat at somebody’s house, I have to eat at somebody’s house – and the best I can do is make the best decisions there. I need to choose the lowest calorie option, whatever that may be. And it does not matter if that meal had 80 calories or 800 calories – it doesn’t change what I should do next. I need to focus on establishing good habits – like not eating dessert daily, learning to pass up the sweets that are offered to me, learning to eat more veggies and fruits, learning to snack less (or at least snack more healthfully). And the calories – well, they just don’t change any of those things. So, along with ditching the scale, I’m ditching the counting – there go the numbers. I don’t need the numbers – I need to change my mindset, attitude, outlook, and habits. I will try this approach for the next 4 weeks – the worst that can possibly happen is that I won’t lose much, or any, weight – but I wasn’t doing that anyway.

What do you think?

Warning: Discouraging Post

Okay, so after reading the title you proably think I’m doing poorly today – well, worry not, I’m doing GREAT! Got in a long workout (burned 660 cals), eating great, etc. This post isn’t about how I’m doing, but I wanted to talk about a disturbing article I read. Seriously, though, if you’re doing well on losing weight I might not read on. I half wish I hadn’t read the article.

First, here’s a link to the article: “Genes Take Charge, and Diets Fall by the Wayside”

To summarize, it’s basically saying that genetics have far more to do with your weight than your environment. Normally reading something like that wouldn’t bother me – anybody can say anything, it doesn’t make it true. However, this author cites a few studies that – I must admit – sounds fairly convincing. There is a huge adoption study that was done over many years in sweeden. There were something like 90 pairs of  identical twins separated at birth. The identical twins reared apart had the same weights as adults. Also:

“Stunkard ended up with 540 adults whose average age was 40. They had been adopted when they were very young – 55 percent had been adopted in the first month of life and 90 percent were adopted in the first year of life. His conclusions, published in The New England Journal of Medicine in 1986, were unequivocal. The adoptees were as fat as their biological parents, and how fat they were had no relation to how fat their adoptive parents were.”

The article also pointed out that it is just as hard for a naturally thin person to GAIN weight and keep it on. There was a study on prisoners done where they intentionally ate tons of calories to gain weight. When they stopped intentionally trying to gain weight, within months, they were back down to their original weights.

Okay, anyway, I just thought the article was disturbing. Maybe it really is much harder for me to lose weight than it is for some people b/c of my genetics? Hmm. Any thoughts?

My “Philosophy” Pt. 1

I couldn’t come up with a great title, but I wanted to take a minute to outline my weight loss – uh, there’s so many words for it – plan, strategy, philosophy, diet, lifestyle change, program, whatever!

First, one pertinent background point: I have tried many, many times to lose weight and have not ever been permanently successful. (I’m sure many of you are in the boat.) So I realize that I need to do something differently, and a lot of this stems from what I’ve learned about myself in the past.

Second, there are a million different articles and books and blogs and diets out there that will each claim a different approach to weight loss. In truth, many approaches will work, and there is ONE proven, scientific, undisputed way to lose weight: consume fewer calories than you burn. That is one thing know. Everything else is, at best, debated by the experts, such as low carb, glycemic index, mini-meals, etc. Do any of these things cause you to burn enough extra calories/fat to make a noticeable difference? I have no idea, and I will not at any time in the near future find conclusive proof one way or the other, so I’m not going to deem any of these other things necessary for my long term weight management success.