Alex,
I’m not certain that I know my exact weight. If it helps you to know… our bathroom scales do not go up that high.
But three hundred is plenty… any way you cut it, it means I’d be better off if I could shed some weight w/o hurting what’s left of my energy and free time these days. (That sorta puts the kibosh to either the ‘not eating plan’ or the ‘do exercise plan’ which is why I feel stuck where I’m at.)
Yea, the stress of moving out… and not being able to finish a thousand little projects that have been waiting, and waiting for me to have some free time and some urge to pick them up out of the pile… to be forced into either making everything wait while I work on something or abandon the whole idea and toss the thing irrevocably in the trash. Or to finally take the time to sort through ominous piles of stuff and separate out the junk from the good stuff. To finally get all life’s little treasures sorted out and organized into a system whereby I’d be able to find those things that I want when I need them. But rather to see the stuff unceremoniously tossed into the garbage. Did I say unceremoniously? It was more like, gleefully tossed into the garbage followed by a victory dance around the trash can! Nothing is more off-putting than this deplorable habit women have of always trying to toss out the many great gadgets and gadgets that men pick up and have enough sense to squirrel away for latter days. Unless it is to be compared to a great pile of such gadgets that has gotten out of control and you can never find the things you’re looking for when you could have used them anyway. I suppose I was a border-line case. I could find things I needed about half the time, and the other half I’d drive everyone crazy looking for stuff.
In any case, I am sure to go through ‘with-drawl’ pains for the next year or so as I come to realize just how many of my little treasures have been mysteriously lost in this move. It is really funny how that could happen too, and disproportionately to the stuff the wife has lost. I guess I should have packed more of her boxes for her, but I was too busy at the time moving the furniture. (hmmm…)
3 comments:
Sheesh. This one hit home Dan.
Do I understand you've put on a wee bit of weight over the years too?
Sigh. Me too.
What Deb' and I are doing is counting EVERY stinking calorie we eat. We got a couple of [thick] books that list most foods and their calorie count, by portion (i.e., by the cup, or the teaspoon, or the oz., or the pound, etc.).
We. Count. Every. Calorie. NOTHING escapes our scrutiny.
Every stinking morsel gets put into an Excel spreadsheet "food log" that Deb' & I made (you can have a copy if you'd like).
Now comes the really hard part: we limit ourselves to 1500 calories a day. Period. We can eat literally ANY food we want that day ...but we only get 1500 calories.
Umm, that sucks btw.
For my height & weight & lifestyle, I should be getting 2600 calories a day. Deb' should be getting 2300.
So we're "starving" ourselves at the rate of around a 1000 calories a day.
(Did I say this sucks?)
But it works.
One pound of body weight is something like 3000 calories. I figure we're losing around a pound or so a week (we're shorting ourselves about 7000 calories or so a week).
(Did I mention that this really, really sucks?)
I need to lose 45 pounds; Deb's going for 55-60. It will take awhile to get there.
WE DO NOT GET TO EAT "EXTRA" FOR EXERCISE. Since we bicycle about 300-500 miles a month or so (well, when it's not raining), we lose a few more calories of body weight then is purely indicated by our daily caloric deficit.
The gist of all this is that you can't easily lose weight without not eating so much ...and it turns out that losing weight is pretty easy ...if you starve yourself with "2/3's rations" for awhile.
I figure sometime late next spring I'll be able to pick up the calories again. (Sadly, given the way weight creeps up on you, I doubt I'll ever be able to not count calories again ...I just like good food too much.)
The BEST part, though, is that by counting EVERY calorie, we can pretty much eat anything we want (we just eat really, really small portions). We're kind of closet gourmets (I do a lot of French, Greek & Italian/Mediterranean style cooking), so This Has Not Been An Easy Decision For Us.
But the thought of going up another inch in my pants waist size (and Deb' was going up another dress size) was just too much ...so we bit the stinkin' bullet.
One last thing. Did I mention that this really, truly sucks?
Pilar is giving me some information about this. It's kinda like back-seat-driving, but she wants me to pass it along to you (as an RN we should listen to her now...) :)
How much of your weight is fat & how much is muscle? Eating too little tends to burn muscle faster than fat because the body burns fat and carbs at a rate of three to one. If it is not getting the proper nutrients, it will tend to burn muscle before it burns fat.
Any reduction in eating habits should put you on track to loss weight, but it has to moderated with exercise. She also recomends putting the hole grains in your diet. I think what she is getting at is that this is a life-style change and not just a temporary game plan, otherwise it will all rebound when you go back to your old ways.
For my own part, I tried cutting out beef and pork for just one month. Lets just say I felt impressed to do so from above. The resluts were interesting. I did not deny myself food.. I just avoided ham, bacon, beef, pork, sausages and so forth. I ate chicken, turkey, fish and such and as much as I felt I needed. I still went through some sort of withdrawl. I could be stuffed and I'd still feel hungry. It was too weird. (Are they putting appetite enhancers in our meats?) At times all I could think of was hamburger dripping in fatty grease.. I craved the fatty stuff. How weired is that!
-Dan
Tell Pili thanks! for the info.
We've bought into the understanding that this diet isn't something that we get to "quit doing" when we hit our target weights ...it's a life-style change to improve our quality of life.
(But the 2/3's daily calorie "starvation rations" are temporary ...as we get nearer to our weight goals, we'll gradually increase the daily calories to slow - and then stop - the weight loss. We're not trying for "skinny" ...we're trying for a sustainable and healthy weight for our size and age ...probably about 155 lbs for me, and 130 lbs for Deb.)
We ARE exercising ...typically, we bicycle something like 50-100 miles per week. A "quick ride" will be 10-15 miles and take about an hour. On weekends, we will do 30-50 mile, 3+ hour rides, interspersing faster and slower paces (we stop and take pix pretty often, too).
Generally, we're riding at a pretty good clip (anywhere from 13-16mph ...as the summer riding season progresses, we get a little faster).
From the cooking we do, I've learned that in typical "American" meal, it's the fats that give certain foods a lot of their taste.
So you're actually spot on with the observation about a "flavor enhancer" ...unfortunately, it's not an additive per se: it's the fat itself.
Dan. What you craved ...was the taste that comes from fat in foods!
That's one reason we've "branched out" in our cooking, trying out other cuisines. We look for really, really savory meals that are VERY "tasty" ...yet low in calories.
We also make sure that we're getting a lot of food "bang" for our calorie "buck" ...what that means is that we try and find dishes and meals that have lots of "nutritional value" for the calories (what that means is that there are a variety of ingredients, that - hopefully - contain a good cross-section of minerals, vitamins, carbs, protiens, amino acids, etc.) ...but they ALWAYS have to be "tasty".
May I point you to the Cooking Light website? Hmm ...y'know, you might have to be a subscriber to logon, now I think on't. It is worth it to subscribe to their magazine though (I think they have a special 2-issue "tryout" that isn't expensive): every recipe we've tried from them has been consistently good ...and some have been truly outstanding ...those become "keepers".
...but sometimes what I really crave is ...a bacon cheesburger ...on an onion bun. Slathered with mayo and mustard. Dripping.
(The nice part is that IF I'm willing to "spend" the calories on it, I can have one. It may not be a big burger, understand ...but it sure tastes good!)
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