my life

Ooh, I get to write the first comment!

“When either of us was not grabbing something horrifyingly unhealthy for lunch, we’d go to the Macaroni Grill or such for dinner. We’d make excuses about how we were too tired to cook and such, but the truth was we were just too lazy. Instead of stocking the house with good food and taking thirty minutes to an hour to cook, we’d rather drive 45 minutes to the MG, wait 20-30 minutes for our food, eat, then drive 45 minutes back home. Logical, no? :)”

This makes perfect sense to me. You didn’t have to shop, plan, gather, prepare, or clean anything. Neither did you have to spend any significant time on your feet. Whenever I was working or going to school, 98% of my meal planning was done during my evening commute home, and tended to start with the question, “what do I have in the freezer and how long will it take to thaw?” and progress to “what can I make with that?”

Advance planning is NOT my strong suit.

Cheers
Kathy

Diana,

I’ve come to appreciate your talent for pointing out these fine yet important distinctions. Dieting doesn’t work, at least not for very long. Long term improvements require lifestyle changes. That’s one of the few things I ever learned from Richard Simmons: “Never say diet!”

How do you survive on 1500 calories? Must be the warm climate. Either that or you’re a plant. (Grin) Seriously, I imagine you just never learned to overeat like many of us have. Not just from advertising and easy availability of cheap snacks, either - even the mom’s classic “clean up your plate!” can contribute to it. We eat for the wrong reasons - comfort, habit, social obligation, or whatever. There’s yet another healthy eating movement afoot called “enlightened eating” that claims to teach you to listen to your body and eat only what it wants, and to stop eating when it’s satisfied. I have my doubts about the whole program, but it’s good that it points out the reasons that we overeat.

It seems strange that you overestimate your intake. Most people underestimate. I’ve noticed I’ll eat a lot more if I’m eating right out of the bag, box, or can than if I put the food in dish. I’ve heard it said that portion control is important to maintaining a realistic diet, and I believe it. You can eat a little bit of just about anything and not gain weight. It’s eating too much of anything that causes problems. In other words, all things in moderation.

Vitamin G? That’s a new one on me.

Dave

You’re right, Kathy. Only it’s the “plan and prepare” part that’s my trouble. I can shop just fine–I’m there all the time anyway picking up cream for my coffee and whatnot. And, cleaning the kitchen is less trouble than driving home, all told–probably because I figure my “trouble” in time spent, not energy. But when I add up everything, going out simply makes no sense for me as a time saver–only as a treat.

I say it makes no sense for me because I don’t care for fast food very often. The portions are far too large and the grease and sugar is overpowering to me. So…when I eat out, I want a place I can get a regular meal. There aren’t many such places available in Montgomery, so “eating out” takes a great deal of time (and money).

I’m working on my planning skills. I’ve learned that once I plan a meal, preparation isn’t so difficult and usually even quite enjoyable.

d

G’morn, Dave.

I’m wondering, honestly, if I’m counting my calories right because 1500 seems very low, even to me. Keep in mind I’m a small woman (5′4″, 140 lbs) and far more active than your average monkey. I do have a desk job and I spent a lot of time at the computer, but I run frequently and prefer to walk and talk to someone face to face instead of calling them on the phone if I can. Basically, I apprise myself of all opportunitiies to get up and move around.

I can easily eat 2500 calories a day. OK…perhaps not easily, but it’s easier than you think. It isn’t so much a function of how much I eat as it is what I eat. For example, I could (and have) eaten like this:

- Egg McMuffin, two hashbrowns, orange juice for breakfast: 290 + 280 + 140 = 710 calories on the way to work.
- Two cups of coffee with flavored creamer and two donuts (one cream filled and iced and one plain) during the morning (blasted contractors bring in donuts all the time :)): 18 + 60 + 350 + 200 = 628
- Lunch at Burger King with a Whopper, large fries and large Dr. Pepper (refill on the DP): 700 + 500 + 640 = 1840

And that’s just through lunch. Of course, I’ll become incredibly lethargic after lunch because I’m full of junk, then by dinner–because I’ve eaten so much during the day–I’m hungry again. Here I might must munch some chips (a huge bag, I kid you not) and drink a couple of beers at my computer. I love Ruffles Cheddar and Sour Cream, and don’t buy the “grab bags” but the medium-sized bags. I don’t know how many servings there are in there (12?) but each “serving” nets another 160 calories. Let’s figure it at ten, although I’m sure that’s a modest estimate. That gives me another 1600 calories with the two beers at 163 calories each = 1926.

Grand total for a typical Diana day of decadence: 5104 calories. (That’s the first time in my life I’ve counted it up. That’s HORRIFYING…even if you give me a sensible breakfast and take away the donuts.) And I didn’t even get any vegetables (just a cup of orange juice and a bunch of fried potatoes and a handful of hot-house condiments on my burger). Potatoes are a STARCH in the dietary chart, people–not “vegetables” per se. The only thing that counts for actual nutrition here (in my book) is the orange juice.

Yes…I can eat like that and have spent much of my life eating like that. Most days, it isn’t all in one day, but sometimes it has been. I haven’t ever done that every day, mind you, but I certainly can put it away should the spirit move me.

And I haven’t even begun to discuss the horribly unhealthy things you put into your body with these calories, either. I’ll leave y’all to surmise that. (Vitamin G = “grease,” incidentally. ;))

I think most people eat like dogs in the sense that they just keep eating until everything is gone, as though they don’t know when a drought might hit and they won’t eat for days. I was, of course, raised to clean my plate, which stuck. It took me years–once I even realized I was doing this–to teach myself to stop when I got full and take the rest in a doggie bag. I still have to think about it or I’ll walk away from a meal bloated and miserable.

Obviously, no one’s body needs that many calories. Nowhere near it…which brings us to portion control, as you mentioned. You really don’t need much food to feel full. I’ve found that a 4-oz serving of steamed chicken along with a cup of rice and a half cup of steamed vegetables is more than I want to eat at a single sitting. That’s 497 calories for the meal. I can drink water or milk or juice or tea with it, but the caloric additions for any of these is nominal.

I also plan to be eating something every two to three hours. If I feel a touch of munch, I have something ready to munch. I love raw vegetables and fruits, so I take an apple or some grapes along, or maybe some carrots or cauliflower. They’re fibrous and fill me up, and it doesn’t take much.

I can eat all day with a very happy belly and without that midafternoon I-ate-too-much-for-lunch slump and still have something decadent, such as a beer or a glass of wine with dinner, and come in around 1500 calories for the day. This may not be enough for my physical exertion levels, though. If I start getting weak or lightheaded when I run, I’ll have to find a way to add some healthy calories in there.

Basically, you find your weak points and plan to have something available to circumvent the urge to consume something really bad for you. My weak points are Dr. Pepper and wine. (If you have some wine without food, it will make you feel full–and thirsty…:) ) I also like salty (greasy) snacks. I don’t have much of a sweet tooth, so that’s just tons of temptation most people cope with that I don’t. Oh…I love fatty meat, like ribeye steak, so that’s another weakness I have to watch. But you get the idea.

I’ve learned that nothing compares to measuring servings and keeping track of everything you eat from day to day to make you very aware of what you’re putting in your mouth, as well as its contribution (or lack of) to your nutrition. You might be amazed at how much food you can find to eat that won’t push you over 2000 calories a day.

d

Diana,

Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” But the examined life can be downright scary. I suspect that’s why America at large is getting to be so, well, large. People don’t realize all the implications of the supersized meal. Psychologists know that if you put food in front of people they’re likely to eat it even if they don’t really want it. Same goes for alcohol. That’s why some cities have passed laws forbidding happy hour two-for-one drink specials and double cocktails, to try to discourage excessive drinking. (I don’t know how well those laws have worked, by the way. I don’t know if any studies have been done.)

Cleaning your plate isn’t necessarily a problem unless your plate is huge. Sometimes at dinner I’ll actually use a dessert plate instead of a regular plate so I can’t pile on as much food. (Unless we’re having lasagne. Roberta and my daughter both make a great lasagne.)

A few years ago I tried the Atkins thing and discovered that I’m very much addicted to carbohydrates. My body had gotten used to the easy energy. Following the Atkins process through the first few weeks to wean my body off of the carbs was helpful. I found that snacking on dry roasted peanuts helped a lot. The cravings stopped, and as long as I stayed with a sensible diet (even including carbs in moderate amounts, and an occasional treat like cookies or ice cream) I managed to lose some weight. But my stress-eating habit kicked in when things at work started getting hectic and undid most of the progress. That’s why I’m trying a different tack with exercise now instead of modifying my diet - to try to find a low-calorie (or negative-calorie) response to stress.

Do you know if there’s any information on how much energy an average human requires for different activities? I believe the USDA recommended daily intake was designed to ensure a person gets adequate nutrients, not just energy.

Dave

Dave,

I think calorie-count.com gives you an idea of calories burnt through various activities. They have quite a few listed. Of course, calorie usage is very individual, so theirs wouldn’t be anything more than a WAG, anyway.

d