I thought for a while about whether or not I wanted to stay at the weight I'm at and keep my intake and output as they are and eventually decided that I do want to be lighter. So, I had to go back to crunching numbers to determine what needs to change.
I took a look at my eating log to see what I was actually eating and determined that while I was ostensibly following the diet plan, I was really consuming more calories than I thought. On a good day, I am eating at least 1800 calories, which is about what I am using, apparently, in an average day of mostly sedentary activity.
So, what to do? Well, I have to pare down my eating. How can I do that? I looked at what I was eating and what I could give up without too much heartache. My plan at the present looks like this:
- Breads: 3 X 100 cal = 300 cal
- Meats: 10 X 50 cal = 500 cal
- Milk: 2 X 100 = 200 cal
- Fats: 3 X 50 = 150 cal*
- Fruit: 4 X 50 = 200*
- Vegetables: 4 X 40 = 160*
- Starchy Veggies: 1 X 40 = 40
- Extra: 50 cal*
Even at 1600 calories, I need to exercise more to lose weight. A very active person, supposedly, burns 15 cal per pound of weight per day. A moderately active person, uses 14 calories, a lightly active person uses 13 calories. A sedentary person, I figure, uses 12 calories per pound per day.
I weigh 155 lbs right now. If I consider myself lightly active, that's 13 calories per pound or 2015 calories per day. If you subtract 1600 from 2015, you get 415 cal per day, or 2905 calories per week. A pound of fat = 3500 calories, so if you divide 2905 by 3500 you get .83 pounds per week. That sounds good, right? It's about what I've been losing, on average, over the course of 16 months. So then why have I stopped losing weight?
The answer must be that I'm eating more than 1600 calories a day, and exercising even less than 13 calories worth per pound per day. And indeed, as I said above, a quick estimate of my average caloric consumption equals 1800+ per day.
If I eat 1800 calories per day, and exercise at least 13 calories per pound a day, I would be eating the equivalent of a person who weighs 138 lbs (138 X 13 = 1794 cal). So, that would still net me 215 calories lost per day, times 7 is 1505 calories, or about a half pound per week.
But I'm not losing even that much, so I must be eating more than 1800 calories on average (very possible--adding in the short deviations from the straight and narrow), or I'm not even burning 13 calories per pound, or both.
Well, let's say that I'm eating an average of 100 more calories per day. That would make 1900 calories, or only 115 calories lost per day. 115 X 7 = 805 per week / 3500 = .23 pounds per week. That is less than a quarter pound, which means it takes me four weeks to lose one pound. That sounds about right. No wonder I'm not losing. That's very slow progress--too slow.
So, what to do? Well, I'm going to have to pay closer attention to how many calories I'm consuming. And I'm going to have to be sure I'm at least exercising lightly each day. I could cut down the calories, too, and try to exercise more. For now, though, I think I'll just focus on not going over the pre-arranged totals for the day. One way to do that is to write down everything I eat and also record the calories consumed. Measuring more accurately would also help, so that the calories I think I consume are actually the calories I do consume.
The meat calories are a case in point. I'm only allowed three red meat meals per week (fatty meats, that is), because those meats typically have more than 50 calories per ounce (1 meat = 1 ounce). Hard cheese falls into that category too, so there's a limit on that consumption as well (up to 5 oz). I'm supposed to eat 3 fish meals per week, but that's because fish is so nutritious. But it also helps that there are fewer calories in an ounce of fish, making up for the extra calories in the beef-type meats. If I eat more beef meals than I should, I end up consuming more calories per week. Same result if I don't measure/weigh accurately.
Fruits and vegetables are also a frequent source of excess calories. I often assume it's okay to eat as many fruits and vegetables as I want, but there really is a limit. They may be lower in calories, but they're not calorie free. I need to be aware of how much is too much.
One of the biggest factors in my calorie count is the Extras I eat every day. I'm only allowed 50 calories, so if I eat one hard candy (20), one tablespoon of ketchup (20) and two tablespoons of cereal on my yogurt (20), I'm over my total. Every day I'm doing that and more, so that's a source of excess right there.
Evidently, I have a lot of work to do. So this week I'm going to really try to stay within my plan and see if that works. I'll also try to exercise more, but for now, this is my plan.
I'll let you know how it turns out!
