Saturday, May 18, 2013

Dealing with food...

So I have hit hump day/week/month recently and overcome it, Yay me.
What's hump day?
Well it's that magic 3 month mark, round about the time I would usually give up.
The time I would usually say that I am working too damn hard and getting too small a result, so I quit.

But I didn't quit, I have kept pushing myself to stick to this plan.
I Gotta see the year out even if it kills me!
Image via: here

What my focus has been on this month is food.
I know I have been 100% with my exercise. Mixing cardio, resistance and even meditation and Yoga. So that side of things is spot on. As per usual I seem to have trouble coordinating the two. The whole eating well AND exercising.

So I googled away to figure out my BMR. What it is that I consume in calories on a daily basis just to be me, present status.
It would seem fat me at current activity level eats 2200 calories a day. Which seems a lot considering I skip breakfast, don't eat snacks and essentially just have lunch and dinner.
What I myself know about my food choices for lunch and dinner are that they are stodgy. I love my breads and pastas. So even though I'm only eating twice a day ... it's calorie dense food all at the back end of the day.
A period of time when my activity has stopped and life is about cooking dinner, hanging with the kids and sitting on the couch.

So as I'm backtracking here to tell you what I did for the month I can say I thought what I was doing was good ... but it hasn't entirely been working!

Firstly, I've been counting my calories.
For the first week I just ate as normal as I wanted to see what I was doing wrong.
Now I am not the typical biggest loser contestant who has a table full of golden brown fat laden food as my before shot. I eat relatively nutritionally well, mainly as a result of having irritable bowl syndrome.
This means if I was to have nachos for dinner, washed down with some cider I'd make myself very ill for the next two days.
So my problem is not fat. I have a low fat diet ...
My problem is sugar. Sugar and refined carbs. Is that what they're called?
Not the good carbs you get from whole grains and vegetables. The bad carbs you get from white pasta, foccacias and such.

Image via: here

They supposedly turn to sugar in your system and are calorie dense. So even though I think I eat like a bird...guess what it still adds up to 2200 a day.

So after week 1, I could see 2200 was my daily average which is what one would eat if they want to stay 114.5kg. As I was working out so much I was earning 500+ calories per day to act as a deficit to my 2200, bringing me down to 1800 calories a day.
Which meant a 2500 to 3500 deficit over a week, which da da da equals a .5 weightloss.

Any wonder I'm not losing big numbers? I learnt...that 1 pound/.5kilo equals 3500 calories.
So if you want to lose 1 kilo a week you need to eliminate 7000 calories a week either through eating less or moving more.

Now I don't know about you, but for me, losing 500 calories in one day takes about an hour and a half at the gym.
This has been my tactic this month. To work out mon to fri and eliminate 500 cals a day so I can continue to lose .5 per week.

It has been working as I'm down another 2kg ... but ... I'm so bloody tired all the time. Waiting for this mystery boost in daily energy that all these weight loss programmes promise.

So at the end of this month, I hit another wall and decided that next month my focus needs to be on building up my metabolism, to have more energy and so I can start to manage more then just exercise and eating.

We all know how to do this:
Sleep well. 7.5 hours plus.
Drink plenty of water
eat 3 square meals, and 2 snacks
exercise
build muscle

I'm only doing the last two!
Go figure why I have no energy Hey!
So onward and upward, next month is all about energy building.
Jay xx




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