I went to a couple of different gyms in my area today and got the contact information for two different people who can supposedly help me figure out this whole calorie counting thing (not that I want to count calories – I still need things to be simple – but I do want to know for sure if what I am eating is enough or not). One of them is apparently a licensed dietitian while I’m not sure of the qualifications of the other person whose name I was given. I phoned both of their numbers but no one picked up, so I am guessing I won’t have any luck getting ahold of them until Monday.
To try and have a little more information to give to whomever I end up talking to about this, I went online and figured out my calorie, carbohydrate, fat, and protein totals for the last ten days. It actually made me feel a little better. The 900 calories I was stressing out about turned out to be the second lowest tally over this past week and a half, and my average actually came in at just over 1070. The highest amount of calories I consumed in one day was 1400.
To see that my average is nearly 200 calories more than the number I was worried about does bring me some relief. I am not saying it reflects a perfect food intake, but I am happy that it is not as low as I had feared. My daily average carbohydrate consumption is 144.8 grams, fat intake is about 34.7 grams, and the amount of protein works out to approximately 45.2 grams. Again, all numbers I am much happier with than I was when looking at only the single day. Now I just need to figure out if any of those figures need to change.
FOOD & BEVERAGES:
- 9 glasses of water throughout the day
- 1 1/2 cups of strawberries
- 1 toasted whole wheat English muffin with 1 light Laughing Cow wedge and strawberries
- 1 wrap on a soft tortilla shell with 2 scrambled eggs, melted cheese, tomato, mushroom, onion, and pepper
- 3/4 cup of fat free strawberry yogurt with 1 cup cranberry almond cereal
- 1 1/2 cups of lemon and garlic green beans
EXERCISE:
- 50 minute walk
- 15 minutes on the recumbent bike
- 4 sets of 30 stomach crunches (2 straight, 1 right, and 1 left)
- 3 sets of 10 knee push ups
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Really sounds like it's gonna be fine. I wonder if "intuitive eating" partly means, "Hey, I don't need all that right now!" As your body changes you may find your hunger kicking in more. And it's actually nice not to have to battle hunger when you're losing weight. I hope you get some good info from the dietician. I really don't think it's an emergency situation... bodies are highly adaptable, you feel fine, and a short stint of low calories shouldn't be a big problem. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteThe problem may be later on...if you continue to eat very low calories, your body may eventually feel you are "starving", and will slow your metabolisn to help conserve energy.
ReplyDeleteYou can add a couple hundred calories by adding some olive oil to your meals, and increasing your intake of veggies to help with fiber...
I don't think you "need" to count calories if you don't want to, but you also don't want to set yourself up for problems down the road.
I'm sure a nutritionist can be very helpful and more specific with this stuff!
I agree with the poster above. A calorie intake of between 1250 and 1550 is optimum. Anything lower than 1000 calories per day convinces your body to go into 'starvation mode' and leads to weight gain, not loss.
ReplyDeleteI know -- I did that to myself for a quite a while.
As soon as I upped my calorie intake, the weight began to drop off. I've lost 58 pounds since January!
My highest hope is that if the dietitian says I need to up my calories that it is, indeed, something as simple as adding olive oil or maybe some nuts or something. I am just afraid that they will tell me big things need to change which would sort of counter my desire for simplicity.
ReplyDeleteBased on what I am seeing in your macronutrient breakdown, my guess is that you need to add both some more protein and fats. These are both pretty easily accomplished. Ask the dietician about including some flax/fish oil and possibly some peanut butter. If you wanted to learn how to figure your caloric needs for yourself, google the Harris-Benedict Formula for caloric intake.
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