New diet, new exercise
I just got back this afternoon from camping at Eastman Lake over the weekend with my family and their church group. It was great to see people I hadn't seen since I was 200 pounds heavy.
They brought so much food that I was certain to bust my diet, at least temporarily. What is it about not wanting to waste food that makes people want to eat more? Plus it was a lot of meat (fresh off the grill, of course) and not a whole lot of fiber. From my calculations and entries in the calorie counter, I ate about three and a half days' worth of food in only two days.
I decided at this point that I needed to devise a contingency plan for these situations. The solution was simple: I would allow myself a weight-maintenance calorie budget on tough days as opposed to a weight-loss budget. This means that I would add the 839-calorie difference between my BMR and diet allowance to my budget so I could eat extra calories. Theoretically, each time I do this I would not gain any pounds but simply delay reaching my target weight by one day. It's definitely an exercise in trusting the numbers; I'm a little apprehensive and anxious to see what the scale will read a few days from now. In any case, I found that I could eat comfortably and even at times feel stuffed with those extra 839 calories. This is a great test since I'll need to integrate this maintenance budget into my lifestyle going forward.
In other happenings, I started swimming tonight to try to stay in shape during my running down time. Boy, it takes forever to burn any appreciable calories (25 min. swimming = 15 min. running). No wonder it's so hard to be a triathlete!
They brought so much food that I was certain to bust my diet, at least temporarily. What is it about not wanting to waste food that makes people want to eat more? Plus it was a lot of meat (fresh off the grill, of course) and not a whole lot of fiber. From my calculations and entries in the calorie counter, I ate about three and a half days' worth of food in only two days.
I decided at this point that I needed to devise a contingency plan for these situations. The solution was simple: I would allow myself a weight-maintenance calorie budget on tough days as opposed to a weight-loss budget. This means that I would add the 839-calorie difference between my BMR and diet allowance to my budget so I could eat extra calories. Theoretically, each time I do this I would not gain any pounds but simply delay reaching my target weight by one day. It's definitely an exercise in trusting the numbers; I'm a little apprehensive and anxious to see what the scale will read a few days from now. In any case, I found that I could eat comfortably and even at times feel stuffed with those extra 839 calories. This is a great test since I'll need to integrate this maintenance budget into my lifestyle going forward.
In other happenings, I started swimming tonight to try to stay in shape during my running down time. Boy, it takes forever to burn any appreciable calories (25 min. swimming = 15 min. running). No wonder it's so hard to be a triathlete!
posted by Tony Le at
9:58 PM
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