Calories In / Calories Out

JamesAztec

Over the past several months a few MFP friends (and my own girlfriend) have asked me to log my food just to see what I'm eating and how many calories. As many of you know, I don't really subscribe to the Energy In vs Energy Out way of thinking. I do think there's correlation between calorie consumption and fat loss/retention but it's not causal. I don't think our biology processes food that way.

Anyway, I ate around 3,600 calories yesterday. If you go to my page and click on the diary you can see more specifics. The types of foods I ate were fairly typical. I did hike/run for about 90 minutes too. The more I exercise, the more I tend to eat. The task of logging my food was eye opening. I hadn't done it probably in a couple years. Despite developing a way of eating that works for me it gave me anxiety. I thought, "is this too many calories? too much fat? do I exercise enough to justify this? should I start logging?" And then eventually I thought to myself, wait a minute James, you've been eating this way for a couple years and your health is better than ever, what are you worried about? (Sorry to go third person there!) I guess my point is, if you find something that works for you, stick to it. :-)

I know it's hard to bust out of the conventional wisdom about calories. I thought it was all about CICO until a few years ago. I thought if I just stayed within my calorie goals I could eat whatever I wanted. That never worked for me. But now I'm satieted throughout the day and I'm living the active, healthy lifestyle I've always dreamed of. My way of eating has no "off-limts" foods so I indulge from time to time (I may have a bit of candy today). But for the most part I try to avoid sugar and highly processed foods. If anyone is interested in resources that helped change my thinking feel free to message me directly or reply to this post.

Happy Halloween everyone!

garber6th

I would definitely be interested in hearing about how you are eating!

jcavanna2

Same here - I have that CICO mentality as well which seems to be how MFP and other trackers work. I am trying to ensure that I eat more Whole Foods and on heavy workout days I am much more hungry but I do need to make sure that I bring enough good, healthy snacks with me. If o don’t then it’s way too easy to go to the vending machine in the office or to a store or cafe to get some sort of snack and unfortunately I don’t always make the wisest choice since I am jut trying to feed the beast..fortunately Starbucks has strong cheese so I try to make a point of getting a couple of those during that time

JamesAztec

The book that influenced my thinking the most is "Why We Get Fat" by Gary Taubes. He's a science writer that's basically a proponent of low-carb. I don't agree with everything he writes (I eat more fruit than he recommends) but his writing is based on science and it seems to work, for me at least. You can find podcasts and videos of interviews of him on YouTube. His latest book is "The Case Against Sugar" in which he lays out all the reasons it's slowly killing us and making us fat.

fit_chickx

Out of curiosity. Would you gain weight at 3600 calories with no activity?

I always advise bariatric patients to stick to your sergeons eating plan. Starting bariatic patients trying to lose weight on 3600 calories while not active will not be successful.

If you choose to be a bariathlete distance runner like Aztec4life or myself. You will need to eat fuel your body correctly. You cannot eat like a bariatric patient when you are at an above normal fitness level.

James has and continues accomplish amazing things. He has worked hard to get where he is.

Keep inspiring and running!

JamesAztec

@fit_chickx I agree, I definitely eat more because I'm exercising daily. I would NOT recommend 3,600 calories for most bariatric patients especially if they are still trying to lose. If I ate 3,600 calories daily without the exercise I would probably start gaining slowly. Yesterday I ate around 2,500 calories because I basically just got my walking in. On days I don't do high intensity activiity I tend not to be hungry so I don't comsume as much food. I've heard the term "Intuitive Eating" lately and I think that best sums up what I'm doing.

I DO think that the average post-op person can eat 1,500-2,000 a few months out and still lose weight if they are eating healthy. After surgery when I was tracking I was routinely eating 2,000+ calories and I lost about 165lbs that first year. Of course, everyone's exerience will vary and first and foremost you should take your doctor and dieticians recommendations into consideration. From the get-go I was walking daily and I think that helps IMMENSELY. I also think I can eat more calories because of the TYPES of foods I eat. Cutting down on the sugar and processed foods was the best thing for my diet.

jamielslater

I definitly think everyone is different. I eat about 1300 calories per day and am at maintenance and keeping my weight in a 2 lb range. I exercise 3 days a week for 30 min.