Food and Calories

If you have been following along with my weight loss blog series you might be ready to say finally, she is talking about diet!   Remember food and calories are only a minor role in weight loss.   Each person is individual but here are a few basic rules to help with the battle.

We are going to start with your food log which was one of your homeworks from the last blog.   If you haven't done it yet, you need to have 3-7 days of normal eating logged and tracked to determine the starting point and identify food related issues/indicators.   You need to be brutally honest with yourself logging everything you injested as well as be careful to not let the process of logging the food to influence your food choices.  Three days are good enough if you eat the same way all throughout the week, but many of us will eat differently during the week than during the weekend and will need seven days to get a better evaluation. Personally I like to use myfitnesspal.com as a tracking tool.

Calories

You are going to take an average of your daily caloric intake.   This is taking the total calories of all your days and dividing by the number of days. 

Now determine how well your metabolism is working.  Divide the average daily calories by your weight in pounds.   The normal working metabolism should be about 12-16 calories per pound.   The base shoud be 10 but then you will find those with slow metabolisms will range between 4 and 6.  Don't be shocked I had a 4.5 while training for my triathlon- my body became exteremely efficent in processing its fuel.

Slow metabolism: If you are one of the folks under 10 even after double checking your math then you need help in boosting your metabolism.  Your goal is to increase your caloric intake without gaining weight.  You will need professional help to do this and it will most likely involve adding or shifting exercise routines and shifting the type of foods you eat.  This will take months to truly recover the metabolism and the last thing you will want to do for your health is to decrease calories althought that is the most logical thing to do from common dieting paradigms.

Questionable metabolism:  If you are between 10 and 13 you are in that questionable range and I recommend you seek out consult to get you started. Based on your dieting history and your activity levels you may really be a slow metabolism or you may be able to proceed as if you have an okay metabolism.  This I would check in six months to make sure the numbers have not dropped below 10.

Okay metaboloism:  If you are over 13 you could still be a slow metabolism if you are constantly on the run.  But very likely you will be okay dropping your caloric intake by 500 calories less than your average caloric intake.   Anything more and there is a good chance your body will think you are going into a starvation mode and work hard to become efficient again (meaning hold on to every calorie which passes the lips). 

With 500 calories less a day target your body will use about a pound a week.  That would be 52 pounds in a year if you keep adjusting the calories down to accomodate the weight loss.  To do this you repeat the exercise every 5 pounds loss.  Again this is the simple math if you are in perfect health with no medications and a good metabolism this is what should happen.  If it doesn't then it is time to get more help and figure out the blocking factor.

Food

With your food log you are going to figure out your typical diet make up which can help you determine potential imbalances in brain chemistry, nutritional makeup and allergies/reactions.  All of these can impact your weight.

Look over your log and you will notice the majority of your food choices are right there in the last few days.  Sure if you are doing this in winter and you love watermelon it won't show if the melon isn't available and it won't show that every November you go to the oyster fest.   But as long as you were honest with yourself it will show your eating style, i.e. if you are a meat and potatoes type person or yogurt and fruit type person. 

I believe one key to your success for the weight loss is knowing your type of eating style.  Do not change the fundamental style, your mind will bulk and run as far as it can from a new style.  If you are eating meat and potatoes switching to shakes and salads will tire you mentally in a matter of weeks and you will crave meat.  The thing is to reduce unhealthy options like junk food and introduce healthier options into the diet like adding a salad to your meat and potatoes. You can look at your log and make wise choices, if you need help seek out someone who knows nutrition.

Food choices is a well ingrained belief system for most people.   We retain things from our childhood and pick up food beliefs along the way.  Usually those things validate the reason for us to eat our favorite foods so eggs which were once bad are now good and the coffee which was always something to avoid is actually found to be healthy.   Half the worlds camps say a thing is bad the other half says its good.  Part of this is true, something that is good for one thing can be bad for another thing.  This is one reason why diets need to be individual.

There are hundreds of ways to eat healthier.  I recommend talking to someone versed in nutrition to give you some good ideas.   The key is to find something that works for you and your specific health issues.  Diet must be individualized.  You choose to stick to a few select foods because your body has a comfort to them and feels safe with them. This doesn't mean they are the best for your body but it is something that should be determined. 

In general folks agree that sugar and any sweetner is bad for our system and most white products (potatoes, flour, rice) are 'bad'.  Anything mupltipled processed loaded with chemicals is bad.   Stick to as natural as you can.

Take a second and add a few things that comes to your mind which you commonly eat which didn't make the log.  Remember this is only for your eyes.

Circle anything which you crave  Cravings can indicate that your body is missing something or you are allergic to something. As an example I craved strawberries, kiwi and oranges.  All are high sources of vitamin C which could indicate I am either needing it or reactive to Vitamin C.  I did a needleless allergy elimination on vitamin C and I no longer crave them. 

No one has ever been able to explain to me why we crave the things we react to, but I surmise that our body is missing a key nutritient because it can't process the thing it reacts to, thus it does one of the 'what? I didn't get enough' type cravings. There are other theories because we know reactions get worse when you stop the offending item and a minor exposure can be a huge problem.  Maybe the body knows this and keeps a little bad stuff in the diet to keep from major reactions.

As long as you are eating things which the body has negative reaction it will not be able to lose weight.   In simple terms the body is too absorbed in processing the reactive (as an emergency response) to be able to focus on standard body processes such as digestion.   The other thing is the reaction puts a strain on your adrenals and you may have heard cortisol is putting weight on us (this goes back to stress management discussed in previuos posts.)

Also looking at what you are craving can indicate brain imbalance and may want to do a trial period of OTC neurotransmitter to see if it stops the craving, my next post will cover this material.   If you can't wait for the next post, you can check out Julia Ross's book called 'The Diet Cure'.

Keep going folks!

Coming up

Next Post: Cravings and possible brain chemistry implications

Linda Bender is a personal wellness therapist.  She uses over 20 holistic life coaching and touch therapy techniques from Reiki to personal training to help you reduce stress and pain so your body invokes its natural healing ability. She is at Bender Healing on Church Street in Phoenixville. Bender Healing provides massage, reiki, reflexology, personal training, nutrition, life coaching and energy medicine.  See www.BenderHealing.com or call 800-706-1354 for more information.