Calories, again

Goal Post #5

Last November (Thanksgiving week, precisely), I started tracking my daily calories again using the app on my phone. This is the same app I'd tried to use to track calories earlier and failed, but it's where I'd been tracking exercise and efficiency is apparently more important to me than accuracy. Strangely, counting calories over the holidays was the double-bluff my mind needed. Knowing I had a good reason to fail at this somehow made it okay to start trying.

For two months I was constantly and sometimes obscenely over my intake goal. It was the easiest goal by they way: cutting 250cals/day. Allowing for failure actually made it more enjoyable. The activity became about tracking my eating habits: figuring out how much was I eating and how many calories were in those foods. Finally, seven weeks into keeping track, I started meeting my calorie goal consistently.

For a while, I also didn’t cut any particular food from my diet but at some point I started choosing. Am I going to have this cookie or a little ice cream later? By the way, there are only 53.34 calories in one Oreo, 78 in one homemade chocolate chip cookie, 100 in a handful(8) peanut M&Ms, and ~150 in a quarter cup of Ben and Jerry’s. Hopefully less than you thought. If we had dietitians, they would say we're allowed to indulge, just limit that indulgence.*

After getting comfortable with the -250/cal a day goal, I tried cutting 500cals/day. Strangely, even when I met this goal I wasn’t seeing the same results as cutting 250. Working harder for less payoff? No thanks. This was something I only realized after toying with my goal to find what works for me. Listen to your body. Cutting calories helps us lose weight but being kind to our bodies means finding a balance between pushing and pushing too hard. For a little perspective, this article outlines how a person goes about loosing 2lbs a week. My free phone app lists this as extreme for a reason. It’s really difficult y’all.

Another thing that helped start limiting my calorie intake was using honey in tea and coffee. Yes, this is still sugar, has more calories per teaspoon than table sugar (16 cals vs 20) and is not allowed in a completely sugar-free diet. But half a teaspoon of honey works great at sweetening a whole cup of tea and, for my body, something about honey metabolizes differently than sugar. It feels more like eating fruit than a piece of candy. Plus, getting a little sweetness in the morning helps curb my sugar cravings later in the day.

Speaking of sweeteners, last Christmas I accidentally sipped a cup of coffee with artificial sweetener. The cup was my sister-in law's but she didn't like the taste. I didn't like the taste either, but not wanting to waste the mostly cold coffee, I finished the cup. (spoiler alert: I have issues wasting food.) Driving home 45 minutes later, I was shaky and nauseous. It was winter, so at first I thought I might be coming down with something until I remembered the fake sugar. 

This is not conclusively proven, but artificial sweeteners have been observed in medical studies triggering a release of insulin even though there isn't any extra sugar to consume. "The effect of artificial sweeteners on insulin levels seems to be variable, and the results are inconclusive. It may also depend on the individual." If insulin is released without actual extra sugar to metabolize, it causes our blood sugar to drop. That's what happened to me that day in the car.

Certain kinds of highly processed sugars, like the kind in cheap candy, affect me in a similar way. There is no medical explanation I can give for this, but feeling weird after eating candy is hardly a positive experience. People tend to avoid things that make them feel sick, so it's easy for me to refuse sweet tarts and laffy taffy. 

Everything I said about calories in my Burnout post still applies. It's boring, time-consuming, and feels vain. Over the months I've developed a few tricks that have helped mitigate some of the worst aspects. 

First, I try to enter calories when my dinner companion is away from the table. If there is a group making this impossible, I'll take a second after washing my hands to enter stats while alone in the bathroom. As I've gotten more practice remembering, I can wait to enter info until I get home from a gathering. 

Next, I realized the app has a couple redeeming features. One of them is sharing calorie data among users. When I tried that first summer, I was researching and entering every part of every meal. This time I discovered the search feature and fell in love. It's not always 100% accurate, and doesn't have every item you might possibly eat, but it's a great place to start. Another great feature is the app estimates your basal metabolic rate and adds any activity on top of that number.

Every time I think "This is selfish/vain/silly" I remind myself that knowing what I'm putting in my body is part of making healthy choices, end of story. Finally, I keep myself motivated by fantasizing about a time when I'll be so in tune with my body and so knowledgeable about the food I eat I can actually stop tracking calories.   

*Note: I don't keep all these numbers in my head. That's a job for apps and google. Every single number in this paragraph was researched and I've been doing this for over a year.