Step three: Track what you eat

In a tiny town in Eastern Idaho, there is a famous little restaurant called Big Juds. They are famous because you can get some very large burgers: a 1 lb classic Big Jud or a 2 lb Double Big Jud. Both come with a large fry and large drink of course. If you can eat the entire meal by yourself, you get your picture up on the wall and get your meal free (you have to buy a T-shirt commemorating your accomplishment though.)

They are good burgers and it's a fun novelty. But I wonder--how many calories would you have eaten if you ate an entire classic big Jud or a double big Jud? There isn't any nutrition information available online, so pretending you didn't even eat any fries  (impossible, I know) or drink soda, we could make a guesstimate using McDonalds quarter pounder with cheese that weighs 7 oz (520 calories) to extrapolate and guess that the classic Big Jud is about 1200 calories and the Double Big Judd must be about 2400 calories.

These numbers could be way off, but the sake of making a point, knowledge about what and how much you are eating are critical in being successful in maintaining or losing weight. It isn't magic, it's math and we need to know or have good estimates of the numbers to make this work.

Step Three: Track what you eat

Before I track anything, I like to make a meal plan for the day where I allot calories for each meal. This way, you don't have to keep track of total calories for the entire day necessarily, you just need to make sure you aren't going over per meal.

Example Meal Plan for 1800 calorie diet

Breakfast: 350 calories
AM Snack: 100 calories
Lunch: 450 calories
Dinner: 600 calories
PM Snack/Treat: 300 calories

Personalize your meal plan to your own preferences and tendencies for eating--do you like a small breakfast? Do you always get hungry for a snack around 10 am? do you have to have something sweet in the evenings? Are you pregnant and have to eat every 2 hours? Jot down a plan and don't be afraid to change it if you feel like you've given yourself too much for one meal and not enough for another.


I'm about to say some dirty words. Forgive me. It's time to talk about calorie counting. Calorie counting is a bad word to many people because it for sure can be tedious and for sure difficult depending on what you eat (determining calories in grandma's homemade hamburger casserole will be a challenge).

I wouldn't even suggest calorie counting if the benefits didn't far, far outweigh the inconvenience. Here is a list of the good things that come from calorie counting:

1. Form healthy habits. As you go through the process of reading labels and counting calories, you will learn and will make better choices in what foods you eat and how you prepare food. Over time these changes will become habit.
2. Being conscious of what you are eating. Ever eat potato chips straight out of the bag? How about ice cream straight out of the container? I have. Ignorance is bliss. This would be the opposite of conscious eating. (Unconscious eating doesn't sound right.) When you write down what you are eating, how much, and how many calories, you will naturally self-regulate what you eat. If you have trouble binging, this should be your go-to method of stopping it. It's painful to write down that you've just eaten 800 calories worth of Nutella.
3. Nutrition Education. There is nothing that can educate you quicker and better about food and their nutritional quality than having to read labels. We get so many recommendations--eat more fruit and vegetables, eat lean meats like chicken, avoid added sugars and highly processed foods--reading labels and counting calories will teach you in a very real way why there are those recommendations. Example: It's recommended that we eat nonfat dairy. You read the labels and see that a 6 oz. cup of original Yoplait yogurt has 170 calories, but the same amount of Light Yoplait yogurt (nonfat) only has 90 calories. A calorie difference of 80 calories for such a small amount of food is a big deal.
4.  Being able to eye quantities of food. After measuring a cup of rice out on to a plate several times, you'll be able to serve yourself a cup of rice without a measuring cup. Not only will this help with not over-serving yourself,  this will also help with not overeating. Example: Wow, this big plate of pasta at the restaurant is probably 3 cups worth noodles (doing quick math in your head 3 cups of pasta = about 600 calories) plus the sauce, meat and cheese on top--I better only eat half. 
5. Making the math work. If you are going to make the math of weight loss work for you, you have got to have a firm grasp on how many calories you are eating. We don't want to be eating too much and not losing any weight or eating too little and starving ourselves and dooming our weight-loss ambitions. Counting is simply the best way to know where you stand. 

 

There are a few tools that you need on hand to start counting calories.  

1. Measuring cups. Go to a dollar store and get multiple sets of measuring cups and measuring spoons. You'll be glad to have lots on hand because you'll dirty several of them throughout the day. You can also use a measuring cups/spoons and see how much your own dishes hold--my smaller spoons are 1 tbsp and the larger ones are 2 tbsp.
2. A kitchen scale. Some foods are often measured by weight (like meat or cheese) and you'll be happy to have a scale to measure out 1 oz of cheese than trying to figure out how many ounces are in a cup of cheese and then do the conversion. My scale was $20 at Walmart--it's come in handy for baking and weighing envelopes/packages too.
3. Calculator. Get a little calculator to keep on hand so you can quickly do the math on a food. You'll be less annoyed having to find the calculator function on your phone or computer. 
4. A place to record what you eat. If you like the physical act of writing things down, get a notebook. I usually end up scribbling calories on spare scraps of paper (I'm not that fancy.). You can also use computer programs (word, excel) or websites or apps to keep track of what you are eating. This is a great option if you want to take some of the work out of  it and to be able to track your calories over a long period of time. There are some great free websites with food journals (They also have food databases and weight trackers, which I'll talk about that in the next sections) that make it very easy to keep track of your foods. I've used Fitday before and liked it fine. I'm sure there are others--if you have a favorite, leave a comment with the name of the app/website. 

My last list for you is probably the most important--where are you going to find the nutritional information for food? 

1. The label on the food. This is the first place you look and the most accurate. For foods that don't have a nutrition facts label (fruits and vegetables, foods packaged by the store, restaurant foods, foods you prepare from a recipe) you'll need to look the information up in the places listed next. 
2. A book. When I want to calorie count or look up lots of other useful nutrition information, I use "Bowes & Church's Food values of Portions Commonly Used". I got the book in college for my dietetics classes and I'd say it's one of the only books I still use on a regular basis. The book is very complete source of nutrition information on almost any food you can think of. The book can be expensive (especially if you get the newest edition with CD rom) but it would be worth a little effort to find a used or older edition copy. Note: If you ever have a health condition where you are trying to limit certain nutrients (i.e carbohydrates in diabetes, or certain electrolytes during renal problems) this book would be beyond helpful. 
3. The internet. There are many websites and apps that have databases of foods and their nutritional information. You can use the databases in websites like Fitday or you can just google "calories in a banana" and come up with lots of information. Warning: because there is so much variation in foods (sizes, ingredients, etc) you will find some big discrepancies between calories listed online. It helps to look at multiple sites to get a feel for which information is most likely accurate. The more practice you get, the more you'll know what phrases to use to search for foods and about the quantities used.
4. The menu. Because of legislation in the past few years, more restaurants and even vending machines are being required to display calories for their menu items. Research say people don't look at these, but you can and should if you are watching what you eat--you can still eat fast food and lose weight if the math adds up.
5. The recipe. It's more and more common for recipes found online or even in printed cookbooks to include the nutrition information. Make sure to account for any deviations to the recipe (did you use skim milk when the recipe required whole?).
6. Calculate. One of the hardest calorie counting tasks is to calculate how many calories are in something you've prepared. An example is fried rice--fried rice is a favorite at my house. I could google "calories in fried rice" but there are so many ways to make fried rice, I really doubt anyone else's fried rice is like mine. To calculate how many calories in my fried rice, I find the total calories for the entire dish then determine how many servings or cups are in the dish. I have to read of the label or look up the calories for each individual ingredient: (1) 8 cups of cooked rice 1860 calories (2) 16 oz bag of frozen peas/carrots 300 calories (3) 4 cups of broccoli (raw) 100 calories (4) 1 cup onion 61 calories (5) about 9 oz of ham 485 caloires (6) seasoning 10 calories (7) 4 tsp soy sauce 25 calories (8) 4 tbsp oil 480 calories for a grand total of 3460 calories and a yield of 13 cups of fried rice. I know that 1 cup of my fried rice is about 266 calories. Tedious? Yes! But if I keep records of my recipes and mostly stick to the same way of preparing them, I should only have to calculate calories once. 

Two question you may be asking are "do I have to be exactly accurate?" and "do I have to measure my food and count calories forever?" The answer is no and no. If it's taking too much of your time, don't get caught up in being exactly accurate--just the act of being conscious of what you are eating and doing your best to guess how many calories you are eating is huge. As per counting forever, this process will help you take control and form good habits, but I doubt anyone that could do it forever. However, if you find after reaching your goal, your habits are slipping and the quantities of food you eat growing larger and larger, it's smart to start doing this again to relearn portion sizes and reestablish good habits. 

This was a lot of information to digest. I hope I've given some helpful information/tools, but feel free to ask me questions. My next post in this series will be Step 4: Tracking your exercise

Step Two: Make a Plan

 I have mixed feelings about the show "The Biggest Loser". On the one hand, I like anything that motivates and encourages people to make healthier choices--the dramatic changes in these people is astonishing. On the other hand, I think the show gives people unrealistic expectations about how quickly they can make changes to their body.

When you aren't working out eight hours a day, have professional help constantly at your disposal, and a $250,000 incentive, it's simply unrealistic to expect such huge weight loss numbers. Not only that, I'm not convinced it's healthy or effective. Many of the contestants gain the weight back because I believe they haven't truly learned to deal with the issues that have lead to their weight gain.

Step Two: Set goals and a timetable for weight loss, then make a plan for how you will get there. 

A reasonable and safe weight loss is no more than 1-2 lbs per week. Half a lb weight loss a week is even a reasonable goal. If you lose weight slow and steady, you are much less likely to bounce back and gain the weight. Yo-yo dieting is a dangerous practice and results from diets that are too restrictive.

If you have a large amount of weight to lose, say over 20 lbs. It is helpful to break that weight loss down into periods, including break periods where you are trying to just maintain your new weight. This ensures that you are forming life-long healthy habits and aren't going to go back to old habits that got you in trouble the first place. Remember, we aren't trying to go on a diet, we're trying to make life-long changes.

Example:

Current Weight: 190 lbs
Ideal Body Weight/Goal Weight: 150 lbs

Goal:

Months 1-2: Lose 10 lbs
Month 3: Maintain weight
Month 4-5: Lose 10 lbs
Month 6: Maintain weight
Month 7-8: Lose 10 lbs
Month 9: Maintain weight
Month 10-11: Lose 10 lbs
Month 12 and forever: Maintain weight

Check your goal to see what your weekly weight loss would be. In the above example, it would be a weight loss of about 1.1 lbs per week. This isn't as dramatic as hopping on the scale and losing 10 lbs in a single week, but the end result is still losing the 40 lbs over the course of a year.

Using the magic number of 1lb of fat = 3500 calories, we can calculate how many calories deficit we need each day to lose this kind of weight.

Desired weight loss per week x 3500 calories = calories per week 

 Example:   1.1 lbs/week x 3500 calories = 3850 calories/week

Now divide that by 7 days to get the daily calorie deficit. 

Example:   3850 calories/week  ÷ 7 = 550 calories/day

In this example, a person would need to have a calorie deficit of 550 calories a day to lose 1.1 lbs per week.

The deficit can come from (1) burning more calories through exercise or (2) eating fewer calories or, my favorite, (3) a combination of both. Personally, restricting calories is much more difficult and less enjoyable than getting out and exercising. Using your baseline calorie needs you calculated in the last post, make a plan for how many calories you are going to eat each day and/or how many calories you are going to burn each day through exercise.


Example:

Baseline: 1920 calories
Daily deficit needed to lose 1 lb per week: 500
Plan: (1) burn 300 calories in exercise each day (this is about 45 min- 1 hour of exercise depending on the activity)
(2) eat 200 calories fewer or about 1720 calories each day

If your goal is to maintain your weight, use your baseline calories and then make sure to eat more calories if you've exercised.

Example:

Baseline calories: 1920
Ran 3 miles and burned 350 calories
Need to eat 2270 calories to maintain weight.


If you are pregnant and want to calculate your calorie needs, use your pre-pregnancy weight to calculate your baseline like we did in the last post. Then, depending on how far along you are, add the following amount of calories to your baseline.



1st trimester          0 extra calories
2nd trimester    340 extra calories
3rd trimester    452 extra calories 


Depending on how much exercise you are getting, you may need to eat even more--I'd check the scale first to see if you are gaining the recommended 1-2 lbs/week.

If you are nursing and want to factor that into weight loss or maintenance, add the following amount of calories to your baseline.

First 6 months              330 extra calories
Second 6 months          400 extra calories

In the next post, I'll talk about step 3: Coming up with a meal plan.

Weight Maintenance Walkthrough: Step One

Now that the holidays are winding down, I'm sure many of us are thinking about repentance when it comes to our eating and exercise habits. I'm one of them. You may be looking to lose weight or just keep from gaining more weight. I'm looking to slow my weight gain with my pregnancy.

I thought I'd share my personal approach and tools I use for weight maintenance. There is a lot of information to share, so I will be doing it in a series of  posts.

Step One: Determine how many calories you should be eating (as accurately as you can).

 
Why? People are really good at overestimated our calorie needs. I do it too. I always seem to forget what I've calculated many times in the past so I have to calculate it again. It's more than a good idea to know how many calories you need to eat to maintain or lose weight--it's essential. Weight loss isn't magic, it's math. However, without hooking you up to a machine 24/7, it's impossible to know exactly how many calories you need, so we do our best to estimate as accurately as we can. 

 CAUTION: If you search "calorie calculator" online, you will find pages of websites offering calculators where you just enter your height, weight, gender, age and activity level. If you were to enter your information into multiple websites, you would get multiple values, sometimes drastically different. I did a little test and tried about 10 different online calculators and got values ranging from about 1900 calories all the way up to 2700 calories. This leads me to believe many of these calculators aren't very user friendly or maybe just not very accurate--it's hard to tell without knowing exactly how they are calculating calorie needs.   

 For that reason, I think it's helpful to understand how calorie needs are calculated so you are more sure to get an accurate number.

The most commonly used formula to calculate calorie needs is called the Harris Benedict formula.

Men	BMR = 88.362 + (13.397 x weight in kg) + (4.799 x height in cm) - (5.677 x age in years)
Women	BMR = 447.593 + (9.247 x weight in kg) + (3.098 x height in cm) - (4.330 x age in years)

These formulas, one for men and one for women, calculate the Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) which is how many calories it takes to keep you alive if you were just laying still all day long doing absolutely nothing else. If you calculate your BMR, it will feel like a really low number, something like 1300 calories for example.

To apply this to a real person that walks around, cleans their houses and plays basketball on Wednesadys, we multiply the BMR by something called an activity factor. The more active a person is, the the larger the factor.

Little to no exercise	Daily kilocalories needed = BMR x 1.2
Light exercise (1–3 days per week)	Daily kilocalories needed = BMR x 1.375
Moderate exercise (3–5 days per week)	Daily kilocalories needed = BMR x 1.55
Heavy exercise (6–7 days per week)	Daily kilocalories needed = BMR x 1.725
Very heavy exercise (twice per day, extra heavy workouts)	Daily kilocalories needed = BMR x 1.9

I believe this is where much of the variation in the online calculators come from--how they calculate activity level. Different websites describe activity levels in different ways--it's hard to know if you qualify for "moderate exercise" or "light exercise". I personally don't like how this is done. It's confusing. It leaves lots of room for interpreting it differently and therefore room for error.

MY WORK AROUND: I always calculate my own calorie needs as being sedentary so I don't overestimate my calorie needs. I use this as a starting point to make decisions on how many calories I'm going to need to burn exercising, how many calories I am going to aim to eat (see Step 2 next post). The CDC says about 80% of adults don't get the recommended level of exercise so I'd say "sedentary" is an accurate estimation for most people anyway.

To calculate your BMR, I trust the calculators at Runner's World and this website. Multiply your BMR by 1.2 (Runner's World does it for you). This is your baseline, how many calories you burn in a day without exercising. 

To use myself as an example:

My BMR = 1600 calories
1600 calories x 1.2 = 1920 calories
My baseline= 1920 calories

CAUTION: The Harris Benedict equation has a fatal flaw--it overestimates calorie needs for very overweight and obese people. For obese people, the formula cannot account for what part of your extra body weight comes from muscle (requires energy) and what comes from fat. In order to avoid overestimating your calorie needs if you are very overweight or obese, some experts recommend taking the average of your current weight and your ideal body weight* and use that number

Example:  
Current weight: 250 lbs
Ideal Body Weight: 170 lbs
Use this weight:  210.

Other experts say to just use your ideal body weight. Personally, I prefer to use your ideal body weight, or at least your goal weight. There's a saying that goes something like "If you want to weigh 140 lbs, then eat like you only weigh 140 lbs."

*Ideal body weight is a healthy weight for your height and body type. BMI is just one of the ways to estimate a healthy body weight and happens to be the easiest to use.



Now that you have a baseline of how many calories you need (if you did no exercise), my next post I'll talk about how you can make goals and come up with a plan for how much you are going to eat and exercise each day.

New Year's Resolutions

 

When I was younger, my approach to New Year's Resolutions always doomed me for failure. I would do a lot of "I will (fill in the blank) everyday." Sometimes I'd make charts to check things off--I love a good progress chart. However, when I eventually missed a day, I would be so frustrated that the perfect record was ruined and the entire year was tarnished so I'd give up on the goal.

 As I've gotten older, I've learned to stop looking at things as success/fail, but to look at things as a process. (I have becoming a mom to thank for learning this.) I expect failure to happen so it's not so doom and gloom when it happens. I also expect that I will get better at things, little by little so I don't give up.

Last year, I reached a goal to get down to my wedding weight (a little lower actually). The entire process took two years since the birth of my daughter. I have to say it is very lovely to reach a weight-loss goal. The world didn't magically become perfect and happy when I finally was below 170 lbs, but I was more self-confident, felt so much better about my appearance, didn't mind wearing swimsuits, and loved having a larger selection of clothing.

My other fitness-related goals were to run a half marathon and to run a total of 600 miles in the year. In a strict success/fail sense, I failed to reach this goal, running only 569 miles. Obviously, it's the process that is more important and I'm very proud of those 569 miles, 26.2 miles of that were the two half marathons I did.

Being physically active comes naturally to me, so I don't fret much about making resolutions such as "exercise three times a week for 30 minutes" even though it's a good idea to be specific like that. My fitness goals for 2014:

1.  Gain no more than 40 lbs with my pregnancy and then start the process to lose the baby weight.
2. Survive childbirth.
3. Keep running -- run a total of 450 miles.
4. Run a race. No specified distance...

Have you made some goals related to personal fitness or weight loss? I like this post about weight-loss resolutions you shouldn't make.

Whatever happens in 2014, I hope you find yourself a little healthier and happier than you were last year. Remember, it's a process.

4 Months - Tummy Time

Four months along and I'm really starting to show. It will be nice in a few weeks to move beyond the awkward "is she pregnant or not?" phase.  I actually have a personal rule to not ask until a woman looks about 8 months pregnant because I have a naturally tendency to put my foot in my mouth.

This past month was one of the most stressful of my life as we purchased and moved into our first home. Now that's over, my house is order, we're mostly all ready for Christmas, I can get back to refocus on healthy habits and schedules.

The biggest "new" thing is that my husband and I joined a gym at our local rec center. I haven't done this before because I'm frugal--I can run for free on the roads--and because I have a little anxiety about people and crowds. Winter slammed us last week and it was obvious running outside just wasn't going to work. I'm surprised to say that I've really enjoyed going to a gym to exercise. It's done absolute wonders for my winter blues. One of the best things about being indoors at a gym--being close to a bathroom at all times. Baby is starting to squish my bladder, especially when I'm running.

At the beginning of the year, I made a goal to run 600 miles. I was on track to complete that goal and then our stressful month and winter hit. I now have just a few weeks left to complete my goal so I'm cramming. I can totally do it, but I have to run 2-3 miles, most days of the week. So let's hope I don't get sick in the next few weeks.

What can I say about my weight? You can see the lovely 5 lb. spike that was Thanksgiving. I don't feel like I'm being especially glutenous and I have been exercising; I think my body/baby really would like to gain more weight than I want to right now. I'm hoping this latest spike will even out so I can get back to being within my goal range.

Ironically, Mrs. I-can-feel-my-baby-moving-at-2-months, is just barely starting to feel real, bonafide baby  movement. I think I felt movement earlier with my first baby. I'm chalking this up to the placenta being in front (I hope). All will be answered next week when we have our 20 week ultrasound. All in all, I feel really good. I can get by without any naps and the nausea is gone. My biggest complaint is honestly the acne that makes me feel like I'm 14 again. But what woman doesn't want to feel younger?

1 month                                        3 months                                                     4 months