Use 'em and lose 'em - Originally posted September 2007

Just to continue the thought from yesterday’s first post. Seems we were discussing Diane’s desire to lose 17 pounds, and we had arrived at the conclusion that she could accomplish this by the end of January if she kept her calorie intake at 1500 calories a day between now and then.

One thing that has been clear to me as I have lost 19.5 pounds in the past 22 days is that, if I am going to do this, it is extremely important to count calories and keep close track of them. That’s important both so that I don’t overeat and also so that I don’t undereat.

My target is 1750 calories a day. If I don’t keep track, but just “try to cut down on my eating,” it is very likely that I could go 3 days eating only 1100 or 1200 calories a day and be really hungry without knowing why. Where that leads is probably obvious. I get so hungry that I eat too much and blow the whole eating plan.

So I’ve been very good, in the past 22 days, at staying within 5-10% of that target just about every day. Over once or twice, but not too far under the other days.

I can’t do that by guess work. So I read labels and use nutritional fact sheets when I go to BoLoco or Subway.

I also use several tools at the My-calorie-counter.com website that I mentioned yesterday, including a very handy search tool that you can use to get the Nutritional Facts label for just about anything you can imagine eating or drinking. There’s no point in doing this in a half-assed way. So every meal, snack, or drink gets calculated and added to my journal. The fact that my journal happens to be a blog doesn’t make it any different, in that respect, from what it would be if I were writing it down in a notebook.

So, it is that simple, Diane. Use these tools to keep your calories at 1500 a day. It says here that you’ll lose the 17 pounds by the end of January.

Use ‘em and lose ‘em.

A postscript on yesterday’s Fresh Pond post. I paid little attention to the scale reading after my run, and as I predicted it was mostly a reflection of water loss. So I worked hard to rehydrate afterward, starting with a protein drink and some water and moving on, through the evening, to a venti iced green tea, a Diet Pepsi, and 2 pints of Miller Lite with dinner at the Spirit Pub. Even after all that I was still down a pound this morning, but I would not be surprised if I were up a half pound tomorrow as I continue to rehydrate. After all, 3.5 pounds in the last 5 days is a little more than I expect to lose based on calories and workouts alone.