Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Tracking and Trainers

So I set up an appointment to meet with Sonia on Monday to switch up my workout routine.  The second bit of scary news is that I am going to attempt to do some running tomorrow...the thought of it makes me laugh, but only because it has been WEEKS since I have and I have a Turkey Trot to do a week from tomorrow.  Yeah, I am geared up and ready!  NOT! 

I had a long chat with Ashlee today at the Y about food and though I fought it tooth and nail, I am back on Spark People tracking my calories as of today.  Doing some research, this is how we should roll, and Jimnotmike, just be quiet.

The recommended benchmarks for a healthy balanced diet are to get 25-30% of your daily calories from fats, 15-25% protein and 50-65% complex carbohydrate. 

After tracking my calories for today, I would up with these percentages:

Fats 35.3 (that stupid cappachino from Sheetz put me over but I love vanilla chai anything.  Without that, I would have been right on target.)

Carbs 39%  Lower than the recommended...go me.

Protein: 25.7  Again, more or less on target.

Now, I did not snack as much today, maybe because I knew I was going to track my food.  My total calories for the day were 1853. 

Now I struggle with how many calories I should be eating.  Using a calories calculator and putting myself in the "very active" catagory (am I VERY active?) to maintain my weight I need 2872 calories per day.  If I am really moderately active, I need 2534 to maintain, so either way I am creating a calories deficit.

Ashlee and I also talked about South Beach and though I KNOW PEOPLE HERE WILL DISAGREE, she said that the low carb thing was not good for you, especially in the long run.  Your body needs carbs.  Now granted, I never got into the later phases of SB so maybe the maintainers are getting the recommended number of carbs our bodies need. I know that I need carbs in order to keep up my relatively intense workout regiment.  When I was low carbing, I was struggling with no fuel, so I know it was not working for me.  I lost about nine pounds, but really had a rough time with my workouts in the two weeks.  I like my physical activity and I know that carbs fuel it.

So I'll let you know how the walk/run goes tomorrow.  We'll have a good laugh.

4 comments:

  1. I am not disagreeing at all! It all comes down to what works for you darling. All I know is that Low Carb works for me because carbs are my enemy, well bad carbs anyway. I do wish you had given South Beach a bit more of a chance, because once you get into the later phases you would have been getting all of the carbs you need. The whole point of the earlier phases is to train your body to burn it's fat instead of carbs. My "fat" burning body is what keeps my weight where it needs to be considering that I am not as "active" as you and Tod are. For whatever excuse I want to use (travel, "kids", laziness) I have chosen the food regimen that works best for keeping my weight where I want it to be. But let me just say, I am NOT disagreeing with you. We are all different and we all need different things....like alcohol on a daily basis, just to casually name one :-)

    --JimNot Mike

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  2. When I did Atkins - carbs were included - Good Carbs that is!! WW is changing their entire point calculation, where now it only includes calories, fat & fiber the new calculation will be fat, fiber, protein and carbs.... so those carbs play apart somewhere!! But Jim's right - it's GOOD carbs you need, it's those tasty bad ones that get us into trouble.

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  3. Oh and another agreement with Jim - just because a diet has worked for one person, doesn't mean it will work for everyone! For instance, Weight Watchers is doing well for me and I can fit it in my lifestyle and it's something I actually can see myself doing the rest of my life...but I remember you didn't care for the WW program. Sometimes you just have to find what works for YOU!!

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  4. OMG, someone actually has agreed with me! I feel faint, someone pull a chaise lounge up behind me so that I can gracefully alight upon it while placing the back of my hand against my forehead...QUICK! Yes, you have to find what works for you. I don't follow the South Beach plan, not at least how the book writes about. I mean GOSH, I'd never be able to drink Rum if I did. So I augmented it to fit into my life. Nothing works for everyone, I would even hazard a guess that the stats you quote in your post, don't work for everyone. Make it your own!

    --JimNotMike

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