Counting Calories

Counting Calories

The final frontier.

“I can’t lose weight.”

“It’s just not my body type.”

“I have a really low metabolism.”

“I’ve tried 100 different diets and none of them work.”

“I don’t burn very many calories – I’m just too efficient to lose weight…”

These are the voices in your head.  There may be other voices in your head, but I’m not in a position to address those.

I have the same voices in my head.  While I’ve never been what I would call ‘fat’, my weight has fluctuated plus or minus 20 pounds over the years.  I’ve always carried a little chub.  I was a chubby kid.  Even when running lots of miles per week, through marathons, triathlons and ultra-marathons I always carried that extra weight.

The funny thing is that these voices are all wrong.  They are the voices of positive confirmation bias.  And they are full of hooey.

That little belly.  It never bothered me. I’ve always been goal focused rather than weight focused.  I’m at no risk of becoming an international underwear model.

Since I’ve adopted an endurance sports lifestyle wrapped around distance running I’ve not had to worry about my weight.  I’ve hovered around 185 pounds and raced around 180 pounds.  This, for my height, according to the USDA, is right on the edge of ‘overweight’.  The USDA BMI index thinks I should be between 133 and 179 pounds.  If I was 133 pounds there wouldn’t be much left of me.

I think we can all probably agree the 133 pounds is ridiculous and the USDA BMI calculation need to be taken with a grain of salt.  I think I could probably get under 170, but that would be very skinny.  I feel healthy, strong and fit at 180 and I don’t have a problem looking in the mirror!

Historically I’ll start a training cycle at 185-190 pounds and through the course of the program drop closer to 180.  I feel strong at that weight.  I don’t think it’s slowing me down.  It feels healthy.

The last few months, if you’ve been paying attention, I’ve been injured and I can’t run.  This has taken away the balancing effect calories burnt.

I switched to t a plant based diet in an effort to balance the lack of calorie burn.  It seems to have helped but I was still putting on the weight.  My shirt collars weren’t buttoning and my fitted shirts felt a little…”constraining”.  My belt slipped past the hole that marks the point of trouble.  That little belly was now an ugly thing.

Desperation spurs action.  I was desperate.  I know that all the biggest losers I know count calories.  So I took the plunge.  I reactivated my SparkPeople.com account and started logging everything I ate.

It was a bit of a pain at first.  It was one more thing to do.  But the process caused a light bulb to go off in a little cloud over my head.

Guess what?  I don’t have a slow metabolism or any of that other crap.  I can’t lose weight because I stuff calories into my pie hole with great efficiency.

As soon as I was able to see the numbers and change the mix from higher calorie food to lower calorie food the weight fell off like an avalanche in a week.  Amazingly, simple choices create a 1,000 calorie swing in a day.  If I eat 2500 – 3000 calories in a day a gain weight.  If I eat less than 2000 I lose weight.  Simple.

I can have an enormous, yummy spinach salad with chick peas and lots of other goodies for a calorie investment of fewer than 500 calories.  Or I can spend those 500 calories on 2 handfuls of peanuts.  Simple math.

The beauty of counting calories is that it puts you in control.  You are no longer wondering what to eat and how much and feeling trapped and helpless.  You are the master of the ship and deciding where to invest your budget.  It puts you in control.

It allows you to make the process into a game.  SparkPeople.com will keep a running total so you can see how close you are to your daily budget.  You can invest in X or Y.  You can see the numbers and the results.

Even if you choose to disregard your budget and pig-out you can track that too so you get a nice mental correlation of cause and effect.

Start by just trying to measure everything you eat.  Don’t start with trying to control it.  Spend a couple days getting comfortable with the process and seeing what eat thing you eat is made up of.

You don’t have to be exact but you do need to be able to measure the food, either with a scale or a measuring cup.  I use the measuring cup for higher calorie food like nuts or beans.  For lower calorie foods like lettuce, spinach, etc you can guesstimate because it’s not going to make a big difference if you’re off a little.

If you want to skip a day or a couple it’s ok.  You can just track what matters, when you can.  The simple act of measuring creates the desired result.  30 years in business and I’m just learning this?

My friends this is an excellent method to figure out where your weight gain or loss is coming from.  It’s a good learning and a good tool to put you back in control if you choose.