Today I want to take a moment to explain something about calories. For years I thought that if I simply ate fewer calories than I expended, I would lose and/or maintain weight. This certainly works in the short term, but I've learned that it can't work for long term health (I'm using the term "health" as opposed to "weight loss" because that is what I am talking about here). Now, there are people much more qualified than I who could explain this much better, and if you wish to learn more about how your body works, you should definitely research metabolism functionality. But here I will attempt to give my abbreviated understanding.
I'm sure everyone has heard the idea that you must have a deficit of 3500 calories in a week to lose a single pound. Forget that idea right now. If that were true, then losing weight would be as simple as restricting your diet so that you consume less than your basal metabolic rate. The average female's (since I am a woman, figured I'd use me) basal metabolic rate is around 1,500. This means that if I lounge around my house all day and do basically nothing, I will burn 1,500 calories just by being alive. So according to this idea that for me to lose weight I simply have to burn more than I take in each day, all I would need to do to lose a pound a week would be to restrict my diet to 1000 calories a day. Then by the end of the year, I should have lost 52 pounds, right?
Wrong.
Our bodies are designed to survive. If we restrict our caloric intake, over time our body will adjust. It does this by lowering our basal metabolic rate. So in the hypothetical above, after two months, my BMR would have lowered to 1000. So after two months, I would stop losing weight (note that I don't know if it would actually take two months for this to happen, but in lieu of and actual number, of which I am ignorant to, I am just using a random amount of time to illustrate a point). I would also be more lethargic, more prone to headaches, less mentally alert, less productive, etc. Sounds fun, right? If you've never experienced it, let me tell you right now that it is a blast. You get grouchy, have mood swings, have trouble sleeping, and a whole host of other issues that make you a pure joy to live with. Then to top it all off, you have to reduce your caloric intake even further if you want to lose any more weight. And even if you just want to maintain your weight, you have to only eat 1000 calories a day for the rest of your life if you don't want to immediately gain weight! As you can see, this is hardly sustainable.
So how do we lose weight?
Well, if you are like me and have spent years lowering your basal metabolic rate into virtual non-existence, it is going to be damned difficult. And the more often I go through this cycle of reducing calories to lose weight, the more difficult it becomes.
So knowing all of this is part of the reason I have decided to focus on getting healthy. My thyroid issues and my PCOS are my fault. I own that. I've messed up my body so much that just about anything I put in my mouth causes me to gain weight. The last time I lost weight, at first I was doing it the right way. Not by calorie counting, but changing the quality of food that I put in my mouth. More fiber, more fresh, less processed. I was exercising more and I was eating clean foods that would help my metabolism work more efficiently. Then I started wanting more results and faster results, so I again fell into the trap of "less in, more out" to lose weight. But I ended up further harming my already screwed up metabolism.
I wanted to explain this so that people would understand that this blog isn't about a diet. It isn't about calorie counting. It isn't about losing weight. This blog is my quest toward changing my entire lifestyle and thought processes. Changing what I put in my body, changing how I view myself and my body, not allowing my dress size to determine my self-worth, and attempting to repair the damage years of extreme diet and exercise have wreaked. There is no fast way to do this. If I want to be healthy and increase my quality of life for the rest of my life, I have to focus on being healthy. Not eating less calories than I burn. Not losing weight. Not setting goals. Just being healthy. I need to change the way I view food and my relationship with it, which is difficult not only because I am surrounded by an industry that makes millions off of keeping me in my old mindset of weight loss and self-flagellation, but because I've had 20 odd years to perfect my current thought processes. So just as I don't want to know the number on the scale (okay, I really do, but I'm trying not to care...this is a process), I also don't want to know how many calories I consume each day. I just want to know that the food I am putting in my body is going to help it run in the healthiest and most efficient manner possible.
With that said, here is my daily entry:
Today I ate:
12 ounces of green smoothie (strawberries, bananas, blackberries, blueberries, spinach, and kale)
2 cups of coffee (this time I measured 1 tablespoon of creamer into each cup, so I can say with confidence that I consumed 2 tablespoons. Less than normal, but the coffee was still rich deliciousness in a cup, so I'm good with that. A tiny change, but a change nonetheless. And if I were counting calories...which I'm not...it would be eliminating approximately 200 calories each day. Sometimes even double that!)
1 slice of whole grain (made by me with real whole grains, not processed crap) bread with peanut butter
Meatloaf and rice
1 Pina Colada
1 piece of vegan strawberry tart
Exercise:
1 hour on the stationary bike. Since I've made the decision to ignore the calories I consume, I am also going to ignore the calories I expend. I am exercising to protect my brain, increase my muscle mass, and increase my lung function, thereby making me healthier (that's my story and I'm sticking to it). I rode 17 miles and, surprisingly, got nowhere. Remember how I hate stationary bikes? Well, tomorrow I'm going to try a spin class and see if that makes pedaling the equivalent of 17 miles, yet getting absolutely nowhere, any more bearable. I'll let you know.
I didn't make any excuses not to exercise today, even though it was Fathers Day and Lily was up all night last night with a stomach ache, so I was tired and didn't get to it until late in the day and I easily could have let myself off the hook. I'm proud of that accomplishment. My excuses are invalid.
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