A few years ago I tried the Seattle Sutton program. She is a registered nurse & dietician, and started her business many years ago preparing heart healthy meals for people recovering from heart surgery. She believes in a well balanced, non-fad approach to good nutrition with very flavorful foods. The meals are pre-made, all I had to do was pick them up each week and microwave until warm. In the end I didn’t succeed, but as with all my failures, I learned a lot about myself. The big news was that no matter how hungry I got, there were things I would NOT eat! Meatloaf? Nope, no way. I learned that limited menu selections just pissed me off (no substitutions). I wanted what I wanted. Forcing myself to eat things I did not like was a recipe for disaster, and led to late night deliveries from my old friend the Domino’s delivery dude. But honestly, even the days where I ate what I was supposed to, I was so ravenous by early evening that rational decisions were not possible. I would go to bed feeling like I was starving, I’d wake up hungry, and spend my workday suffering what I call “hungry headaches” with a tummy rumbling loud enough to interrupt meetings. For over a month I struggled, torturing myself every day. I ended up gaining weight that month, and quit with feelings beyond frustration.
Nothing seemed to help.
Then, a friend of mine bought me a nice heart rate monitor sport watch. Mostly she was concerned that at any moment I’d keel over dead, and me thumping my chest declaring, “Me strong like bull” simply got me a withering looks and a snappy rejoinder of “Yeah, but dumb like Ox”.
Obviously, she knows me well.
I discovered the sport watch was programmable for not only age and weight, but it also put you through a three stage workout to determine your fitness level. This allows the watch to fairly accurately determine your calories burned during a workout. I went to the gym just to try out my new gizmo, and did a pretty good workout – and was SHOCKED to see how many calories I burned. 45 minutes of cardio on the elliptical machine, and 30 minutes of good weight lifting caused me to burn 1600 calories. That number stuck in my head as I drove away from the gym. As a reward for all my hard work that evening, I stopped at Panera Bread for dinner and treated myself to my favorite food item in the whole wide world – chicken noodle soup. While waiting for my order, I happened to see a little brochure with nutritional information, and I was shocked for my second time that night. One cup of chicken noodle soup was 100 calories.
100 frickin’ calories, people!
I was astounded. How did I luck out, that my very favorite food item was HEALTHY? I drove home in a daze, and ate my soup while watching the latest episode of LOST. I didn’t realize until I was getting ready for bed later that night that I was still wearing my sport watch. Wanting to see my nice 1600 calories burned number, I was confused as to why the watch now told me 1915. Why? Because I’d not remembered to hit the “stop” button! Then it hit me.
I burned calories while watching TV!
Holy Shit. This was like the second coming. Giddy like a school kid with a new cap gun, I reset the watch, and proceeded to wear it for 24 hours straight – doing nothing special. No workout, no extra effort of any kind. My goal was to find out how many calories I burned each day…simply existing. The result was an astounding 3400 calories.
Now, I had a plan. 3400 was my daily break-even number. All I had to do each day was add up everything I ate, and subtract any extra effort. Each day’s net gain/loss was rolled into a week-to-date number. My goal was to create a net loss each week of 3500 to 7000 calories. One pound of fat equaling 3500 calories would put me at the proper 1 to 2 pounds lost each week.
For the first time ever, I started madly researching the calories of each item I ate every day. I searched for ways to make things I liked & wanted to eat that would fit within my daily calorie budget.
An example of one day’s log:
ECO = Exercise Calorie Output
DCB = Daily Calories Burned
DFI = Daily Food Intake
WTD = Week To Date
CB = Calories Burned
Hinky = My Hot-Chick-Trainer
Food Numbers xxx/yyy = calories/ calories from fat
Workout Numbers xx/yy = weight / reps
DAILY SUMMARY
WTD - +160
DFI - 2654 cal / 354 from fat (13.3%)
ECO - 2474
DCB - 3000
Total - <2820>
WTD - <2660>
WORKOUT
2 bottles water @ gym
25 min cardio w/ RPM @ 50 -65 & HR @ 130 - 155 (!)
Squats - 135/15, 135/15, 155!/15!
Ham's - 110/15, 110/14, 110/15!
Calves - 125/15, 125/15, 125/15
Quad's - 87/15, 87/15, 87/13
ABS - Hate & Skipped
BREAKFAST
634 / 26
Two bowls Corn Flakes - 366 / 4
Two English Muffins w/ fat free cream cheese - 268 / 22
Coffee
LUNCH
710 / 182
Two Sammiches w/ deli turkey & pepperjack - 610 / 162
Italian Wedding Soup - 100 / 20
Diet Coke
SNACK
FOUR 32oz Bottles Water!
Other Half of Wedding Soup (late) - 100 / 2
DINNER
1210 / 144
Two sammiches of 15 grain bread, pepperjack, Gulden's, and deli Turkey 610/162
Four Bowls Chicken Noodle Soup - 600 / 144
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