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Diet Manifesto - Part something-or-other: Why Calorie Counting isn't THE solution either
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salome190 over gtalk yesterday, throwing thoughts out and trying to put into words thoughts that were bouncing around my head. I feel like it's leading me to a new "Diet Manifesto", an updated and better version of what the C-C Diet was (though Erik and Igor wouldn't necessarily approve of this one and I wasn't posting it to their site ANYWAYS!)
Putting Calorie Counting Back In It's Place
I wouldn't call Calorie Counting a Fad Diet. As a strategy, if done correctly, it's probably the sanest most correct way to lose weight, but Calorie Counting isn't the end-all/be-all because in and of itself, it's incomplete and in today's American Market, it misses the train completely in some areas. So I'm writing these thoughts out, half-aloud while I try to put into words what the next Diet Manifesto might look like.
See, concentrating on Calories lends itself to abuse and way too much misunderstanding, especially in today's world when there's so much (mis)information out there. Counting Calories is an obsessive activity that forces you to be honest with yourself about how much you're eating and why, but also lends itself to abuse in today's world of 100-calorie snackpacks and people who seem to think the best way to lose weight is only 1200 Calories.
Listen, do you want to know a secret?
What MOST people don't know is that Calorie Counting has a dirty little secret... it's imprecise. So imprecise that, on a large scale, such as trying to find out how many calories you're eating per day, you could be as much as 5-10% off. And that's just your FOOD! We'll get to the other side of the equation shortly!
Take two bananas... one is 5 3/4" long, with a 6" diameter, the other is 7" long, with a 8" diameter. Clearly, the longer one would have more calories in it, but do you have any idea how many? 30? 40?
Now let's go the extra step and say that you added those two bananas to a banana bread recipe with walnuts, cut it into 10 approximately equal-sized pieces and served. Do you know how many calories your food has?
The other side of the equation is even worse!
Let's talk BMR, your Basal Metabolism Rate. Your Metabolism Rate is a very personal number and depends on how tall you are, how heavy you are, how active you are, how much muscle you have, how much you eat, and some other genetic factors that you can't begin to quantify. In other words, the only way to truly know what your Metabolism Rate is, you have to measure it, but very few people do that. Certainly a website like Calorie-Count doesn't. Instead, they use the Harris Benedict Formula:
English BMR Formula
Women: BMR = 655 + ( 4.35 x weight in pounds ) + ( 4.7 x height in inches ) - ( 4.7 x age in years )
Men: BMR = 66 + ( 6.23 x weight in pounds ) + ( 12.7 x height in inches ) - ( 6.8 x age in year )
Metric BMR Formula
Women: BMR = 655 + ( 9.6 x weight in kilos ) + ( 1.8 x height in cm ) - ( 4.7 x age in years )
Men: BMR = 66 + ( 13.7 x weight in kilos ) + ( 5 x height in cm ) - ( 6.8 x age in years )
Then to get a more complete number based on how active you are, we can do one of two things.. try to estimate how many calories you burn when active, or use the Harris Benedict Formula AMR Formula:
To determine your total daily calorie needs, multiply your BMR by the appropriate activity factor, as follows:
1. If you are sedentary (little or no exercise) : Calorie-Calculation = BMR x 1.2
2. If you are lightly active (light exercise/sports 1-3 days/week) : Calorie-Calculation = BMR x 1.375
3. If you are moderatetely active (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/week) : Calorie-Calculation = BMR x 1.55
4. If you are very active (hard exercise/sports 6-7 days a week) : Calorie-Calculation = BMR x 1.725
5. If you are extra active (very hard exercise/sports & physical job or 2x training) : Calorie-Calculation = BMR x 1.9
As far as trying to determine how many calories you burned exercising directly from a Heart Rate Monitor or Exercise Equipment, don't bother. Those, too, are approximations based on either how fast you're going or how fast your heart's going.
The fact is.. unless you measure, you don't really have any clue how much you're burning.
So..
You don't REALLY know how much you're eating and you have no clue how much you're burning.
Really, the only way to lose weight is to try to eat less and hope it works. And if it doesn't, try eating more or try eating less and see if that helps.
Health is Not a Number
Nobody wants to tell you what to eat. Nobody except for the food industry, that is. The food industry wants you to eat, eat. Buy this, eat more of that.
So.. let's say I'm the "Average" Guy and I'm supposed to eat 2,000 calories to maintain what I weight (As anyone who's seen me, even if I were to weigh an ideal weight, at 6'4", I'm no average guy, but go with it.) so I should eat about 1500 calories to lose weight.
How should I eat that 1500 calories? Well.. I could have a typical breakfast and a Subway(tm) 6" Sub for Lunch and for Dinner. That could work. Or I could have a cup of frosted flakes for breakfast with a cup of milk, spaghetti (not Whole What Spaghetti) for lunch with grilled zucchini and spaghetti sauce with HFCS, a 100-calorie snackpack for a snack and a chicken broth and grilled cheese sandwhich made on white bread with margarine for dinner.
And I could probably stay within my 1500 calorie allotment, but I'd totally be missing out on the health bus. There isn't enough of the right nutrients in that to keep your body happy.
Calorie Counting doesn't tell you how to eat and most calorie counters don't want to tell you WHAT to eat because they, too, want your business.
I'll be the first to admit that it's REALLY hard to eat healthy in America. There's so much misinformation about WHAT to eat out there, but any weight loss resource, whether it be book, site, or whatever that doesn't tell you HOW to eat the calories you should be eating is self-sustaining as well, just like the Fad Diet Books out there.
Why Not Stressing The Right Foods Derails Calorie Counters
Counting Calories, as I've said before, is self-sustaining. Calorie Counting, in and of itself, doesn't really teach us HOW to eat. You need to learn HOW to eat, and WHAT to eat or once you stop Counting Calories, you lose track of what you're supposed to eat and, slowly but surely, the weight comes back on.
Any diet that doesn't teach you how to maintain the weight you've lost is doomed to failure. That's the failing of most fad diets. If you only learn how to LOSE weight, and not maintain it, then once you stop losing weight, the weight begins to creep up and up again until, surprise surprise, you need to lose weight again!
Diets that are high in sugar, high in saturated and trans-fats and low in nutrients are not good for your body. As of yet, our bodies have not evolved to process the sorts of diets the food industry would push on us.
Calorie Counting Gone Horrible Wrong: Borderline Eating Disorders
Anyone who's spent time on any internet site for long enough, especially dieting site will have run into their fair share of people who have an unhealthy relationship with their food. It's foolish to believe they all have eating disorders. Eating Disorders are a Mental Disorder whereby a person is convinced beyond reason that they are terribly fat, and are compelled to lose weight. By and large, it seems that most people with Eating Disorders are scared to death of gaining weight as well.
But there's another group of people who don't quite fall into that description. Those who just have an unhealthy relationship with food. Some don't know better. Some do, but are convinced that they know better.
Regardless, the number of people both with eating disorders and those on the borderline is on the increase, along with the number of obese people (especially obese children).
By putting all the focus on one aspect of the whole, calories, we invite people to obsess and get stuck on the almight calorie. We invite people to ignore wisdom gathered from cultures who aren't overweight for their twisted logic. Without a doubt, the blames for borderline eating disorders can be spread around pretty fairly.. to Media for showing unrealistic images, to culture for supporting these unhealthy images. But Calorie Counting, without the added focus on health and better eating lends itself to these misunderstands and twisted logic as well.
The Diet Manifesto: What *TO* do
Calorie Counting is a good tool. It helps us track what we eat and helps us be honest with precisely how much we're downing, but when we put it in front of good diet practices and good health, then we end up with another self-sustaining diet.
So My Diet Manifesto. Use Calorie Counting as the tool, if you think it would be helpful to you.
Eat good, whole foods. Skip the processed junk with the extra sugars and the unpronouncable chemicals. Avoid High Fructose Corn Sugar. Try to eat less meat and Dairy Products (screw the saturated fat stuff. Saturated Fat is all over the place. Even in vegetables. Some Saturated Fat won't hurt you.) Some Meat and Dairy might be healthy, but clearly too much is unhealthy for us and seems to be connected to high cholesterol and other health problems. Avoid Hydrogenated Oils at all costs.
And allow yourself to cheat once in a while. It's too difficult in today's America to eat good all the time. Allow yourself an occasional chance to indulge, and then get right back to the good diet right after.
I'll probably fill this part out more if I actually write the next diet manifesto...
salome190 over gtalk yesterday, throwing thoughts out and trying to put into words thoughts that were bouncing around my head. I feel like it's leading me to a new "Diet Manifesto", an updated and better version of what the C-C Diet was (though Erik and Igor wouldn't necessarily approve of this one and I wasn't posting it to their site ANYWAYS!)Putting Calorie Counting Back In It's Place
I wouldn't call Calorie Counting a Fad Diet. As a strategy, if done correctly, it's probably the sanest most correct way to lose weight, but Calorie Counting isn't the end-all/be-all because in and of itself, it's incomplete and in today's American Market, it misses the train completely in some areas. So I'm writing these thoughts out, half-aloud while I try to put into words what the next Diet Manifesto might look like.
See, concentrating on Calories lends itself to abuse and way too much misunderstanding, especially in today's world when there's so much (mis)information out there. Counting Calories is an obsessive activity that forces you to be honest with yourself about how much you're eating and why, but also lends itself to abuse in today's world of 100-calorie snackpacks and people who seem to think the best way to lose weight is only 1200 Calories.
Listen, do you want to know a secret?
What MOST people don't know is that Calorie Counting has a dirty little secret... it's imprecise. So imprecise that, on a large scale, such as trying to find out how many calories you're eating per day, you could be as much as 5-10% off. And that's just your FOOD! We'll get to the other side of the equation shortly!
Take two bananas... one is 5 3/4" long, with a 6" diameter, the other is 7" long, with a 8" diameter. Clearly, the longer one would have more calories in it, but do you have any idea how many? 30? 40?
Now let's go the extra step and say that you added those two bananas to a banana bread recipe with walnuts, cut it into 10 approximately equal-sized pieces and served. Do you know how many calories your food has?
The other side of the equation is even worse!
Let's talk BMR, your Basal Metabolism Rate. Your Metabolism Rate is a very personal number and depends on how tall you are, how heavy you are, how active you are, how much muscle you have, how much you eat, and some other genetic factors that you can't begin to quantify. In other words, the only way to truly know what your Metabolism Rate is, you have to measure it, but very few people do that. Certainly a website like Calorie-Count doesn't. Instead, they use the Harris Benedict Formula:
English BMR Formula
Women: BMR = 655 + ( 4.35 x weight in pounds ) + ( 4.7 x height in inches ) - ( 4.7 x age in years )
Men: BMR = 66 + ( 6.23 x weight in pounds ) + ( 12.7 x height in inches ) - ( 6.8 x age in year )
Metric BMR Formula
Women: BMR = 655 + ( 9.6 x weight in kilos ) + ( 1.8 x height in cm ) - ( 4.7 x age in years )
Men: BMR = 66 + ( 13.7 x weight in kilos ) + ( 5 x height in cm ) - ( 6.8 x age in years )
Then to get a more complete number based on how active you are, we can do one of two things.. try to estimate how many calories you burn when active, or use the Harris Benedict Formula AMR Formula:
To determine your total daily calorie needs, multiply your BMR by the appropriate activity factor, as follows:
1. If you are sedentary (little or no exercise) : Calorie-Calculation = BMR x 1.2
2. If you are lightly active (light exercise/sports 1-3 days/week) : Calorie-Calculation = BMR x 1.375
3. If you are moderatetely active (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/week) : Calorie-Calculation = BMR x 1.55
4. If you are very active (hard exercise/sports 6-7 days a week) : Calorie-Calculation = BMR x 1.725
5. If you are extra active (very hard exercise/sports & physical job or 2x training) : Calorie-Calculation = BMR x 1.9
As far as trying to determine how many calories you burned exercising directly from a Heart Rate Monitor or Exercise Equipment, don't bother. Those, too, are approximations based on either how fast you're going or how fast your heart's going.
The fact is.. unless you measure, you don't really have any clue how much you're burning.
So..
You don't REALLY know how much you're eating and you have no clue how much you're burning.
Really, the only way to lose weight is to try to eat less and hope it works. And if it doesn't, try eating more or try eating less and see if that helps.
Health is Not a Number
Nobody wants to tell you what to eat. Nobody except for the food industry, that is. The food industry wants you to eat, eat. Buy this, eat more of that.
So.. let's say I'm the "Average" Guy and I'm supposed to eat 2,000 calories to maintain what I weight (As anyone who's seen me, even if I were to weigh an ideal weight, at 6'4", I'm no average guy, but go with it.) so I should eat about 1500 calories to lose weight.
How should I eat that 1500 calories? Well.. I could have a typical breakfast and a Subway(tm) 6" Sub for Lunch and for Dinner. That could work. Or I could have a cup of frosted flakes for breakfast with a cup of milk, spaghetti (not Whole What Spaghetti) for lunch with grilled zucchini and spaghetti sauce with HFCS, a 100-calorie snackpack for a snack and a chicken broth and grilled cheese sandwhich made on white bread with margarine for dinner.
And I could probably stay within my 1500 calorie allotment, but I'd totally be missing out on the health bus. There isn't enough of the right nutrients in that to keep your body happy.
Calorie Counting doesn't tell you how to eat and most calorie counters don't want to tell you WHAT to eat because they, too, want your business.
I'll be the first to admit that it's REALLY hard to eat healthy in America. There's so much misinformation about WHAT to eat out there, but any weight loss resource, whether it be book, site, or whatever that doesn't tell you HOW to eat the calories you should be eating is self-sustaining as well, just like the Fad Diet Books out there.
Why Not Stressing The Right Foods Derails Calorie Counters
Counting Calories, as I've said before, is self-sustaining. Calorie Counting, in and of itself, doesn't really teach us HOW to eat. You need to learn HOW to eat, and WHAT to eat or once you stop Counting Calories, you lose track of what you're supposed to eat and, slowly but surely, the weight comes back on.
Any diet that doesn't teach you how to maintain the weight you've lost is doomed to failure. That's the failing of most fad diets. If you only learn how to LOSE weight, and not maintain it, then once you stop losing weight, the weight begins to creep up and up again until, surprise surprise, you need to lose weight again!
Diets that are high in sugar, high in saturated and trans-fats and low in nutrients are not good for your body. As of yet, our bodies have not evolved to process the sorts of diets the food industry would push on us.
Calorie Counting Gone Horrible Wrong: Borderline Eating Disorders
Anyone who's spent time on any internet site for long enough, especially dieting site will have run into their fair share of people who have an unhealthy relationship with their food. It's foolish to believe they all have eating disorders. Eating Disorders are a Mental Disorder whereby a person is convinced beyond reason that they are terribly fat, and are compelled to lose weight. By and large, it seems that most people with Eating Disorders are scared to death of gaining weight as well.
But there's another group of people who don't quite fall into that description. Those who just have an unhealthy relationship with food. Some don't know better. Some do, but are convinced that they know better.
Regardless, the number of people both with eating disorders and those on the borderline is on the increase, along with the number of obese people (especially obese children).
By putting all the focus on one aspect of the whole, calories, we invite people to obsess and get stuck on the almight calorie. We invite people to ignore wisdom gathered from cultures who aren't overweight for their twisted logic. Without a doubt, the blames for borderline eating disorders can be spread around pretty fairly.. to Media for showing unrealistic images, to culture for supporting these unhealthy images. But Calorie Counting, without the added focus on health and better eating lends itself to these misunderstands and twisted logic as well.
The Diet Manifesto: What *TO* do
Calorie Counting is a good tool. It helps us track what we eat and helps us be honest with precisely how much we're downing, but when we put it in front of good diet practices and good health, then we end up with another self-sustaining diet.
So My Diet Manifesto. Use Calorie Counting as the tool, if you think it would be helpful to you.
Eat good, whole foods. Skip the processed junk with the extra sugars and the unpronouncable chemicals. Avoid High Fructose Corn Sugar. Try to eat less meat and Dairy Products (screw the saturated fat stuff. Saturated Fat is all over the place. Even in vegetables. Some Saturated Fat won't hurt you.) Some Meat and Dairy might be healthy, but clearly too much is unhealthy for us and seems to be connected to high cholesterol and other health problems. Avoid Hydrogenated Oils at all costs.
And allow yourself to cheat once in a while. It's too difficult in today's America to eat good all the time. Allow yourself an occasional chance to indulge, and then get right back to the good diet right after.
I'll probably fill this part out more if I actually write the next diet manifesto...
no subject
The spark plan or "diet" does involve listing your foods but its more about making your aware of what your eating. Its useful for seeing the amount of Sat. fat and other baddies your taking in. Plus you can track other things. I tracked my iron intake and discovered that I was SUPER low. In the end I returned to eating red meat and I feel so much healthier for it.
Spark people acts like a life coach giving you literature to read and activities to do. It stresses that the calorie counting is just a tool and not to be taken as the diet. If your eating crap but staying under your calories then your not following their plan.
Maybe that was what calorie count was about too. Maybe I just drank the kool-aid. Either way my experience has been that SP is different.
no subject
no subject
That said, I've basically given up on other attempts at diet modification (especially eliminating the fast food portion of my diet). The main reason for this is simply my work schedule. Pretty much whenever I'm on call (2 or three times a week) my eating schedule is this: lowfat organic yogurt around 6am; dinner leftovers/hummus and veggies/greek salad with chicken around 12 or 1 for lunch; dinner anytime between 6 and 11pm). My dinner time is completely dependent on what time the OR finishes because from about 3 pm on I really don't get a chance to eat. Sometimes I get to eat the dinner P makes at home, but if it's after 8:30 or so I end up stopping at Burger King, McDonald's because I'm so hungry I can't make it home.
Next year, I'll have a better schdule and the fast food's the next thing to go. But for my own sanity I'm giving this year a pass. I'm not going to beat myself up if I fail to lose weight or even gain a few pounds. Too much of my life is completely out of my control.
I'm also with you on some of the diet programs. I love food. I know what's healthy and what's not. I know I need to decrease my portion size. I try not to say it in front of some of my diet happy friends, but I feel like most diets out there walk the fine line between diet and eating disorder. If the wrong person starts one, its very easy to cross that line.
no subject
I think alot of diet programs don't really work. But honestly, I think that's as much about attitude. I've seen EVERY reason why people couldn't make it work: People who get obsessive about losing it all RIGHT NOW, People who make a mistake and go "Well, that's it. Diet's blown. May as well eat what I want!", people who can't make a diet part of their actual LIFESTYLE, people who obsess over every little thing until the diet takes over and then life goes "Hey, I need your attention too!" and they lose it all.
And, yeah, there is definitely a fine line between people who diet right and those who seem to diet WRONG, in scary sort of borderline ED ways...
...
It's all far more complicated than it should be, IMO.
no subject
Anyway, I bring it up because I think that diet, or some form of that diet, would fit very well with what you're saying here. I think you'd be a little more strict on -what- you're eating (No S is more focused on how much and when you eat), but actually the nice thing about it is that it can work with pretty much any other diet plan. And because you eat only one plate of food each meal, it actually forces you to think more about what you're eating as a side effect, and you're likely to eat better.
I really should get back into it. Granted, I still don't snack or eat sweets very much, but I do need to get back to not eating seconds. I think it gives you a lot of the same in-control feelings that calorie counting does, except without the hassle of actually counting calories.
no subject
I'm not sure I feel that's absolutely the best diet. I like that it doesn't follow some fad diet formula, but depending on what you put on your plate (and the size of your plate), I don't know how well it would work.
Is there advice on HOW to fill the plate, or just.. avoid extra sugar and fill the plate once and that's it?
no subject
no subject
I guess I see a few holes in the plan. You might eat a reasonable amount of food, but are you eating reasonable food? Are you eating something that will keep you full at least until close until the next meal, or something that leaves you feeling empty again an hour or two later? Are you sitting there driving yourself (and anyone who has to deal with you) crazy going "I will stay on this diet! I will stay on this diet! I will not cheat!" in between meals?
Still.. if it works for you and you incorporate good choices in food, then conga rats to you for making this work!