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I’ve been slacking off on the blog front, I admit. I have an excuse, though it is only an excuse.
Getting healthy is a full-time preoccupation.
I recently altered my diet to make me feel better about being alive, in the hopes of side-stepping that horrible food morning-after. You know what I’m talking about. It generally comes right after eating half a pizza? Or after a pint of super-chocolate, candy chunk ice cream? Yeah, it sucks. And for more than a year that was almost every day for me (even without the candy-chunks). Eventually I stopped eating solid food, almost entirely, and began wondering how much longer I had to live that way.
So I went vegan. I read labels for the word “whey” now and I care where my sugar came from. All of this might mean nothing more than an involved trip to the grocery but, as it turns out, my food journey did not stop there. While researching the truth about quinoa, which is more interesting than it sounds, I came across Calorie Count, which is exactly as it sounds. They don’t recommend a specific diet, they don’t even recommend specific foods. There is a community side to it but the bulk of its appeal, of course, is as a way to log your food intake and, hopefully, your activity levels as well. It’s probably a pretty good free tool for weight management but for me it quickly became pretty scary reading.
After logging everything I had eaten for the day (over a few typical days) I realized that I am most likely not eating enough. Not enough calories, not enough protein, just not enough. I am thrilled that my dietary change has lead to weight loss but that was never my goal. I set out to find some truce with food and begin good-living. Having several times in my life formed a very destructive relationship with food (though we don’t use the “ana” word around here), I never want to go back to starving myself again. For whatever reason, including ignorance, or oddly enough, laziness.
According to an article on about dot com one should:
Eat a minimum of 12 calories per pound of your optimal weight. For example, a man with an optimal weight of 150 pounds should eat a minimum of about 1,800 calories per day
Several sources say someone my height and build should be about that weight so I should be taking in about 1800 calories a day.
I’m exhausted just thinking about it. I already eat all day but most of what I eat is vegetables and water (before you pity me too much, it’s a choice. I prefer vegetables and water to coffee cakes and Diet Pomegranate 7-Up with Antioxidants—I really do). If left to my own devices, eating whatever I want, whenever I want, I only average about 1200 calories a day. If I’m to believe the not-insane-sounding advice I’ve read, 1200 is way too little for someone who is as active as I am. It’ll keep me alive but probably no better off than when I would have a slice of pizza and a latte for the day. I’m not going back to my old diet and I’m not going to stop exercising, I enjoy it too much, so what’s a girl to do?
I sucked it up and started eating more. [shrug] It’s ultimately worth it and I’m getting used to it. But, man, slogging through the informational mire to get to some understanding of what exactly is “healthy” for me, or should be, was a pain. I just wanted to drink my flax shake and get on with my life, not calculate safety zones and draw dietary Venn diagrams.
Okay, to be honest, Venn diagrams are always fun… Anyway, this site says 91 grams of protein, another says that’s way too much. This site says 1500 calories, another says 2200. Many sites encourage training to failure while others tell me interval ballistic training never to failure. I’m still a little whelmed. Not overwhelmed anymore but still, it’s a lot to process for something so simple (being alive). So, the past few weeks have been getting all of that figured out. Now that I know I’m getting closer to fine, I can move on to planning the year. I have a few things already in mind. Adventures in baking and painting, though not both at once, probably, and a little-film making are all coming soon to a blog near you. Stay tuned.
Meanwhile, my advice to you (and me):
- When researching “health,” remember your grains of salt. This is the internet, not a doctor’s office and even a doctor is just one voice in a sea of a thousand opinions. Research is a net best cast wide and drawn in many times to filter out any useless dolphins… or some other less-complicated metaphor. One question, many sources, much common sense.
- Don’t let Calorie Count, or any other site similar, tell you your “target weight” if you would like to change your weight or size. I have no idea how much I weigh, none, but I know my heart is as healthy as all get out, I can run up my stairs without being out of breath, and I’m happy with how I’m changing how I feel. A website’s expectations for my weight loss have nothing on that.
- Pick one thing at a time. The reason I became so embroiled in all of this is that I, as usual, went in all directions at once. Caloric intake, proteins, the Karvonen formula, Max VO2 HR, the heartbreak of anaemia … ugh. It’s just too much to balance all at once. Focus is something I’ve been trying to focus on for years.
- When recording your resting heart rate, don’t listen to a mash-up of Nine Inch Nails and Ludacris. It throws the reading way off. Also, take it for a full minute instead of just ten seconds and multiplying by six. The two techniques, partly due to human error, can yield very different readings.
- Regardless of what they are, physical or emotional, for long-term gain or short, it’s much easier than one might think to change habits. Try it. I dare you.
