Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Add up what you eat.

Just for fun, if you're morbidly obese (I'm somewhere around 335 these days, and what a descriptive term for my current condition, not that it's inaccurate) you should do your best to figure out the caloric content of everything you've eaten today. This is assuming that you've not yet taken any steps to correct what may be wildly imbalanced.

Now, I've heard before, "don't be a slave to the scale, don't worry about counting calories, just worry about eating less and exercising". Bah. How can you know where you're going, if you don't know where you are? It seems to be the failing mantra of those who'd rather not answer the phone for fear of the bill collectors on the other end. So again, remember back and add 'em up.

Today for breakfast* I stopped at the Caribou Coffee drive through on my way into work. One medium White Chocolate Mocha (530) and a blueberry muffin (410) later, and I was at a nice 940 calories to start my day. Nice. Then for lunch I had a 6" Subway Club (320) with provolone cheese (50) lettuce (0) and spinach (no listing online), onions (5) and pickles (0), mayo (110), dijon mustard (5), oil (45), salt, pepper and parmesan cheese (no listing). I also had two white chip macadamia nut cookies (440!) and a bottle of water. That's 975. My co-worker asked if I was on a diet. Fuck that guy. :) Anyway, now I'm up to 1915. An afternoon Mountain Dew (170) saw me breaking the 2000 point mark before 3pm (2085). For dinner I thought about Taco Bell, but did Subway again, this time opting for the 12" club, same toppings (1070). Currently I'm at 3155 calories today and I'm still hungry.

If I wasn't suddenly keeping score, I'd probably get something sweet to eat at this point, or more soda or something. And on a typical day, I would have at least two more sodas, which would be another what, 340? So on average, I'm eating ~3500-4000 a day. One pound of fat is 3500 calories. What do you think a guy who drives to a job where he sits all day long burns for calories? 1200? 1600? So roughly I'm putting on three to four pounds a week. Seems a bit high, so I guess I'm burning a few more calories than 1600, but I'd cop to a 1 to 2 pound growth every week.

Fuck.



*most important meal of the day!

1 comment:

BornSquishy said...

The good news is that with just a few changes you can't stop the weight gain, and then you'll be able to make additional changes later to help yourself lose weight.

Substituting a regular coffee for your chocolate latte, a whole wheat bagel with cheese for your muffin and diet pop for your regular soda would knock off a huge amount of calories.

I know that diet pop still isn't very good for you, and that a bagel with cheese is hardly ideal....but it's a significant improvement over what your already eating/drinking as far as calories go.

Making a few changes every now and then will allow you to get used to them.....Remember: Baby Steps.

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