Swizzlepop I could probably kill you about now! my head is swimming with numbers!
So to catch you all up. Swiz wanted to know how I keep track of my food. I told her my dirty little secret...I don't. I don't really measure or log or anything. (I do measure cereal for some reason). But here's the plain facts of it folks. I don't even measure when I'm baking. I pretty much use a 1 cup measuring cup for everything and just eyeball to the half or 3/4 or 2/3 etc. I'm just not that type of person. (sometimes I use a handfull for half a cup too)
But then she went and did it. (in email) She pushed the magic button. She challenged me. That's basically a dare. or a double dare. I can't turn it down. Guess what she's MAKING me do? LOG EVERYTHING! Not just on paper, but in SPARKPEOPLE. and for 2 WEEKS! I might die. (though I do welcome anybody who wants to join this hell challenge with me! sounds fun huh?)
I started yesterday. My head is swimming with numbers. I did alright until supper. But just the thought of putting ingredients into that thing scared me away from eating a normal supper. I had a bowl of cereal (1.5 cups with .5 cups of milk). Then later at night I was hungry so I had an oatmeal packet with an apple. I still have to put those into Spark. Just wait...Ok here's my day 1 (yesterday)
Calories 1718
Fat 49
Carbs 274
Protein 65
Fibre 29
Sodium 2587
Now stupid Spark is trying to tell me I only need between 1200 and 1500 calories per day but I can tell you folks that is not true. Let me check back a few posts...here and somewhere else I talk about needing around 1800 and I'll still lose. I don't know where it comes up with these numbers. I'll just log what I normally eat for now and see where it all comes up. I can tell you that 1718 calories yesterday wasn't a ton for me and I went to bed hungry.
However I can also tell you that going to bed hungry lead me to wake up with my magic number on the scale again. 139.2. a maintain from last week but it was actually a gain and loss as we all know.
right. so maybe she's on to something here. It's showing also that my carbs are high and so is my sodium. Everything else is bang on. I didn't log my benefibre with crystal light because I didn't know the info and couldn't find any of that stuff. But that's going to up the sodium a bit more (I think?) and up the fibre even more. At least i'm doing good on fibre, good for cholesterol. I know I drink 9 bazillion glasses of water (I drink out of a 1 litre bottle all day, fill it probably 3 times. that's just at work).
I'm pretty sure that just by logging my food I'm going to eat differently. Look at last night, eating for simplicity! I'm already dreading putting my white chili in that i'm eating for lunch today. ugh. I can't even remember all the ingredients (and I know I didn't measure them!). This weekend is going to be interesting as well. I doubt I'll get to a computer. I think I'll start a notebook and just record everything in there, it'll be easier, then I can just look everything up at one time on the computer.
Swiz, I'm going to get you for this. I swear to God I'll get you... maybe some sort of exercise challenge?
Friday, November 9, 2007
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8 comments:
Ha ha! Welcome to our world. I tracked on Sparkpeople for about a month(I'm doing WW, but points are a really blunt tool). Sparkpeople can make you feel a little OCD, but it's a great way to get a lot of detailed info on your day to day diet, and see how you can change it up depending on your activity level for the day. It is super great for tracking sodium and fiber, and helps a lot to get the balance between carb/protein/fat at a good level.
I think if you commit to entering everything for at least 2 weeks, you can get a good handle on where you can make improvements to your eating, not just for weight loss but for proper nutrition too.
sparkpeople and fitday and those other sites are so much work! more power to you for logging in and doing it! but it bothers me so much when i can't find stuff i'm eating already in the system. so i don't do it.
It's a double dog dare (do you do that in Canada?)! Oh and your Benefiber... http://www.benefiber.com/products/index.shtml?benefiberPowders
And Crystal Light is already in SP, but just in case here is the NI
http://www.kraftfoods.com/main.aspx?s=product&m=product/product_results&SiteId=1&CatalogType=2&SearchText=clsunrise&PageNo=1 just click on the flavor you drink.
I am QUEEN of googling NI.
In my "expert opinion" ;p Your sodium is high so you better be drinking tons of water, and for the amount of exercise you do your protein should be way higher. 65 is low for me IMO, I TRY to aim for 75 or higher, but it was your first day and you apparently left a few things out. MUST LOG EVERYTHING, even 1 pieve of RedVine (do you have those out there).
Not sure what to tell you about the number of calories SP is telling you but just keep an eye on it. Maybe they have something there. Dunno?
Glad to see your numbers and I know you still love me ;)
I'm guessing that the number of calories it shows you need to lose is based on a 2 pound loss per week. That's the usual magic number. Based on that logic, if you are aiming for 1800 a day, you are totaling 2800 calories saved each week. And that's a loss of less than one pound of fat (3500). Whereas, if you went with the 1400 recommended by sparkpeople, that would put you around 1.6 pounds of fat loss each week. Of course, there's more factors that can't be considered into this simple equation, and my math could be wrong...
Anyway,
I've never used sparkpeople, but I did fitday for a while, and it almost consumed my life. I think that's why I like the points. It's much easier (for me anyway) to keep track of whole and half numbers adding up to 22 than trying to track every last 1/10th of thousands.
Big high five for taking on that challenge though - or is it a double dog dare?!?! :)
sure does sound like a challenge. You can do it though! I've been slacking the last week or so writing in my WW journal. Getting better at that will be my challenge for the next two weeks as I gained .6lbs this week and don't want that to happen again!!!
Oooo, I just went to the fitsugar site and found the key piece of info. At the bottom of that calorie evaluator, it says, "To lose weight, a good rule of thumb is that 3500 calories is equivalent to one pound. So you can subtract 500 calories from the daily caloric total above by exercising more and/or eating less."
Soooooo, they are clearly basing their calorie evaluation on a 1 pound per week loss, I think sparkpeople has you set up for 2. You should be able to change that in your tools, I think.
im doing the calorie-count thing right now. if they dont have what I am looking for I use calorieking.com quite often. good resource.
I absolutely HATE doing this calorie counting thing but it definitely helps me know how bad the things i eat are. hahaha. It really makes me pay attention. I have almost done it for a month. Crazy for me!
WOW! That is a serious challenge for you. I've been using SparkPeople for a while, but can't make myself consistantly put in my food. I probably should though!
I think two weeks will give you some great insight not only on what you eat, but what you might want to think about changing. Good luck!
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