Dr. Foster’s damn-good diet, Pt. 2
by Mira and Charles on February 2nd, 2010The perfect diet for you
OK, so today I talk about how to get on track with Dr. Foster’s damn-good diet and stay on track. This is the key.
But first, let me get you up to date. I lost another pound since yesterday. Five now since the beginning of January. But it is still a mystery how I can lose on a day when I didn’t eat all that well and not lose or even gain after a really good day. My nutritionists have told me not to worry about this, but it gets at the heart of our (my!) needing to feel smart and effective at this.
But there is also a danger in weighing yourself every day. You get feedback right away, which is good, but it’s not always clear that you’re getting accurate feedback. That’s why many say weighing yourself weekly is better. On the other hand, I know a woman who has been very successful at keeping her weight off who does weigh herself every day. If it turns out she has gained a pound, she just immediately goes back to her weight-loss diet.
It really comes back to the role mind and emotions play in all this (and we’ll go into this a lot). We’re all unique individuals. If you’re someone who gets shook up if you gain a pound, and if being upset like that could lead to emotional eating, then you should stay away from daily weighing.
Also, yesterday after my TV announcement on New England Cable News, they took my picture. It was, of course, the before picture, hopefully a dramatic contrast with my much-slimmed-down after picture next January. But it drove home to me, uh oh, this is for real. I really am on the hook here. Hiding and denying are just not possible any more. Time will pass, and if I haven’t lost weight…well, a picture is worth a thousand words.
Gulp!
But then instead of getting upset, instead of staying upset to be more accurate, I went back to basics, which is as always just being accountable. That is, writing down everything I eat and keep track of calories. That is the key. I may overeat one day, eat unwisely the next, but if I just keep track I will stay on track.
And that’s our motto right there: Keep track to stay on track.
Yesterday I said I was going to tell you how to do that. Here goes part 2 of the ultimate, wonderful, damn-good diet.
First you need to find out your daily calorie goal (DCG): what’s the upper limit on how many calorie you can consume if you want to lose weight?
Tip : You have to know this number. If you consume more calories that this number, you just won’t lose weight. You’ll get frustrated instead, because you’ll feel you’re trying but not getting anywhere. And if you consume much less than this number, you’ll lose weight too fast, and that is not healthy and not sustainable. Research shows that steady weight loss of about a pound or two a week is most correlated with people losing weight and keeping it off.
And this number is different for everyone. So how do you find your number?
Well, there is a formula. It’s based on your age, sex, height, current weight, weight-loss goal, and activity level. (In case you were wondering where exercise fits into all this, here it is!)
The easiest way to figure out your DCG is to go to a site like this one which will do the calculations for you. If like me you want to see the underlying formulas, here they are.
You want to make sure that your goal is to lose weight at the rate of about 1 to 2 pounds a week. I know that might seem slow. But here’s the thing. This rate is sustainable. And it is most likely to lead to your successfully losing weight and keeping your weight off. Just think about it: the more your diet is like the way you’ll eat when you go on maintenance, the easier it will be to stick to stick to maintenance.
So there you have it. Now you see your daily calorie goal or limit.
But how do you use that to stay on track?
Well, here people are all over the place. Tip: at a minimum, write down everything you eat and the quantities. Then at some point check the calories that represents to make sure you’re not over the limit.
But even better, keep track of the calories as you go through your day. There are some wonderful resources to help you do this. I use—the extreme low-tech solution—a little notebook and a book called The Complete Book of Food Counts, by Corinne T. Netzer. (Most big drug stores have this book or books like it.). This works for me, mainly because I don’t have a computer in my kitchen and I’m lazy.
But if it’s easier for you to keep track on your computer, there is a wonderful website called Fit Day, a free place to keep a running total every day of what you eat and what the calories are. (There’s a premium version with more functionality that you can pay for, but it’s not worth it, in my opinion.)
For more help figuring out calories, check out Calorie King, another excellent source. You can use this for free just to figure out how many calories something has, but there is a paid program to help you keep on track.
Now I fully realize that keeping track like this is hard for some people. It may be hard given your lifestyle. Or it may just not be the kind of thing you like. I get that. So here’s the deal. You can’t argue with success. If you can be successful winging it, fine. Just be careful that you’re not kidding yourself. Remember: writing down what and how much you eat (or keeping track some other way) is the factor most associated with successful weight loss.
Almost done for today. But let’s take a good look at the impact exercise has on weight loss. Imagine a 40-year-old woman, 5’6”, weighing 180 pounds, who wants to lose 2 pounds a week over the next 25 weeks to get down to 130.
According to the calculator on www.healthyweightforum.org, if she is pretty sedentary, she’ll have to limit herself to 850 calories.
If she does light exercise, about 2 hours a day of gardening, heavy housework, brisk walking, she can raise the limit to 990 calories.
If she does moderate exercise, walking as part of work plus vigorous exercise like swimming or dancing, then the limit goes up to 1270 calories.
And if she does heavy exercise, which means a high level of activity both at work and during leisure hours, then the calorie limit goes all the way up to 1550 calories.
You get the point. The difference between sedentary and heavy exercise is 700 calories. That’s about a heaping cup (a little more than half a pint) of ice cream. And if you don’t get the point, I’ll hammer it home as it settles in with me. (Another gulp.) It is easy to kid ourselves about how much exercise we get. Most of us, I think, would say we get moderate to heavy exercise when in fact we only get light exercise. So unless you’re a woman who is a carpenter on a construction site and you go running for 45 minutes after work, you are not getting heavy exercise. If you work in an office (as opposed to installing toilets in office buildings) and get to the gym three days a week, well, that’s probably light exercise.
Don’t shoot me. I’m just the messenger. It’s as hard for me to hear this as it is for you. It’s particularly hard for me since up to 6 months ago I’d work out an hour and a half a day, but then I got Achilles tendonitis, which has pretty much made me sedentary, although I try to get to the gym to lift weights.
But here’s the thing. All you can do is the best you can. The one kind of exercise you don’t want to participate in is beating yourself up. It’s just that there’s a certain comfort in not kidding yourself. At least you know what’s what and how things work.
But remember this: the benefits of exercise go far beyond weight loss. The more you exercise, the longer you live, the better you feel, the healthier you are throughout your life.
Tomorrow: how to keep yourself motivated.
Warmly, Charles
