I have so many. I'm not sure that's it's all possible but hey, how many New
Year's Resolutions are? Maybe if I broadcast them into cyberspace, I'll feel
more accountable for them.
1.) Loose 30 pounds before I turn 30
Hummm. I've been tracking my diet on
I recommend it for anybody regardless of whether you want to loose weight. It's
educational - from a getting to know yourself point of view. It's tedious when
you get started but if your diet is repetitive like mine, it gets faster. I
sat down and calculated some common home-prepared meals - like pasta with homemade
sauce and Mac's stirfry - and created custom entries for them. I don't bother
adjusting for when Mac substitutes tempeh for tofu - close enough. It's all
an estimate anyway. I find that holding myself accountable for what I eat, reduces
mindless munching. It also helps me focus on finding the nutrition in my food.
Lastly, it makes me dread eating out - so much harder to calculate - which isn't
a bad thing for my budget, really.
I've used the site periodically for the last couple of years. I tend to enter
stuff for a month and then go six months without doing it and then decide I
need to check up on myself again. When I first started, I was training for the
ill-fated DC Marathon and
discovered I wasn't eating enough fat - can you believe it? So I started eating
more nuts and lowfat, rather than nonfat, yogurt. There's a function for publishing
your diet log online but I don't see that happening.
According to their calculator "The deadline for your goal is 258 days
(36 weeks, 6 days) away. To meet your goal you need to lose about 0.814 lb per
week." That's actually entirely reasonable.
To loose one pound of fat, you have to burn 3500 more calories than you eat.
So, I have to burn 407 calories more per day than I eat. That's the equivalent
of running about 3 miles a day. Since that's a bit tough on my knees, I'll have to
substitute in some biking & yoga.
Wow, this is getting long. Should I unveil these one day at a time?
Some good resources:
The Healthy
Body Calculator - the best "how much do I need to eat?" calculator
that I've found
Activity
Calorie Calculator - find out how many calories you burn in one minute of
water polo (or a bunch of other stuff.)