The Best Darn Diet Blog

Image courtesy of despair.com

Well, today marks my self-imposed deadline to have lost 50 pounds.  I could probably achieve that if I wanted, but I’d have to cut off a leg to do it.  I suppose it’s not a total failure.  I ended up with a net weight loss of 20% of my goal.  I also managed to fall below the threshold for obesity stay there.  I’m far from thrilled with the results, but I can’t expect much better since I abandoned the project halfway through.  The holidays seem to have been my undoing–not so much because of all of the tempting treats as because of the demands on my time.  Eating well does take a time commitment, and things never really came back together after the beginning of the new year.

During the time I haven’t been paying attention to diet, I have been doing some soul searching and am starting to uncover the emotional roots of my weight problems.  Before I am able to totally control my eating, I need to lose the guilt, and gain confidence and self-respect.  I will get there eventually.  I might be a procrastinator, but I’m no quitter.

For now, I’m not sure what will happen with The Best Darn Diet Blog.  I have abandoned it for the past three months.  It seems odd to pick it back up now that my deadline is up.  There are some big changes in the works for my life, which may oblige me to put weight loss on a back burner for now.  At the same time, healthy eating could become very important.  I guess we will see.

Although I never tried logging foods on SparkPeople, I did find inspiration through the site.  One incredible woman, who calls herself ~INDYGIRL, has lost over 100 pounds!  On her profile, she lists several nuggets of wisdom.  One of these keeps running through my head: “That which I cannot do now is my aspiration, not my defeat.”  How true it is.  Maybe I won’t meet my goal this year or even the next, but you haven’t heard the last of me yet!

Today completes the first week of “phase two” of my diet.  I’m happy to report that despite a lot of crappy convenience and junk food, not to mention a birthday party, I managed to lose two pounds this week!  Nate is peacefully snoozing right now, so he’ll have to tell you his results later.

I said before that this time around, it’s going to be about more than simply weight loss.  Last weekend, we got a new toy that will help with this–a scale with a body fat monitor.  The body fat monitor uses a process called bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA).  Essentially, it sends a very weak electrical current through the body.  Fat contains much less water than other types of tissue, such as muscle and bone.  Because of this, it is a poor conductor of electricity and opposes the flow of the electrical current.  The scale’s sensor somehow measures this electrical impedance and generates percentages of body fat and muscle.  It also gives an index for visceral fat.  Rather than directly under the skin, visceral fat builds around the abdominal organs and can cause nasty health problems like heart disease.

Anyway, according to this particular scale I have a shocking body fat percentage of 42-45%.  I almost hesitate to post that here out of sheer embarrassment, but there you are.  According to my reading, I need to decrease this by at least 10-15%.  My muscle isn’t stellar either, at only 23%.  The good news is, my visceral fat index is 6.  I’m not sure how the number is derived, but it can range from 1 to 59.  Anywhere from 1 to 12 falls in the “low risk” category.  It’s lower than I would have guessed, but not totally unexpected.  Waist to hip ratio is sometimes used as a measure of visceral fat, and I’ve always been somewhat hippy.

As with all home health monitoring tools, I take this information with a grain of salt.  Even the most accurate device is prone to user error.  It should, however give me a baseline to work from to determine whether I’m losing fat.

This is my first day posting on the diet blog and my third day on a diet.   I am using moderation based on calories.  My target is about 2000 – 2200 calories per day.

I am using http://caloriecount.about.com to help me track my calories.  It also has nutrition indicators.  Unfortunately, it is difficult to figure those for custom food items.

For breakfast I had a honey bun.  I had court at 8:30, so I grabbed something at the gas station.

For lunch we had Subway.  I ate a 6″ roast beef sandwich and sun chips.  We had a chocolate chip cookie for desert.

I also had 2 servings of sweet tea and a Pepsi throwback during the day.

Finally, for supper we had taco stuffed baked potatoes.

Calorie intake of 2,240 a little higher than I would like.  Supper was a bit of guesswork.  The counter projected my calorie burn rate at 2720, so I had about -480 net calories for the day.  So far this week I have dropped about 2 lbs.  Of course that can vary day to day.  My goal is to lose 50 lbs by October 1, 2011.  That would be 225 lbs to 175 lbs.

I received some money for Christmas, so I decided to invest in a new scale.  Mine is probably 50 years old and a dial type, and it gives somewhat inconsistent results.  Body fat percentage is supposed to be a more accurate measure of health than weight alone, so I bit the bullet and spent a little extra for a scale with a full-body fat analyzer.  It measures from the feet and from the hands through a hand-held attachment.  Perhaps I’ll go more into how the body fat measurement works later, but that’s for another post.  Anyway, I ended up buying the Omron HBF-510W.  It should be here by the beginning of next week, so then I can share some impressions.

Also, to help Nate eat better when he’s out and about, I want to start packing his lunch again.  I did this for several months last year before our lives got crazy.  At that time, he was working at 40-hour-a-week job with a fridge and microwave on hand.  Now, I am proud to say that he has started his own consulting business.  He could be anywhere at lunch time, so I found him an insulated lunch tote, some ice cube mats, and a Thermos.  These should allow him to have a cold or hot meal on the go.  I hope that meals on the go will also make for some interesting blogging.

After having some issues with MyPlate, I decided to try out some other diet/fitness trackers and see if there is another one I like better.  Here’s what I’m looking for in tracker:

• Reasonable calorie goals (i.e. not below basal metabolic rate)
• Large database of foods, including store brands and restaurants
• Ability to add custom food items
• User-friendly recipe entry and analysis
• Mobile options – at the very least, a mobile website; an iPhone ap would be best

Today, I tried Calorie Count, since Nate had expressed some interest in using it.  The site calculated a 1,500-calorie goal for me, which is reasonable (of course I always pad it a little depending on the amount of nursing we are doing).  Overall, I like it.  The database isn’t quite large or as user-friendly as MyPlate’s.  I had to add two custom items, although to be fair, one of the was a newer product that was not logged at MyPlate either.  Calorie Count allows members to suggest foods to be added to the database.  Also, while the website is not quite as user friendly, Calorie Count makes up for this with its free iPhone ap!  It’s much more comprehensive than the Livestrong (MyPlate) ap, which costs $3.99.

I am very pleased that Calorie Count offers a detailed nutritional analysis, something that is only available to paid members of MyPlate.  Most foods are assigned letter grades (A through F) to indicate how well they reflect the recommended daily allowance of nutrients.  I don’t take these as gospel, but I do appreciate how they provide a general idea of a food’s healthfulness.  Once you mark the day completed, you also receive a letter grade for your diet that day.  Today, I earned a B-.  I’m not entirely surprised.  There were plenty of empty calories and high-sodium processed foods involved, and not as many fruits or veggies as I would have liked.  Another chart (which I am not posting here out of embarrassment) shows which ingredients are lacking and which are in excess.  In short, I need a lot less sodium and a lot more vitamins.

One way to avoid sodium is to cook at home.  A good recipe analysis feature comes in handy for this.  I am not sure about Calorie Count’s analyzer yet.  Instead of entering each individual ingredient, you copy and paste your ingredient list into a box and have the software parse it for you.  It detected and converted all but two of my ingredients.  I was able to refine this by specifying certain item numbers from the database in brackets, but it took some extra time to look up the item numbers and reformat the item.

A friend recommended SparkPeople, and it looks decent.  However, they will not register anyone who admits to being pregnant or breastfeeding.  I may fudge the truth a little (I may not be nursing at the exact moment I sign up) and give it a shot anyway.  SparkPeople also offers BabyFit, a nutrition tracker specifically targeted at pregnant and lactating women, but it doesn’t calculate for weight loss.  This may come into play more in a few months if I happen to get pregnant, but let’s not rush anything!

Today was my first day back on the “diet” and Nate’s first day period.  You know how that goes–at least it did for me.  I takes me a while to adjust, especially when every cell in my lactating body is screaming for brownies!  I suppose watching Paula Deen didn’t help either, but I love that woman.  I came away with at least two new recipes that I’ll have to try in moderation.  Nate claims to have actually come in under his goal, despite having eaten a Double Whopper for lunch.  It must be nice to be at his weight.  Beyond that, there isn’t much of interest to share.  Anyway, I have some more pressing news.

Those who followed my progress last fall probably read several times about my use of MyPlate to track calories.  I was generally positive about the site, and in its format at the time, it was quite helpful.  Due to recent changes in the software, I can no longer recommend MyPlate at this time.  They claim to have “optimized” the software.  Now, its calorie goal calculator has me set at 1,085 calories to lose 2 pounds per week!  Even if I make a stretch and up my activity level from sedentary to light activity (not really appropriate since I’m at my computer much of the day), it still only allows me 1,293 calories.  According to some estimates, I would burn more than 1,600 just lying in bed all day.

At least on the forums, the staff seem largely unconcerned with the issue.  They simply suggest that those who find their suggested intake too low should set a lower weekly weight-loss goal.  While doing this makes the goal more reasonable (1,585), I can assuredly say that I would lose more than one pound a week at this level.  The current estimates are misinforming people and promoting what nearly amounts to anorexia.  One user in the forums had an estimate of 825 calories per day!  I refuse to endorse it.

I do have a great deal of data and recipes stored there, so I hope that this bug will be fixed (at least having it acknowledged would be a start).  In the mean time, I intend to try some other online trackers and see how I like them.  Nate used Calorie Count today, so perhaps I’ll start there.

Well, it’s been a month now since I last posted.  Despite my promises to stay accountable to my readers, I haven’t even remained accountable to myself.  I haven’t kept track of my calories for several weeks.  Other activities have taken priority over the blog.  Some of these, at least, were worthy.  Still, I am frustrated with myself for not having more discipline.

Today marks four months since I started this project, and frankly, after three months I became weary of it.  Taking photos, recording calories, and posting entries have become a chore that I’ve found myself avoiding.  I managed to reach the halfway point in weight-loss at the halfway point in time.  However, over the past month, I have gained back some of it.

Thankfully, some well-timed encouragement prevented me from totally abandoning my goal.  At the first family Christmas gathering of the season, I was headed to the buffet for seconds, when my grandma saw me and called out.  “You look good!” she said.  Later, I talked to her about the weight I had lost and told her that I had just about as much left to lose.  She looked me right in the eye and earnestly said, “You’ll do it.”  That’s it.  She didn’t embellish her words with the sort of phony emotionalism that most people use when they are trying to be encouraging.  She simply spoke it as a fact, and that’s just what I needed.  I will lose it.  It may no longer happen within six months, but it’s going to happen.  Since then, other friends and family have offered invaluable support, and have motivated me to get back on the horse.

Tomorrow, I end my hiatus.  This time around, I will be bringing along an unexpected partner.  Long-time readers may know him as the “sweet saboteur,” but I just call him “hubby.”  Here, he will call himself “Nate.”  We’re going to change up the format a bit.  We’ll still post every day, but not photos of everything we’ve eaten or detailed calorie counts.  Instead, we’ll highlight certain foods or aspects of that day’s menu–perhaps in the light of research or some other interesting tidbit of information.  We also hope to incorporate body fat percentages in addition to weight loss, since that better reflects health.  This will have to wait until we get a body fat monitor.

Thomas Paine is quoted as saying: “We have it in our power to begin the world over again.”  The world is a noble goal, but for now, let’s just start with this blog.  Best wishes to all of our readers for a happy and prosperous 2011.

I guess a more accurate title would be “brain troubles.”  I am notorious for losing things.  In this case, I have lost my cell phone, which contains many of my food pictures for the last several days.  I have also misplaced the battery charger for my SLR.  I’ve been getting by taking a few pictures with my built-in webcam.  I’ve also cobbled together some photos using GIMP.  I’m well aware that today’s clementines are not convincing, and I don’t care.  I posted it.

So I can stay true to the project and post everything I’ve eaten, I’m going to go back as there is time and fill in the six missing days.  If I don’t find my phone soon, I’ll do what I can with borrowed and edited photos.  So here you have today, which could have been just about right on target had I not eaten some cookies.   You can’t see it very well, but that’s homemade gyros.  Mmm.  They’re not too calorific with a reasonable portion of meat and a salad instead of greasy fries on the side.

Today’s total: 1,800 calories

Breakfast

• 1/2 cup (before cooking) quick oats – 140 calories
• 2 tablespoons peanut butter – 200 calories
• 1 tablespoon honey – 60 calories
• 2 clementines (borrowed pic) – 70 calories
• Morning Snack
• 4 double-stuffed chocolate sandwich cookies – 280 calories

Lunch

• 1/4 recipe Spaghetti Squash with Garlic Butter Tilapia – 413 calories

Dinner

• 1/4 pound gyro meat – 240 calories
• 1/4 cup tzatziki – 78 calories
• Wheat pita – 160 calories
• 1 ounce feta cheese – 70 calories
• About 13 grape tomatoes (divided between salad and gyro) – 8 calories
• Onion slice (divided between salad and gyro) – 6 caloris
• 2 cups Earthbound Farm Organic Spring Mix – 15 calories
• 2 tablespoons Meijer Zesty Italian dressing – 60 calories

When I started this project, almost three months ago, I committed to posting everything I eat for six months.  I intend to keep my goal.  Life changes are making it more challenging to post every day–especially when I need to think of something interesting to say along with it.  I apologize in advance for the brevity of some future posts, as well as this one.  My eyes are ready to drop shut, so this is all I can manage for today.

Today’s total: 1,899 calories

Breakfast

• Enriched Cream of Wheat with Egg and Vanilla – 215 calories
• 1/2 grapefruit – 60 calories

Morning Snack

• 7 white round tortilla chips – 150 calories
• 2 tablespoons salsa – 10 calories

Lunch

• 2 Pepito Corn Tortillas – 90 calories
• 2 ounces 96% extra lean ground beef with taco seasoning – 85 calories
• Homemade sharp cheddar cheese sauce – 115 calories
• 2 tablespoons Meijer sour cream – 60 calories
• 2 tablespoons salsa – 10 calories

Afternoon Snack

• Mini Size Dairy Queen Pumpkin Pie Blizzard (borrowed image) – 370 calories

Dinner

• 1/8 recipe Slow Cooker Chili II – 354 calories
• 6 wheat saltine crackers – 60 calories
• 1 slice Colby Jack cheese – 60     calories
• 20-ounce Cherry Coke (borrowed image)  – 260 calories

I didn’t think I ate too much today.  I didn’t keep track over the course of the day, but I certainly ate less of my yummy Thanksgiving favorites than usual–except for dessert.  Don’t judge me, please!  We did the family circuit, visiting three different homes in about seven hours.  I usually feel obligated to eat a little something, but at the second stop, I was able to limit myself to a calorie-free drink and take home some leftovers.  We stopped for hot dogs after the festivities of the day.  Don’t ask me why I thought I needed one.  We hadn’t had an official dinner, only snacks.

Here’s where the shudders come in.  I ate smaller portions of most foods and never once felt stuffed.  Still, all of those little handfuls of goodies caught up to me.  In past years, I don’t even want to imagine how many calories I took in at Thanksgiving when I wasn’t paying any attention.  I really should have planned ahead and had larger portions of turkey, smaller portions of dessert, and no donuts or hot dog.  There’s always next year.  Or this weekend, when I plan to help my parents eat some of their leftovers.

Today’s total: 2,855 calories (many of today’s counts are estimates, as I didn’t care to harass my family members for recipes all day)

Breakfast (thank you, dear)

• 1 1/2 nutty donuts – 645 calories

Lunch (mostly prepared by my parents)

• 2 tablespoons jellied cranberry sauce – 55 calories
• 1/24th 9×13 pan of green bean casserole (a Midwestern favorite) – 84 calories
• 4 ounces roast turkey – 160 calories
• 1/4 cup turkey gravy – 50 calories
• 1/4 cup stuffing – 80 calories
• 1/4 cup marshmallow sweet potato casserole – 86 calories
• 1/2 cup “dirty pudding” – 177 calories
• 1/10th Pumpkin Supreme Pie – 323 calories
• 2 tablespoons of spiced whipped cream – 60 calories

Afternoon Snacks

• Slice of Grandma’s homemade whole wheat bread with margarine and apricot preserves – 277 calories
• Pumpkin chocolate chip cookie, home baked by my cousin – 164 calories
• 1/2 cup chocolate bread pudding – 184 calories
• 1/4 cup or ranch dill oyster crackers (careful, these things are addictive; borrowed image) – 192 calories

Dinner (if you can call it that)

• Jumbo hot dog with bun, ketchup, onion, and relish (borrowed image) – 319 calories