Mysteries Revealed

I just finished the Harry Potter book. Yep, it took me a whole week to read it and I was actually attemping to savor it by reading slowly, but to no avail. No, I am not going to spoil the ending, but suffice it to say it all makes more sense to me now. I will miss my old friend Harry (as in no more HP books), but at a certain point certain relationships require closure, so HP, it has been nice, but Adieu and I wish you well. Thanks for letting me in to your magical world.

So the past week I have been playing with http://myfooddiary.com (MFD). What an eye opener. I think I have not been eating enough for my metabolism for the past six years (which may clear up a certain mystery that has been going on for a while). MFD, which is basically a calorie counting program (don't worry, I don't spend every second looking up calories because after a while, all your favorite foods are saved in there). I also have been going too low on fat which may also be the culprit behind this mystery. No doctor has bothered to look at what I am eating although I have spent way too much money asking for their opinions.

MFD tells me I should eat at least 1200 calories a day for my height and weight (I am 5'1"). I may lose slowly, but at least that way my body will be getting what it needs to stay healthy. I am also forced to eat my exercise calories. What good is that you may ask? In the long run it all comes down to living a healthy lifestyle. If my body is in too much of a deficit for too long, certain hormonal changes may occur. Exercise brings on a bigger deficit than just eating losing calories which for a small person like myself may put me in the danger zone metabolically speaking.

On WW, I was always reluctant to eat my Activity Points, thinking not eating them would only boost my weight loss. To a certain extent a little bit, but then I would get so hungry I would double dessert at night or worse.

Since I am not about to give up running, bellydancing, lifting or anything else that helps me to remain depression (and fat)-free, I decided to try the MFD suggestion for one week about eating back most activity calories. It recommended I lose no more than .9 as a safe weight-loss (remember I want to get back to my personal goal).

Well, I did as it said for the most part (although since I was a little worried about overestimating, I came out slightly short 5/7 days and over my maintenance zone by a little on 2 days, the weekend) and lost .8 which is pretty dang close. The scale I weigh on only weighs to the nearest tenth.

Four areas which require attention for me, according to its system of smilies and frownies, are sodium (looks like I will rarely achieve this one since I am addicted to salsa and bread plus I run in the heat which makes me crave sodium even more), dessert (sorry, but I am not giving up my nightly dessert of <200 calories and no I am not counting it as a "snack" just to get a smilie since what I eat is essentially a treat with hardly any nutritional value), iron (I am a rare meat-eater so this one is tough) and fat (too low in fat since we drink skim milk, I rarely eat cheese and I limit healthy fats -- but I know now I can eat back my exercise points in peanut butter, avocado, nuts and olive oil - yippie!).

So there. Let's see if by eating a little more fat and calories I will continue to lose the .8 a week and get/stay healthy at the same time.