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I’ve struggled with my weight for nearly thirty years. In grade school, I was an average-sized boy, but by the time I started junior high, I had already become chunky. My soccer coach used to make me run an extra lap at practice because he said I needed the exercise.
Puberty slimmed my figure for a few years, but by the time college rolled around, I was really struggling with my weight. A lot of this was due to inactivity, but as the past year of this blog has aptly demonstrated, most of it was due to poor food choices.
Despite the propensity to fat, I have managed two sustained sessions of weight loss in my life.
Almost vegetarian
During my senior year of college, I took an introductory philosophy course. One of the books we read was Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation. It had a profound effect on me. I gave up meat cold turkey. (Ha!) For six months, I practiced vegetarianism.
At the same time, I took a basketball class. I was by far the worst player in the class, which made me angry. To improve, I would go to the gym every day to shoot free throws and to practice dribbling. I would shoot 100 free throws and spend ten or fifteen minutes just dribbling the ball around the court. This wasn’t much exercise, but it was enough.
By the time I graduated, I was thin and fit. It was great.
Counting calories
My vegetarianism only lasted six months. By the summer after graduation, I was eating fish and chicken. By the fall, I was eating beef and pork. And lots of it. I was no longer exercising, either. I gained back all the weight I had lost, and then some.
During the nineties, my weight hovered around 193 (which seems to be my “set point”, if such a thing does exist — my weight always reverts to 193). In 1997, however, something happened and I found myself at 200 pounds in early May.
Two hundred pounds was a wake-up call. I made two immediate changes. First, I began to exercise daily. Sometimes I just walked for half an hour. Other times I biked for ninety minutes. Initially, this exercise was hard — I was fat, and I hated how I felt while moving. Within a month, though, I recognized that the exercise was giving me new vigor and new appreciation for life.
Meanwhile, I altered my diet. I didn’t actually eat better food, but I did eat less. I found a program for the Mac called Diet Balancer. To this date, it’s the best piece of diet-tracking software I’ve ever used. Entering foods was easy. The interface was unobtrusive. And the program tracked all sorts of stuff. (My friend Kristin recently found the following printout, which shows my daily food consumption six weeks into my diet.)
Six weeks into my diet in 1997
During the summer of 1997, I lost 40 pounds. By exercising daily and religiously tracking my calorie consumption, my weight loss was steady and constant: about 6.7 pounds per month. It was awesome.
Man in motion
During 2008, I’ve again tried to lose weight. I’m proud of my physical activity: I’ve been diligent about weight lifting (and am stronger than I’ve ever been), and I’ve done a fairly good job with my aerobic activity (I tried too hard for the marathon, and I’ve had periods where I’ve been lazy). My diet, however, has remained a problem.
When I whipped my finances into shape, it was important for me to track every penny I spent. This personal accountability kept me honest. Though I’ve made a couple of half-hearted efforts at similar accountability for my food consumption this year, I haven’t stuck with it. I want to change that.
Until the end of 2008, I’m going to be diligent about tracking my caloric intake. I’ll still try to make smart food choices, but my focus will be on meeting target numbers.
For many of you, this probably seems like missing the forest for the trees. It seems a little like that to me, too. But it’s a good way for me to see: Just how much does that piece of cheese cost me? And how about that orange? That can of beans?
This morning’s breakfast
To track my calories, I plan to use FitDay (which has undergone a redesign since I last used it!). Because I’m a spreadsheet kind of guy, I’d love to find one to track certain daily totals. Any suggestions?
Mac
17 responses so far ↓
1 suzanne // Oct 13, 2008 at 7:33 am
i’ve got the fitday pc i spent 19 dollars once to get it and it’s awesome lots of graphs etc and you customize the nutritons stats you want to see
2 Another Leanne // Oct 13, 2008 at 9:31 am
No suggestions on tracking tools… but I think it’s great that you’re planning to track for the rest of the year. Doing it for long enough to really imprint on your brain just *how much* that piece of cheese or tortilla is costing in calories seems like a great way to reorient your thinking about food.
3 Desiree // Oct 13, 2008 at 10:02 am
I use CalorieKing which is a subscription service. It lets you know when you’ve had too much fat, calories, carbs, protein, etc and also analyzes your diet by week, month, all time.
4 Andrew is getting fit // Oct 13, 2008 at 10:21 am
I think tracking is a great idea. I’m sure you’ll see some reward from the effort.
5 Ben // Oct 13, 2008 at 12:29 pm
I’ve used gyminee.com for awhile for calorie tracking and workouts. It’s a pretty slick site and does a good job of both. They also have a paid portion which I believe gives you more information for calorie tracking with your foods (more nutrition info, etc). It does have its down sides - but I think every site does. It’s definitely worth a look and can help you keep workout records as well. Oh, and it has a pretty good mobile site as well.
6 Sara // Oct 13, 2008 at 12:52 pm
Tracking your caloric intake is so unbelievably important for weight loss, even though it’s not very popular right now. But think about this: for a 35 year old, 5′8″ moderately active man, the daily caloric intake to maintain 200 pounds of weight is 2485 calories and the intake to maintain 150 pounds of weight is 2158 calories. That’s a difference of 327 per day, which, when you’re not measuring carefully, is NOTHING. It’s a small piece of cake, one small drink from Starbucks, a slightly larger helping of a side dish, a handful of almonds.
Tracking your calories will help you readjust to naturally eating what your body needs to maintain the weight you want to be. Exercise is important, but when you’re doing it, it’s so easy to justify eating whatever you want that it can easily sabotage weight loss efforts.
7 JenH // Oct 13, 2008 at 1:04 pm
I don’t have any spreadsheet suggestions, I just wanted to say that I started tracking my calories in May and have lost 20 lbs. (I’ve actually been stalled for the last month, probably because I have not been exercising, but tracking calories has helped me not gain any weight back). Every day I continue to be surprised at how much I learn just from tracking calories.
8 J.D. // Oct 13, 2008 at 1:34 pm
I think it’s interesting that in the entire time I’ve written Get Fit Slowly, I don’t think I’ve once mentioned counting calories. This is odd. Based on my past experience, and based on science, I actually think counting calories is at the root of all weight loss. Maybe I should do some reading and explore this topic in greater depth in coming days.
9 Desiree // Oct 13, 2008 at 1:43 pm
JD…Calorieking has a great Mac application. I actually got into the subscription service by using the App.
I prefer to use the web service these days since I’m going from home to work. The only thing is if you try to use both the app and the web service, the app transfers data to the web but the web doesn’t transfer to the app.
I mostly use the web except during Hurricane Gustav…I had to use the app on my laptop during no power/internet.
10 Kym // Oct 13, 2008 at 2:51 pm
I really like the tracking at sparkpeople.com even though I stopped using it. You can add as many meals per day as you like, and it shows the breakdown and totals of everything per meal per day. They have a database of foods and you can also manually enter a food, *or* import a food that someone else has manually entered. You can also create a food “group” - for instance at Chipotle I make my burrito a special way. So I made it the same way in sparkpeople and saved it as a food “group” - now I just have 1 thing to add when I have that burrito instead of each component. This also makes it handy if you always have the same main and sides in a meal - for instance if I have a pb&j sandwich, i always also have an egg and an apple. Anyway, you get the idea.
11 Patrick // Oct 13, 2008 at 5:30 pm
I just recently started using Sparkpeople and I like it a lot. Why did you quit using it Kym?
12 sharon // Oct 14, 2008 at 6:00 am
I lost 125 lbs and have kept it off for 9 years, after a lifetime of obesity. I stopped eating flour and sugar and am in a 12 step program for food addiction. I weigh everything I eat. 3 meals, nothing in between, no caffeine, no sweeteners. But I have no cravings, no binges, no anxiety about food.
13 Kristina // Oct 14, 2008 at 8:55 am
Why not try to be a vegetarian again? It’s healthier for you, potentially more in line with your ethical beliefs, better for the animals and the environment, and a way to instantly eliminate a lot of the unhealthy food choices you make.
14 Karen Taylor // Oct 14, 2008 at 8:58 am
I, like Patrick, have been using Sparkpeople and have been enjoying it plus it is free (sparkpeople.com). I have tried some of the recipes and thought they were yummy for low cal. Try it.
15 Maggie // Oct 14, 2008 at 9:57 am
First time poster, but have been reading for a while. I second sparkpeople. I use their sister site, babyfit.com, since I am nursing. This was a good post, as I just started keeping track of calories again this week, and tomorrow I’m going back to the gym. I don’t know if it’s the same at Sparkpeople, but with babyfit I can set targets for whatever I want (ie calories, calcium, fat, protein). So if I see I have extra calories for the day, but I need more calcium I’ll have a glass of milk rather than empty calories.
16 Usman // Oct 15, 2008 at 2:20 am
I just discovered this site and MAN this is amazing. great work. I am surely going to be a reqular visitor.
17 Ryan Collins // Oct 19, 2008 at 4:35 pm
I started using thedailyplate.com on Sept. 22, and keeping track of the calories I’ve been able to drop 11 pounds as of this past Friday (163.8-152.8, 5′ 7″). I like it because I can put in anytime I exercise so I get bonus calories that day. It’s free to use the website, and they seem to have a ton of foods already entered.
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