BRIENMALONE's CalorieKing blog
Tuesday, Dec 25 2007 - Surviving the holidays
View BRIENMALONE's food & exercise for this day
This has been a very interesting holiday in terms of diet. My wife bought three boxes of Candy Cane Joe-Joe's, which are essentially peppermint oreos from Trader Joe's... and I wasn't interested in them in the slightest.
My foods were a bit off schedule yesterday and, thanks to a bit of a cold in my chest, I thought I should skip cardio. Big mistake. My cold wasn't that bad, but sticking to a calorie intake level at 30% below maintenance is tough to do when you don't burn 300-600 calories at the gym.
I was pacing my kitchen like a caged tiger around 10pm on the 24th... and at midnight, I couldn't stand it any longer. I went on a carb binge. I ate some peppermint bark (chocolate and pepermint)... and a hand full of my son's frosted animal crackers ... plus two cups of 1% milk and a pillsbury crescent roll. It doesn't sound like much of a binge, but it was about 600 calories (or one regular meal)
The funny thing about this binge is that eating those sugary things was the least gratifying sugar fix that I can recall. Usually when you -really- want something, as soon as it touches your lips, you melt into sugar ecstasy... but this time, I didn't get that. (And I'm sure it has to do with eating 6 meals a day, doing my cardio and eating clean foods!)
Later that morning, I tried those candy cane joe-joe's and was just as disappointed.
In fact, the only "binge" that I did today that felt at all good was eating left-over apple crisp - and it was the tang of the fruit that made it good.
Since I have had my foods basically on-track (at least from a macronutrient standpoint), the only sweet things I really crave are fruits. Holy cr*p! How did THAT happen?
If you have looked at the pictures in my December 8 blog, the 2002 photo of the skinny-looking guy with abs peeking through is someone who got thin the wrong way. I was eating extremely lean - with chicken breast and veggies as my staple foods. My macronutrient levels were probably 48% protein, 40% carbs and 2% fat; Oh - and my calories were way too low. I remember feeling the drop in my libido, but I just figured that was part of losing weight.
This time around, I'm eating 20-30% fat, and I am experimenting with my protein and carb ratios... for the most part they're in about equal portions (with the excpetion of the 24th and 25th)
I've noticed that, in spite of losing fat, my libido is just fine. In fact, I feel a lot healthier than I did when I was eating next to no fat. (You have to have some dietary fat to manufacture the hormones you need.)
I'm SO COMPLETELY JAZZED about losing weight this time!! I actually look forward to journaling my foods every day, so I can see how I did. In fact, I'm almost planning my foods out in advance... very nearly there. This is how you HAVE to feel to lose fat... you have to be excited about the process. If you're not excited about it, you will fail. No one sticks with something difficult when s/he is ambivalent about the process.
Merry Christmas all!
Brien
My foods were a bit off schedule yesterday and, thanks to a bit of a cold in my chest, I thought I should skip cardio. Big mistake. My cold wasn't that bad, but sticking to a calorie intake level at 30% below maintenance is tough to do when you don't burn 300-600 calories at the gym.
I was pacing my kitchen like a caged tiger around 10pm on the 24th... and at midnight, I couldn't stand it any longer. I went on a carb binge. I ate some peppermint bark (chocolate and pepermint)... and a hand full of my son's frosted animal crackers ... plus two cups of 1% milk and a pillsbury crescent roll. It doesn't sound like much of a binge, but it was about 600 calories (or one regular meal)
The funny thing about this binge is that eating those sugary things was the least gratifying sugar fix that I can recall. Usually when you -really- want something, as soon as it touches your lips, you melt into sugar ecstasy... but this time, I didn't get that. (And I'm sure it has to do with eating 6 meals a day, doing my cardio and eating clean foods!)
Later that morning, I tried those candy cane joe-joe's and was just as disappointed.
In fact, the only "binge" that I did today that felt at all good was eating left-over apple crisp - and it was the tang of the fruit that made it good.
Since I have had my foods basically on-track (at least from a macronutrient standpoint), the only sweet things I really crave are fruits. Holy cr*p! How did THAT happen?
If you have looked at the pictures in my December 8 blog, the 2002 photo of the skinny-looking guy with abs peeking through is someone who got thin the wrong way. I was eating extremely lean - with chicken breast and veggies as my staple foods. My macronutrient levels were probably 48% protein, 40% carbs and 2% fat; Oh - and my calories were way too low. I remember feeling the drop in my libido, but I just figured that was part of losing weight.
This time around, I'm eating 20-30% fat, and I am experimenting with my protein and carb ratios... for the most part they're in about equal portions (with the excpetion of the 24th and 25th)
I've noticed that, in spite of losing fat, my libido is just fine. In fact, I feel a lot healthier than I did when I was eating next to no fat. (You have to have some dietary fat to manufacture the hormones you need.)
I'm SO COMPLETELY JAZZED about losing weight this time!! I actually look forward to journaling my foods every day, so I can see how I did. In fact, I'm almost planning my foods out in advance... very nearly there. This is how you HAVE to feel to lose fat... you have to be excited about the process. If you're not excited about it, you will fail. No one sticks with something difficult when s/he is ambivalent about the process.
Merry Christmas all!
Brien
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