Posts by cbwilhelm

Pick a different major?  J/k.

I spend a fair amount of the day thinking about work and/or school even when I'm not actively working on those things.  Our brains need time to digest information  and you have a lot of food information throughout your day.  As long as you're eating right, don't sweat it and relish your deep understanding of foods and nutrition.

On a more serious note, if you really don't like thinking about food and nutrition that much, you might actually want to consider a different major.

Here's a link to the wikipedia page so you can see all of them. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wheel_of_Tim e

I'm also 6'3, male and started at 245 (down to 241).

5 lbs a week is NOT feasible.  Assuming you could lose all fat and not gain any muscle (big assumption), that's a 2500 calorie deficit per day.  Your sedentary BMR should be about 2900 calories a day.  That means to lose that much fat, you'd need to eat only 400 calories per day.  As everyone on this site will tell you, eating less than 1500 calories a day is not good for you and will not help you lose weight.

If you went the other route and decided to eat 1500 calories per day and exercise for the other 1100, your body would still probably be in stress mode (releasing cortisone and retaining fat), and make that much weight loss infeasible.   Additionally, you'd probably feel like crap with that big of a deficit and that much exercise.

 Keep it reasonable, in the 1-2 lbs a week range.  If you do decide to exercise to get healthier faster, up your calorie intake to keep your deficit at about 1000 calories a day.  This will make sure your body has the fuel it needs to keep up with the exercise and help you keep off the weight in the long run.

You average person is looking for <35% of calories from fat, and 15-20% of calories from protein, but 25% of calories from protein is not "too much".

 Also, 160% - 190% of calcium should translate to about 1600 - 1900 mg.  You shouldn't worry about "too much" calcium unless you're over 2500 mg. (250%)

All of what I just said is for an "average" person.  Your needs might vary since you're in recovery, and you should check with your doctor if you're really worried. 

The key to weight loss is burning more calories than you eat, and the proportions of each major nutrient isn't usually as important.  There are a couple of exceptions, and I put some basic advice below.  The basic guideline is that you should try to get less than a third of your calories from fat, 20% of calories from protein, and the rest carbs.  If you're working out you will also want to make sure you get plenty of protein to help your muscles rebuild. 

If you listen to the USDA, the major recommendation that they give is to try to keep your calories from fat to under 30% of your total calories.   Other studies have shown, however, that even diets higher in fat (40-50% of calories) don't necessarily hurt because fat is one of the things that helps make you feel full.  In terms of health, with the fats you do eat, you want to make sure you getting as many good (unsaturated) and as few bad (saturated and especially trans) fats as possible.

 After that, there's protein.  Most people don't have any difficulty getting protein unless they're vegetarian or a body builder.  Try to get your protein from sources low in saturated fat.  Most people (that eat meat) can pretty much ignore their protein requirement because it's so easy to meet.

Finally, carbs.  This is where a lot of people go wrong.  Refined carbs (think white rice, sugar, white pasta, white bread, etc) spike your blood sugar, which causes you to release a lot of insulin, which causes your blood sugar to drop and make you feel hungry again.  What offsets this is eating fiber with your carbs, and whole grains have the fiber to keep your blood sugar more stable for longer.  So instead of white rice, do brown rice; whole-wheat bread instead of white; etc.