Chelle 42 yr old Pagan Witch, mom of 4, living in the MidWest
willowraven's Journal
Getting Down My Elephant Walk....Nov 28 2006 01:12
Well, it's now a little after 1 AM and we've been home for a
little while. We had dinner at a restaurant called The Elephant Bar
Restaurant (it opened here within the last year) and the food there was awesome. Spicy, but not too spicy.
I had the Crab, Shrimp & Seafood Firepot (delicious!), however I could only eat
1/2 of what was on my plate (I was FULL). I didn't get any alcoholic drinks however
I did steal a few sips of Wes'! I had some root beer for my drink and
then changed to ice water. The 4 of us shared a sampler appetizer
platter - I just had 1 of each thing on it, which was just enough to
have a taste without going nuts. I splurged and had dessert - which I
could only eat about 1/3 of (apple blueberry cobbler with vanilla ice
cream, and I left 1/2 the scoop of ice cream! Me! The ice cream
fanatic!!). I felt very full - joked they would have to roll me out to
the car. From there we went to the mall which was next door, and got
tickets for the 9:45 showing of Happy Feet, which I have wanted to see
since I started seeing the trailers for it this summer. (I love
penguins!!) And I even passed up buttered popcorn, which is a usual "must have" for me at the movies. It was a great movie - I'd recommend it to everyone, young
and old alike. Despite the mood I was in earlier, I had a really good
time, and most of the depression has lifted.
On a side note... I had taken a nap earlier today on the couch. When I woke up, I toddled off to the bathroom and, since I hadn't eaten yet for the day (last thing I had was the binge last night - real erratic schedule with an early AM meeting at the school which is why I was napping during the mid-day), I decided to weigh myself. I fully expected to see a gain - and it would have been well deserved. I haven't logged it because I'm not sure whether to believe it or not: 389.6.
::BLINK::
I think, all things considered, I did really good today, and if I did go over my calories for the day, it could not have been by much. I tried to find nutritional info online for the restaurant, but came up empty, so I'm just sort of guesstimating it. I only had a bowl of vegetarian soup before we left (I had warmed it up right before Wes told me his aunt had called) and 2 slices of bread, so I really don't think I had a bad day.
EDIT: adding the following
There is a thread (here) that is talking about how to figure out your maintenance amount, and then how to figure out how much you should be eating for weight loss. Here is what I wrote as a response because I want some input here.
futuremrshaifley wrote:
Women To Maintain Weight - Multiply your weight (in pounds) by 12
This is a rough estimate of daily calories needed to maintain weight.
To Lose Weight - Deduct 500 calories from this figure
This gives you a rough estimate of the daily calories needed for you to lose about 1 pound per week.
Huh? Are you sure this is right? This seems so odd.
For example, I currently weight 390 lbs. If I wanted to maintain this weight (which I *don't* but just for sake of example here), using your equation, I would have to eat 4680 cals/day! To lose weight, I should eat 3680 cals/day to lose 2 lbs a week..... yet on this site with the tools, it tells me that I should be eating 2036 cals a day to reach my goal by 9/30/09 and that I am currently burning 2900 cals/day (sedentary). I have been consuming approximately 1700 cals/day. If I went based on your info and calculations, I am eating WAY too little, however if I eat 3600 cals/day (again, based on that info) I am going to gain weight, am I not? I mean, 3600 cals = 1 lb. If I have that 7x a week, thats gonna be a weight GAIN, not a weight LOSS. Especially if I am only burning 2900 cals/day (as sedentary - not taking into effect any exercising I do).
willow ~ here's my comment #2 from that thread. hey... in the past, i've seen 15 cals per lb to maintain and 10 - 12 cals per lb to lose... it is an old standard. the bmi calculators here and here and elsewhere, may not always agree, but together can give us a good general guideline tailored to our own specifics. we alll need to find what works for us and adjust to our own metabolism, eating preferences... and find a way to eat that we can enjoy and sustain. cheers, |
those #'ers are the old way to figure out and they did not take into account age or how active a person is. the bmi calculators are much better, although they are generic and don't reflect things like thyroid problems or difficulties with slow metabolisms... like my mumsie's who has a a super slow one, compared to what her doc saw... they finally tested and yep... she maintains at about 10 cals per lb when everybody else would be losing like crazy! so... her's was probably slowed way down by her yo-yo dieting, her genetics, her what ever... next thought... you definitely are not overestimating your deficits... meaning... you are losing weight pretty rapidly, so if anything you are not eating enough. you might want to consider increasing food a bit, especially those days when you are climbing the wall to eat. i shared the stuff with you about the body set point and that episode from Scientific American Frontier. Here's the deal. 1 lb a week sounds so freaking slow to me and at that rate or slower it will take me 3 - 5 years to take my weight off. but it's faster than I ever put it on. if i lost 1 lb a week for 50 weeks, that's 50 lbs. I have never ever been able to lose 50 lbs and keep it off. That would be a bloody miracle!!! so here's the real deal... if we can really lose it slowly enough so our body does NOT rebel and kick in the appetite hormones to drive us nuts... then wouldn't that be a miracle? i mean, dang... we already have a bunch of stuff tooo fix... all the bazillion reasons we ate for years anyway... i so hope i can beat the body set point problem. and it may really mean going slow. i would rather take 5 years and get there slowly than never get there. if i don't get there, i will die too soon. either i will just lay down and wait or my body will give up. i just know that going zoom zoom, never ever worked for me. i always gained everything back and more. so... would i use those old calculations. nope. i would use the bmi calculators and then adjust to what is really happening with me.... because a couple weeks i go down and a couple weeks i go up from water retention. but... if i am not overeating.... then the peaks get lower, the lows get lower and it really is more like the green line on the weight log... clear as mud, huh? ;) hope this helps. jules |
Ok, well thats what I based my caloric intake that I'm using now - the CC tools (the ones you linked to). It tells me I burn 2900, and that I should be consuming 2036, and I am eating around 1700 cals/day, which is not much under their recommended 2036. That is for a sedentary lifestyle - when I do any exercises (at home, the gym, etc) then it is added in seperately with the Activity Log. The way I have been doing it is, I am allowed 1700 cals/day to start. If I burn any with exercise, then I deduct it from that 1700. So, if I do (for example) 400 cals of exercises, it takes me down to 1300 cals. So now what I will do for the remainder of the day is 'catch up' and eat whatever the balance of the 1700 cals I hadn't eaten PLUS the 400 I burned off to bring me back up to the 1700 cals/day consumed. So ultimately, at the end of the day, between what has been consumed and what has been burned, my total will be approximately 1700 cals (consumed). Makes sense? |
380s? way to go willow! woo-hoo! you are melting before our very eyes... SWEET! hey, you know, i was thinking...after you looked at the zigzag calculator and mentioned the same kind of thing... maybe you should be looking at the 'extreme' numbers, the 8x numbers, until you get down to, i dont know, some threshhold, like 300? just a thought... oh yeah...happy birthday! 42 aint so bad...40, now that was a tough one :) |
Great job on the loss!!! Keep up the good work!!! |
watergirl - I went back to that site to check out what the cals/day would be under the extreme, for my current weight and it gives me 3120 cals/day. However that is zig-zagging, so I am guessing some days would also be less than that - like approximately 2700 cals/day..?? I had been zig-zagging between 1500-1700, keeping more closely to the 1700 end than the 1500 one. Even doing 2000 calories might help me with those mad munchy days - even if I just do the 2000 cals on those particular days. |
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