Getting healthy
I've put on a few pounds over the last couple of years, so I'm trying to start eating more healthily and exercising more frequently (apparently jogging on the low-impact machine for half an hour loses me about 200 Calories -- and I can listen to HP while I do it!) to drop them (I'm partially inspired by The Biggest Loser, which is a great show!). I really need to buy a scale so that I can set a goal weight. But anyway, I decided, since eating healthily is a sine qua non of weight loss, to count calories from Monday to Friday to try to figure out what sorts of dietary changes would be helpful to me. So far it's been a very interesting project and it has confirmed several things that I have been told.
11/26
Breakfast Cal. Cal. from fat Fat (g.) Sugars (g.)
2 slices bread 220 40 4 6
1/2 tbsp. butter 50 50 5.5 0
16 oz. orance juice 220 0 0 48
1 banana 105 4 0.4 14.4
Lunch
1 apple 74 0 0 14.3
25 Cheez-Its 150 70 8 0
Dinner
3 flour tortillas 630 135 15 6
3 tsp. parmasean cheese 30 15 2.3 0
12 croutons 90 30 3 3
3 tbsp. lite Caesar dressing 135 105 12 1.5
1 jalapeno 4 0 0.1 0.5
4 c. skim milk 360 0 0 48
5 oz. chicken 138 13 1.9 0
Snack
2 packets Swiss Miss 220 30 3 40
2 tbsp. Cool Whip 25 20 2 2
__ __ _ _
2451 512 57.2 183.7 (58.5 sucrose)
11/27
Breakfast
2 slices bread 220 40 4 6
1/2 tbsp. butter 50 50 5.5 0
16 oz. orange juice 220 0 0 48
Lunch
1 mini cruller 130 85 9 6
25 Cheez-Its 150 70 8 0
Dinner
1/2 four cheese pizza 1050 360 42 21
18 pepperonis 154 132 14.3 0
Snack
1/2 slice cheesecake 180 105 11.5 9.5
1 tbsp. fudge 60 18 2 9
___ ___ ____ _
2214 860 96.3 99.5 (30.5* sucrose)
* This depends on how much of the sugar in the pizza was sucrose. Presumably it was lactose from the cheese and fructose from the tomato sauce, but it may be artificially sweetened with sucrose, those bastards!
OK, so what have I learned?
Well, for one, I've learned that eating even a small breakfast can fill you with lots of valuable Calories and sugars to give you energy throughout the day. Just eating toast and a glass of orange juice, you get 500 Calories and 50 grams of fructose. This is also why drinking juice while fasting can be so helpful in keeping your strength up.
I've also learned that fructose, found in fruit, is a much healthier type of sugar than the sucrose you'll find in sweets like chocolate. Likewise with lactose, which is found in milk and cheese.
I've also learned that, according to this Website, I should be eating somewhere around 2200 Calories a day, 44 g. of sucrose, and 73 g. of fat. What will be difficult about achieving this goal is that I like chocolate and ice cream (usually combined), which is LOADED with sucrose (see the Swiss Miss!) and cheese, which is loaded with fat and Calories (see the cheese pizza! -- this is why health nuts don't eat cheese on their pizzas).
I also learned that milk is full of Calories, which explains why when I was younger my mom complained that I drank too much milk at dinner, which filled me up and kept me from eating the more substantial food that she had cooked for me. I guess that this is also how babies are able to live on milk. At least I drink skim milk so there's no fat.
In other words, I've learned a lot, though nothing I didn't actually already know. Only know I can see it for myself, which makes it much more impactful.