Scott's nutrition log

[Scott]

[For complete intro and workout log: http://simplefit.org/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=452]

I'm following Weight Watchers and avoiding highly processed foods, high sodium, refined sugar, etc. Lots of lean meat, whole grains, vegetables, legumes, etc. I weigh 150 lbs at 5'9" and am not really worried about scale weight. I'm primarily worried about my body composition; I'd like to lower my bodyfat and add a little muscle. Right now, I'm "skinny-fat" -- with my shirt on, I look OK, but with my shirt off, I look like a weedy guy who really needs to do some pullups and pushups and clean up his diet.

TODAY'S FOOD:

Breakfast:
- chicken breast with brown rice and vegetables, simmered in veg. stock
- Muscle Milk Light pre-made protein shake

Lunch:
- same as breakfast

Dinner:
- tuna with vegetables simmered in stock, and shredded potatoes fried in a little olive oil.

I'll be fine-tuning the diet as I go. Unfortunately, my work schedule does not allow frequent feeds.

[Admin]

Looks good, the rice and potatoes and fructose in the muscle milk might still spike your insulin so if you do not continue to see the progress you want I would cut them first and replace with more veg or maybe a little fruit.

[Scott]

Tuesday, July 3, 2007
Not a good day. Between work and other commitments, I didn't plan my calorie intake for the day well and ended up starving by evening, so I ate Wendy's.

I've addressed the problem by picking up the supplies to cook up (and more importantly, store) a convenient, healthy five-meals-a-day ahead of time, and will spend a small chunk of my day off tomorrow cooking and storing.

Bleah. Back on the horse tomorrow.

[Scott]

Wednesday, July 4, 2007
Didn't do Weight Watchers today because of holiday, but kept track of calories and protein.

Breakfast:
Canned corned beef hash + egg beaters.

Lunch:
Chicken breast marinaded in low-fat sesame garlic sauce, pineapple, vegetables.

Dinner:
Chicken breast in bbq sauce.

Second dinner:
Chicken breast in bbq sauce.

Came in at a little over 2,000 calories, with over 160 g of quality protein. Much more sodium and saturated fat than I'd normally have because of the corned beef hash. It's also significantly more protein than I really need (my daily target is 112g of protein), so I need to adjust that so I'm getting enough complex carbs and fiber.

I'll be back on Weight Watchers tomorrow. Today my goal was just to eat reasonably on the holiday.

I've had 4 diet sodas so far today ... I'm limiting myself to 6 as I start tapering down.

EDIT: 6 sodas total for the day, and finished off the corned beef hash and egg beaters stuff I made for breakfast. Total calories for the day = about 2,500.

[ucffool]

Regarding soda... don't keep it in the house. That helped me go from 1 can a day to maybe once a week if I go out to dinner, usually less than 8oz.

[Scott]

Thursday, July 5
Today's weight was 151 lbs. Not bad considering my previous two days' bad eating.

Allotted 27 Weight Watchers points for today (22 for my weight, plus 5 of my weekly flex points).

Made a giant crockpot of low-fat chili last night to eat throughout the day. Also have some leftover Muscle Milk Light protein shakes I'm trying to drink up.

Breakfast: Chili, one slice fat-free cheese, microwaved vegetables.
Snack: Protein shake.
Lunch: Chili, microwaved vegetables, sugar-free jell-o.
Snack: Protein shake.
Dinner: Chili, microwaved vegetables, sugar-free jell-o.
Post-run treat: Weight Watchers ice cream bar, some All-Bran crackers.

Tomorrow morning I suspect I'll be under 150 lbs, so my Weight Watchers points base will go down to 20, which means I'll end up eating about 25 points worth of food.

I'm honestly not too worried about my scale weight ... my body composition is what concerns me, so I'll have to experiment with the right amount of food.

[NatureDoc]

Hi me again. More comments.

So there is this great website (I'm sure there are others)

http://www.fitday.com/

You can create an account/profile and log your food intake and your activities for the day. They have loads and loads of food in their database already, and you can add your own custom foods. It's super user friendly, and it's great because you can quantify the amount of the food (whether it be servings, or grams (oh you're american, ounces) tablespoons etc. And it calculates your macro and micro nutrient intake breakdown. It can also compare your daily input and outputs to see if you are actually on tract interms of caloric expenditure. You need a 500 calorie debt per day to loose 1-2 pounds of fat per week, which is a healthy rate of weight loss / fat loss.

Lemme know how it goes!
Tonia

[Scott]

No food logging on Saturday ... kind of my relaxation day.

Sunday, July 8, 2007
I believe in actual weight terms, I'm close to where I want to be, so I'm not as concerned about maintaining a caloric deficit. It also seems like my metabolism is starting to do its thing. Therefore, I'm just going to eat mostly "clean" this week and see how things go without watching every calorie and fat gram.

If it looks like a less strictly monitored nutritional approach isn't working out, I'll go back to a more regimented plan.

In any event, I'll check out that link you provided, Tonia.

[Admin]

I agree forget calories I often eat 4k cal most from fat "olive oil" and never gain any more now that I understand insulin response and how to control it.

This is a great quote from Rob Wolf of the PM

"Whether we are in a caloric deficit or excess the main determinant of body composition is hormonal status. If the case of the paleo eater vs. a high carber, in general the balanced, low glycemic load paleo eater is going to show better hormonal control and consequently better body composition. A caloric excess may be frittered away by uncoupling proteins in the mitochondria. Food is converted to waste heat, however this will only work to a point."

[NatureDoc]

Food is my favorite topic. Hoorah!

I think calories are important to some degree. I recognize that often you male creatures have different physical goals than us female creatures. In my case logging my intake for a couple weeks was great because I was given the chance to see what I was eating on a macro and micro level. I'm losing weight and have set an arbitrary number goal which might not even be attainable as I gain muscle mass. Regardless, of whether one is trying to lose weight, to change one's body composition (from flabby to tight ie get ripped) one needs to create a caloric deficit of about 500 cals per day to lose/change 1 pound of fat mass. I'm a pretty conscientious eater and by that I mean I'm a food snob, because it is the basis of how I choose to live my life and how I treat my patients naturopathically (with the addition of some herbs, supplements, acupuncture... etc). So we are losing fat mass which means our metabolically active lean tissue increases in relation to our fat mass, and up goes the basal metabolic rate!

But of course the content of food we eat can drastically affect our body composition. Eating protein and fiber (hooray leans meats and veggies) slows our gastric emptying, and blunts the insulin response. Insulin is the hormone of storage and not buring calories. Glucagaon is all about expending energy, this is of course what we want to do. So with the foods we choose to eat we can alter the insulin/glucagon ratios such that we are expending energy more often than we are storing it (as you alluded to Kevin.) Tada!! Increasing our BMR!!

Then... you toss in exercise where you further improve the lean to fat by actually building muscle mass and the BMR sores. So when you are sitting for 10 hours a day studying for your Naturopathic liscencing exams and taking breaks to check out the latest thread in simplefit.org you are burning calories! Hoorah!!

Another great website I personally endorse is whfoods.com. The site is all about the "world's healthiest foods" according to the sites authors, of course. Their criteria is basically highest nutrient density packed into the lowest cal whole foods. Some great recipes too, and great info about vitamins, and solid break downs of their fav foods.

Oh shoot... i gotta go
lates

[Admin]

Great points thintonia,

The thing I was driving at and I think it is very interesting because it goes against everything we have learned, is that without insulin it is not physically possible to store fat.

This is what happens to diabetics, when they can't get insulin they eat and eat and eat but will always wither away.

Since fat does not impact insulin an extreme example (don't ever try this) is eating 100% # of calories you require a day from fat would still lead to extreme weight loss.

[NatureDoc]

yeah because to the body calories are calories... regardless of their source.

In diabetes type 1 they whither away. This is an auto immune condition where the body produces antibodies against the cells in the pancreas (beta cells) that produce insulin. This disease is also called starvation in the midst of plenty, because there are nutrients around, but just not the mechanisms to get the nutrients into the cells.

In diabetes type 2 the opposite happens. There is too much insulin. It's associated with lifestyle risk factors like high waist to hip ratio (central obesity), high BMI, poor diet, hypertension, sedentary, smoking etc. These people are storing stuff all the time... and eventually the receptors become insensitive to the insulin which is when we start to see the same sort of sequelae as diabetes mellitus type 1 such as the peripheral neuropathy, nephropathy and blindess.

I just realized this discussion is all happening in Scott's food log! Sorry Scott.

[Scott]

No worries, I'm not going to be logging my food intake religiously for a while, so go nuts.

[carlyse_09]

This site is really great for the healthy ideas about proper diet..I will recommend this site to all my friends.

[volleyball_man]

Hi again carlyse!

Are you doing the workouts yet? Start posting your results. It's great motivation.