Interlude: The Annual Question
Dec. 17th, 2021 11:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
taz_39It always gets asked, especially when I post lots of food pics:
"How do you eat all that and not gain weight?"
...and some of you have asked this because you are seriously considering making your own lifestyle changes.
You want to be able to eat lots of great food without gaining weight. I can totally relate to that!!
Here is what I do. Feel free to try any of these yourself, I hope it helps!
(TL;DR: self-discipline and taking responsibility for my choices)
To give an example of how to do this, here's the MyFitnessPal entry that I created for today, last night.
I know that we're having dinner at Universal tonight. I know I want to try butterbeer, and I know I want a piece of coffee cake today :p
I can enjoy ALL of these things while still staying within a reasonable calorie range!
I know that if Jameson's company is not providing dinner tonight, we want to eat at Cowfish Grill.
So I looked at the menu and decided I'd probably get one of their bento boxes, the one that comes with nigiri, a slider, sweet potato fries, edamame, and cucumber salad. There is no MFP entry for "Cowfish Grill Bento Box" as a single item, so instead I looked up the average calories for each item. It doesn't have to be exact, it just needs to be close to the quantities and nutrition for each food I plan to eat.
Since I want to try butterbeer, I added it next. I'm unlikely to drink a whole cup, so I reduced it to half, hoping that Jameson will drink the other half. And I know I want coffee cake, but a whole piece is estimated at over 300 calories so I will plan to exercise a little self control and cut a large piece in half. Whatever, I still get to eat it!
Once I had added the things I WANT to eat, I had a look in the fridge to figure out what else I could eat throughout the day that would keep me near my total calorie count and, if possible, keep a balanced carb/protein/fat balance as well. Oatmeal, Greek yogurt, blueberries, and hibiscus jam for breakfast (listed as cranberry jam because they are nutritionally similar). A lean turkey sandwich and chicken side salad for lunch ensure I get my proteins in, with some banana because I love me some fruit. Looking at my pie at the bottom, you can see that this gets me close to my preferred ratio of 50% carbs, 25% proteins and 25% fats for the day. It's not spot on, but that's ok, I'm not a robot. I just want to get it close if I can. Now the majority of my calories for the day are balanced as well as possible, while still including the treats I'd like to eat.
Additional things that I'm considering here are that we'll be walking A LOT at Universal tonight, probably between 8000-10,000 steps, so that will free up some additional calories for me in case I DO drink the whole butterbeer, or in case we end up eating at a different restaurant for dinner. I don't have to feel guilty about these possibilities, because I already know that the majority of my calories are healthy and balanced.
And THAT is the true key to all of this.
What do you do CONSISTENTLY?
What makes up the MAJORITY of what you eat?
200 sugar calories from a butterbeer becomes a "bad thing" when you continue to choose it day after day. When you CONSISTENTLY include it in the MAJORITY of your calorie count.
But when you consistently plan your meals, and make the butterbeer a smaller piece of your nutritional puzzle, it's not a bad thing at all. Just a nice treat that you get to enjoy :)
Edit: the wait was too long at Cowfish so we ended up with sandwiches from BreadBox instead. I got turkey bacon avocado. I also did drink the whole Butterbeer because it was awesome. And we got free drink tickets, so I had about a glass and a half of red wine. In addition, we walked over 12,000 steps which freed up 350 calories. So I STILL ended up in a healthy range because I’d planned for the butterbeer and made a semi-healthy sandwich choice tonight. It can be done!
I hope some of this makes sense, and helps some of you the way it has helped me. Even if you don’t go through all this counting and stuff, having awareness is SO helpful with making good choices while still enjoying your favorite foods.
I've posted entries like this before, but the question "How do you eat all that without gaining weight?" is one of the questions I get asked most frequently, year after year, especially around the holidays when my posts are full of delicious treats. So here is the answer once again :)
"How do you eat all that and not gain weight?"
...and some of you have asked this because you are seriously considering making your own lifestyle changes.
You want to be able to eat lots of great food without gaining weight. I can totally relate to that!!
Here is what I do. Feel free to try any of these yourself, I hope it helps!
(TL;DR: self-discipline and taking responsibility for my choices)
- I'm not eating "all that". Yesterday I baked a whole coffee cake; I did not EAT a whole coffee cake! Keep in mind that I'm not eating all of what I photograph, in one sitting or even in one week. Jameson eats some, I eat some, and we freeze or share the rest.
- For years I have used MyFitnessPal to track portions and calories. This has been important for me to do not only while bombarded with delicious food options on tour, but also while working a sedentary job during the pandemic. Knowledge is power; there is actual math out there to help you KNOW how many calories you can have without gaining weight. If you consistently eat more calories than that, you are GOING to gain weight. So I consistently don't eat more calories than that.
- Speaking of consistency. I don't yo-yo around with portion sizes or meal times or quantity. I try to stick to a meal schedule and a calorie limit per meal. Sometimes this gets broken, naturally, but the point is that your body will reflect what you do consistently over time, good or bad.
- Can't be consistent without planning ahead. If a friend asks me out for dinner, I ask where we're going. They tell me, and I take the time to Google the menu BEFORE we get there. This allows me to see what healthy options are available, or if there will be no healthy options, to agree with myself to only eat SOME of what's set in front of me and take the rest home to enjoy later. Another way that I plan ahead is knowing that I eat breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks every day. So the night before, I use MyFitnessPal to make a meal plan for the next day, and try to stick to it as much as possible.
- I don't lie to myself. If I eat more than I should have, or worse foods than I should have, I acknowledge it and accept that this was my choice to eat this way today. Once I've made that choice and eaten the food, the only thing to do is go back to consistently eating healthy the next day. There's no reason to punish myself over it, and no reason to make excuses about it or lie about it in my calorie tracker. It's just a thing that happened. I just do my best to practice self-discipline and take responsibility for my choices again tomorrow.
- I pay attention to my body. This doesn't mean being vain or obsessive. Once in a while I weigh myself. Once in a while I measure my waist, hips, chest, and thighs. Once in a while I try on an old pair of pants to see if they still fit. Paying attention to how you feel when you eat certain foods, how your body has changed over time, what your body is doing, is beneficial in so many ways. And it helps to reduce body shame, too. Your body is just Your Body. Everyone gets one, everyone's body is different, and all you can do is work with what you were given and treat your body as well as you can. Why does it have to be more complicated than that?
- I prioritize health over appearance and weight. It would be nice to look more beautiful. It would NOT be nice to destroy your teeth from throwing up your food in order to look more beautiful. Or to deprive yourself of nutrients because of a crash diet. Again, our bodies respond to what is consistently done over time. Losing 30 pounds in a week would not give my body the tools it needs to be healthy long-term. Also, everyone's body is different. Some people experience better health on a high protein diet, while others thrive with less protein and more carbs. Prioritizing what works for ME, as opposed to what's the latest trend or what worked for the people around me, has been extremely helpful in maintaining a healthy weight.
To give an example of how to do this, here's the MyFitnessPal entry that I created for today, last night.
I know that we're having dinner at Universal tonight. I know I want to try butterbeer, and I know I want a piece of coffee cake today :p
I can enjoy ALL of these things while still staying within a reasonable calorie range!
I know that if Jameson's company is not providing dinner tonight, we want to eat at Cowfish Grill.
So I looked at the menu and decided I'd probably get one of their bento boxes, the one that comes with nigiri, a slider, sweet potato fries, edamame, and cucumber salad. There is no MFP entry for "Cowfish Grill Bento Box" as a single item, so instead I looked up the average calories for each item. It doesn't have to be exact, it just needs to be close to the quantities and nutrition for each food I plan to eat.
Since I want to try butterbeer, I added it next. I'm unlikely to drink a whole cup, so I reduced it to half, hoping that Jameson will drink the other half. And I know I want coffee cake, but a whole piece is estimated at over 300 calories so I will plan to exercise a little self control and cut a large piece in half. Whatever, I still get to eat it!
Once I had added the things I WANT to eat, I had a look in the fridge to figure out what else I could eat throughout the day that would keep me near my total calorie count and, if possible, keep a balanced carb/protein/fat balance as well. Oatmeal, Greek yogurt, blueberries, and hibiscus jam for breakfast (listed as cranberry jam because they are nutritionally similar). A lean turkey sandwich and chicken side salad for lunch ensure I get my proteins in, with some banana because I love me some fruit. Looking at my pie at the bottom, you can see that this gets me close to my preferred ratio of 50% carbs, 25% proteins and 25% fats for the day. It's not spot on, but that's ok, I'm not a robot. I just want to get it close if I can. Now the majority of my calories for the day are balanced as well as possible, while still including the treats I'd like to eat.
Additional things that I'm considering here are that we'll be walking A LOT at Universal tonight, probably between 8000-10,000 steps, so that will free up some additional calories for me in case I DO drink the whole butterbeer, or in case we end up eating at a different restaurant for dinner. I don't have to feel guilty about these possibilities, because I already know that the majority of my calories are healthy and balanced.
And THAT is the true key to all of this.
What do you do CONSISTENTLY?
What makes up the MAJORITY of what you eat?
200 sugar calories from a butterbeer becomes a "bad thing" when you continue to choose it day after day. When you CONSISTENTLY include it in the MAJORITY of your calorie count.
But when you consistently plan your meals, and make the butterbeer a smaller piece of your nutritional puzzle, it's not a bad thing at all. Just a nice treat that you get to enjoy :)
Edit: the wait was too long at Cowfish so we ended up with sandwiches from BreadBox instead. I got turkey bacon avocado. I also did drink the whole Butterbeer because it was awesome. And we got free drink tickets, so I had about a glass and a half of red wine. In addition, we walked over 12,000 steps which freed up 350 calories. So I STILL ended up in a healthy range because I’d planned for the butterbeer and made a semi-healthy sandwich choice tonight. It can be done!
I hope some of this makes sense, and helps some of you the way it has helped me. Even if you don’t go through all this counting and stuff, having awareness is SO helpful with making good choices while still enjoying your favorite foods.
I've posted entries like this before, but the question "How do you eat all that without gaining weight?" is one of the questions I get asked most frequently, year after year, especially around the holidays when my posts are full of delicious treats. So here is the answer once again :)
