As you are by now aware if you’ve read most of this blog, I used to be fat. Like big and fat. I am not afraid to use the word. How did I get that way? Eating, a lot. And doing nothing. Now as you also know I do loads to stuff. Running and biking and going to the gym. Not just on a schedule but to fill free time as well. To do all that work takes a lot of fuel, and that fuel for me now is food. It is not just a mindless past time anymore, eating that is. It is something I have to do.
Usually I eat healthy things now, whole foods and fresh veggies and such. These is not much processed food around the house anymore really. And I do know typically the number of calories I consume in a day. Normally if I just wanted to stay as is without doing much work I would be eating about 2000-2200 calories a day. But because of all the things I do, and the muscle mass I have just to maintain what I have I have to eat about 2800-3000 or so.
It really is a great thing to now be at a point where on a day where I have gone running or to the gym I can get a small ice cream at DQ and exclaim ‘I’m not eating this because I want it, I’m eating it because I have to!’ I need those calories. I think it was my dad that told me about an article he read about some guys climbing Mount Everest. They were doing so much work to climb and their bodies needed so much fuel to do that and keep warm that they ate sticks of butter! I’m sure it was not that desirable, but they had to do it to get the calories they needed. I’m not about to advocate that, or even try it!
There is a lot you can eat that fits into the necessary dietary needs you have, and while the months spent counting every calorie while I was losing weight seemed tedious at times, it aids me greatly now in planning out my food for the day. Once in a while I take pictures of what I am eating with the thought that I would post them here at some point. Some of it is really good looking food, and some fresh and functional. With that in mind my typical calories breakdown for the day is 600 for breakfast, 600 for lunch, 800 for dinner and 200 before bed, that’s 2200 calories. It leaves room for picking at snack at snack time at day care, or dessert with dinner. I never really account for milk on cereal, or things like ketchup or steak sauce or whatever either. When I was losing weight it was more like 300, 450, 600 and 100 for about 1450.
So, here is my first food thing.
Fish, rice and veggies. I’d love to tell you all kinds of wonderful things about fish and omegas and proteins and stuff. But I can not. I am not a dietician. What I do know is that per 100g there is usually less than 100 calories in fish. If you make 1 cup of minute rice (dry) and eat the whole thing that is about 300 calories and veggies while filling and healthy have very few calories, especially carrots it seems. Oddly enough there is milk in the picture, I usually have Coke Zero. On the plate there is maybe 400 Calories.
You know why there is milk in the picture??? Because this is one of the photos I took for the health assignment I created for my grade 1 students. (See soya sauce on rice that you never add?) But, this is a typical meal for Chris if you double the amount of all food items on the plate. Oh to have a high metabolism like my husband.
ReplyDeleteWhy is it on my phone then? Anyways, double is a bit extreme 2 pieces of fish and a bit more rice, still would only make 600 which would be a typical weekend meal.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I just rode my bike all the way to Lakefield and had ice cream, not because I wanted it, but because if I hadn't stopped to eat it I would have died :)