Giant Box of Fat and Sugar

Totally worth it.

Decisions

I have decided I am not going to count calories or even think about them much at all.

The truth is that while they are useful for people who need to loose weight, I do not fit in that category and loosing weight is not my main aim.

Also, I have not put on weight all year, but have actually gone down a couple of kilograms just by being a little more careful and starting to exercise a little more. I don't eat too much. Maybe I don't eat enough of the "right" foods, but I'm not eating junk... I can't even remember the last time I had McDonald's and the thought of KFC makes me feel sick.

I desire to get fit. I actually wouldn't be surprised if I start eating more, like I used to when I was bushwalking every weekend back in January. Seriously, I was eating 2-3 times as much and still loosing weight (which indicates that I was eating way below what I needed to).

Most of all, I dislike how thinking of calories steals my joy and makes me feel confined. I'm doing this to improve my life not make it harder.

As an aside, I realise that calorie counting is useful for some people, and suits them, or that it may simply be necessary. For me, however, it doesn't sit right. 

So yes, my decision: eat well and don't worry.

Making this journal helpful

I am very much afraid that I am going to have to dive into previously unexplored waters if this journal is to be any use.

I'm talking about calorie counting - a thing I have previously despised. However, I recently found out what a calorie actually is, which makes them more tangible and therefore graspable and not quite so despicable. 

For the past, oh, half an hour or so, I've been busy finding out my BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate - the minimum amount of calories we need daily just to breathe and keep our heart beating). Apparently mine is 1,439 calories a day (calculated with this Basal Metabolic Rate & Daily Energy Requirements Calculator ).

If I factor in being moderately active (which is defined as "Moderate exercise/sport 3-5 days/wk"), my total energy requirement are 2,230 calories per day. At the moment, though, my energy requirements are probably more like 1,980 calories a day, as I am more "lightly active" than "moderately active".

(I think I have either an eyelash or mascara in my eye. It hurts.)

However, my aim is not merely to loose weight, rather I am concerned with becoming fit! Because of this, I need to start exercising more, not just consume less calories. Between pilates and cardio (I want to be able to run 4km nonstop by the end of October), plus the everyday exercise of cleaning, walking up and down stairs, typing, cooking and so on, I think the energy requirements for being moderately active are an appropriate starting point for me. 

As you need to create a deficient of 3,500 calories to loose 1 pound (500 grams), this means that to start loosing weight, I need to eat less or exercise a heck of a lot more than I currently do.  Over a week, 3,500 cal equates to 500 calories a day. I have read that a good way to create this deficiency is to eat 250 cal less and exercise and burn another 250 through exercise,

Using this theory, I should be consuming approximately 2,000 cal (I rounded it to the nearest thousand) each day. If I can't exercise on a certain day, or it's a rest day, I should consume even less, probably an amount in line with being "lightly active" minus 500 cal (1,980 - 500 = 1480 cal a day, so slightly more than my BMR).

All in all, I am very new to this sort of thing, and feel a bit like I'm walking blind. It is good, however, to get all this down so I don't have to think through it all again. 

Looking at the previous post, and doing calculations for a few things, I think I may have come out pretty even with the exercise and food intake. But then, maybe I'm totally off... I don't really know. For future journal entries, I'm going to have to start calculating calories, I think!

Til another day, then!

Kathy xx