V:
Sure one can stay on diet and gain weight -- if the diet offers too
many calories for a given caloric budget. That is why I am in tune
with what I need to be at certain weight. It is no different from
balancing a money budget. $1800 a month to spend...1800 calories a day
to spend. Now the only choice is how do I spend? I can spend my $1800
each month on drugs, gambling and hookers and be kicked out of my
apartment and end up dying in the street of sickness and disease. Or I
can spend it on rent, healthy food, car and gas money, a massage and a
few lotto tickets. It is up to me how I wish to break it down - but
all our choices have consequences.
Same with food. I can eat 1800 calories of 100% junk each day, get
very little 'real food,' get nil nutrition and just feed my sensation
addiction and as a result I will develop poor health and sickness. Or
I can 'eat balanced' for the most part but still have a little fun
with my eating. And if I can't have 'any fun' with my eating as some
'celibate eaters' must do, then it is just good old basic eating for
me and I must find my fun in being normal sized and healthy. But it is
all a choice. If one desires some fun with food, life will not be 100%
perfect as I wrote in my sex post, but it is our choice with what we
like and what serves us best.
My goal is try to eat as normal as I can, but I also realize I can't
ever eat as normal person would. so I try to balance these two areas.
In any case, we can all be grateful when we feel resentful for our
'diets' as deer and cow eat only grass and they don't complain...so we
can glad we are not a herbivore.
.....My discussion of this topic from an earlier post.
(...) writes:
"I would like to know the formula for finding the calories per day
that I would need to lose weight."
V writes:
For those that do not know how calories work, when you eat 3500
unburned or unneeded calories, whether in a day or over a week, it
puts on a pound of fat. (For reference: 3200 calories is the same as 4
sticks or one pound of butter.) We all burn up so much calories in a
day and my balance point at 53 years of age for my height and
metabolism and lifestyle is about 1800 to 1900 calories a day. It took
some time to figure this number out, but thorough trial and error I
now have it, although metabolisms change with age, as my caloric
balance point was about 2500 calories a day when I was 30 years old.
If you are in a big city you can get a Resting Metabolism Rate test at
a hospital or gym to find out your caloric Resting Metabolism Rate.
This Resting Metabolism Rate is very important to know since shows you
your budget in a numerical caloric figure and this gives you the
clarity to know the dividing line where good eating starts to turn to
bad eating or when you eat too many calories for your metabolism and
you start putting on the fat. I had to find it out by trial and error,
since I live in a rural area with no such test facility. The rough
calculation for a MIDDLE AGE person finding out how much to eat is
figured like this. You take 10% of the calories you CONSISTENTLY eat
each day and this will be your weight if you live sedentary life with
little or no exercise. This is a ROUGH calculation only and varies
with age, lifestyle and gender, but it works for me where I am at with
my life. Each of you must figure it yourself to find your caloric
balance point, and as you age this point will vary. But, once you have
some clarity in how to figure this number you can design a diet that
will take you to your goal weight.
One important note when you figure this calculation - you must be
steady with the calories you eat when you are figuring it out. You
cannot figure this number if you eat 3000 calories one day, then 2200
the next, then 1100 after that and 4200 the day after that and so on.
You must be somewhat steady and within a 100 to 150 calories a day or
less difference each day to learn from this. The more exacting in
consistency each day you can get the better. It doesn't matter if you
are consistent with eating 4000 calories a day. Eat it consistently
and see where it gets you then go from there. Once you settle on a
daily caloric figure you see what that figure gives you in body weight
then you have somewhere to start from when deciding how much you need
to eat to get where you want to be. If you lose no weight at the
figure you consistently eat at you must cut back. If you are gaining
weight at this consistent figure then you have the answer right there.
Your body will tell you what the figure is if you can listen to it.
For Example: If you eat 3000 calories per day and are sedentary you
could weigh in the 300 pound range. This calculation would apply to
female middle aged couch potatoes that sits at home all day and does
not move around much. I find that most people can add 250 to 400
calories to this figure to get a realistic reading. So, a middle age
300 pounder that works or exercises might be eating 3400 calories per
day on average. If they can eat more calories than this and not be
heavier they are blessed with a high metabolism, if the opposite is
true for them then they suffer from slower metabolism. Some overweight
people blame their fat on slow metabolisms? None of us have dead
metabolism that turn air to fat, if we stop eating we will starve to
death.
No one gets fat from breathing air and drinking water, even though
many overeaters swear to this belief. We each have a caloric balance
point whether it is a slow metabolism or not and for success with
weigh loss over the long haul we need to have clarity of what that
caloric number is. It is no different from the debtor that has a
financial balance point with their budget. If they stay within their
budget they are debt free, if they go beyond their financial balance
point or budget they are in debt. We debt to ourselves with fat when
we refuse to live within our caloric budget. With my lifestyle and
activity level, I can add 400 calories to the 1500 calories I need to
maintain 155 pounds, so this is where I get the 1900 calories a day
diet to live on. (Actually I try to eat 1800 per day 6 days a week and
can eat up to 2500 calories on Sundays when I eat breakfast with the
family.) All these figures don't have to exact. Some days I eat a
little more, some days less. But, on average I have to fit into the
caloric budget or will put on the fat. In addition, we burn a slightly
different amount of calories each day even if we do the same thing and
work at the same activities. Many variables with calories such as
external and internal temperature, stress and just the fact hat we are
not perfect calorie burning machines.
This brings up a point about the 2 types of fat people: Those that are
fat by desire and those that are fat by design. Those that
compulsively overeat are fat by desire (Even though they say they
don't desire to be fat, it is from their choosing.) Those that are fat
from ignorance of calories are fat from design. Such as traveling
salesman or busy people that don't necessarily eat that much or
compulsively eat, they just don't eat smart and eat too many calories
for their caloric budget from lack of clarity and knowledge. I can
tell you flat out, if I was not an overeater but added the "normal"
American breakfast of eggs, sausage, flapjacks with sweetened coffee
each morning I'd be fat - unless I cut those calories out someplace
else during the day. I just don't burn all those calories as I did
when I was young to eat 3 big meals, so, I must divide my calories
throughout the day somewhat methodically or I will be fat.
If we look at all the older people with pot belies, they ere the young
trim people of yesterday for the most part, but slowing metabolisms
caught up with them. As we age, we lose muscle as well as having our
metabolism slow down and this produces the double whammy effect that
just snowballs with more and more fat on our bodies. When we add a
pound of muscle through exercise such as weight training the pound of
muscle burns an extra 50 calories a day while resting, so the more
muscle we add the more calories we burn for free. (Some sources claim
this figure to be less if your muscles are inactive.) As we lose a
pound of muscles as we age the opposite holds true. so, our good diet
of today becomes the bad diet of tomorrow. Same calories only now
those same calories produces fat on our aging bodies that used to not
be fattening when we were younger. I think most of us on these lists
are fat from compulsively eating, but either way fat by design or fat
by desire, we need to have clarity about calories and nutrition if we
want to succeed with weight loss.
If a person refuses to count calories from some personal prejudice or
just lazy, they must be on a pre planned and pre weighed diet. This
way, someone has done the work for you. One thing is for sure, they
cannot keep on directing their own eating as their own direction got
them into all this mess, so they need some other standard that what
they feel like eating that day. With calorie counting, it is no big
deal for me since I soon learned the numbers for most foods and it
becomes second nature just as I write down my money with my Debtors
Anonymous program. I have been recording my finances and spending
since 1987 and recording my food and calories since the late 1990's. I
can tell you flat out, if I did not have this numerical clarity with
my food and finances I'd be sunk with my OA and DA programs.
As far as diets? My diet is diverse, nature based, balanced and based
on the food pyramid. Remember those of you that hate the word "diet"-
the word diet comes from the Greek word meaning "way of living" and we
all need a new way of living if our old way is not working for us.
When I lost my final 25 pounds of fat it was from cutting back 300
calories a day for many months and that was how I lost all the other
previous fat by cutting back few hundred calories until each plateau
in weight loss, then I would cut back some more if I wanted to lose
more fat. I lost the weight slow and consistently in a sustainable
manner eating a balanced diet. All these fad diets that are
unsustainable and not healthy can be harmful to you in the long run.
You need sustainability, for once you are off the old unbalanced diet
the fat comes back with your normal unhealthy eating patterns. The
only difference between my losing weight diet and my normal diet as of
now is the losing weight diet was on average 15% less calories per day
than the one I am on now. With eating 300 calories per day less I was
able to lose almost 2-3 pound per month to finally get the rest of my
fat off.
When I was heavier I had to cut back more, since I was eating over
2800 calories a day, but through trial and error I kept cutting back
with the calories when I would plateau and the weight stopped coming
off. I cut back from 2800 calories to 2400, then down to 2200 and then
to 2000. After each plateau in weight loss I would need to cut back
if I wanted to get to my goal (normal) weight. You see, the numbers
will tell you themselves what you need to do, If you stop losing
weight at 2500 calories a day, then you need to cut back to 2200
calories a day to see that that figure gives you and if that is not
enough you cut back some more. We are all different with all different
metabolic rates you we each need to figure our own numbers. If you
were towing sleds in Antarctica like a couple of women explorers did
they figured they need 5000 calories a day to stay balanced. But, once
they returned home they had to go back to a normal eating plan as
their workload was drastically changed and they did not have to burn
calories battling frigid temperatures as well. Once I have my diet
worked out I now have a "way of living" that can allows me to be at
peace with food. But, I must also practice acceptance as well as work
the 12 steps to find consistent peace and work a balanced recovery
program.
Balanced living is very important to addicts. You can lose weight by
eating a 1000 calories a day diet of candy bars. But is it healthy?
Is it sustainable? Is it balanced? What about vomiting and laxatives
so you can artificially eat more food? Working yourself ragged
exercising day and night to the point of ill health to eat more? All
must be answered as NO! These are not healthy or sustainable practices
for a lifetime of weight control. So make your losing weight diet and
lifestyle healthy and sustainable so the switch back to normal eating
is not that different from a diet of weight loss eating, with the main
difference just being less calories by 15%-20%. Healthy diets, being
smart about nutrition and calorie counting only goes so far - don't
neglect the spiritual end of recovery. In the 12 step programs we need
to work the steps as well and watch our stress. If our lives are in
ruin through unbalanced and stressful living, counting calories and
study metabolic rates will do nothing for us as we stuff the food to
pacify ourselves.
Adrenal steroids (cortisol) and adrenaline are secreted when a person
is under stress reach the brain and over time can affect the structure
of the brain. When stress hormones, intended for a life or death fight
or flight situation, remain switched for an extended period, they can
slow the growth of nerve fibers in the areas of the brain responsible
for emotions and other brain functions. We also produce cortisol from
any other stressors the body perceives, whether it is physical stress,
such as a sickness, injury, surgery, or temperature extremes as well
as psychological stress that we and the world put on us.
Each of us has produces a different amount of these chemicals and has
a different sensitivity to them and this might be the missing link as
to a part of the question as to why some of us are more addictive than
others with how we each produce and react to these stress chemicals
differently. Besides fat, anger and depression can be helped with
exercise. Exercise helps remove these stress chemicals from our bodies
as well as produce other chemicals that give us a sense of well being
- endorphins. Yes, we have our own drug pusher within each of us. We
can learn to reduce the urge to pacify ourselves with food, drugs,
alcohol, compulsive spending from stress, but really need to work on
restructuring our lives so they are less stressful if we ever want to
find peace and serenity. You see, 12 steps or not, we all have to
answer to natural law. Within the boundaries of natural law is where
stress chemicals come from within us and as addicts I believe we are
super sensitized to these chemicals and we seek relief though our
various addictions. So, as addicts we should be in tune with using any
tools available to us for recovery purposes whether it is the
spiritual tools of the 12 steps or the mechanical tools of eating
right and exercise.
I find that sometime spiritual practitioners neglect the natural laws
that govern our bodies and suffer in this area from lack of living a
balanced life. Some of us forget we are spiritual beings residing in
physical bodies living in physical world and governed my both
spiritual and physical or natural laws in addition to man made laws.
We need some effort with spiritual work and some effort in physical
work for a good balance or as the Buddha recommended - taking the
middle path. Joining the simple living movent in 1996 also helped with
reducing stress and giving me a new life.
Take care,
V (Male)
Agnostic Freethinker
Practical Philosopher
AA#2
