Tuesday 28 June 2011

The science part

OK, I'm going to blind you all with science now (or possibly just make you fall asleep - up to you - I'm not judging).

For someone of my weight, the daily calorie guideline is approx 2,100 to maintain current weight.  In order to lose a couple of pounds a week, I need to create a calorie deficit of approx 1,000 calories a day.  Some of this will come from reducing my food, while some will come from increasing my activity.

So here's how it went for day one:

Got up, walked the dog, then headed to work. In total I burned 290 calories this morning, just from walking. Whoop!

For breakfast I had uncooked porridge oats, mixed up with a splash of skimmed milk and some Rachel's Organic low fat yoghurt. I love this yogurt, has anyone tried it?  Today I had the elderflower & apple flavour and it is delici0us.  This is a fairly typical breakfast for me (unless I pop into M&S on the way to the office and grab a cinnamon swirl - lovely, but quite a bit more naughty!) and you can always spice it up a bit by adding some fruit to it - raspberries, strawberries, anything really. A friend put me onto this breakfast some time ago and I've never looked back!

Mid morning snack - some edamame followed by a bag of sesame sticks. Case in point - not everything that you can buy from Holland & Barrett is good for you! I do love this snack though, and had a bag of them left in my desk drawer.  I'm not going to beat myself up over the fact that I ate them, I've factored them into my calories for the day.
Om nom nom - edamame

1pm arrived and I headed to the gym for a quick 30 minute lunchtime session.  I went on the crosstrainer and burned 340 calories. Whoop.

When I got back to the office I had a quick spot of lunch.  Today's lunch is not typical.  I usually have a sandwich, a salad or possibly some reheated leftovers. Today I had low fat Brussels paté on some water biscuits. The paté needed eating up, but I have a feeling that this v. light lunch will leave me feeling a bit peckish late afternoon.

4pm. Waaaaaah! I want to eat something! But I'm not actually hungry, so I won't.

I'm going to post this before I leave the office for the day, but I'll let you know that for dinner I'm having one of my favourites.  It's essentially spaghetti bolognese but instead of pasta, I have bulgar wheat.  I call it Beefy Bulgar and I made a big batch of it for dinner yesterday, so now have another three portions to work my way through for the remainder of the week.  If anyone ever wants a recipe for the things I mention here, just say the word and I'll post it.

Daily summary:
Calories eaten: 1,500
Calories burned: 630
Calorie deficit: 1,230

Quote of the day - from Kim Peek - the real guy that the film Rain Man was loosely based on:
"Learn to recognise differences in others and treat them like you would want them to treat you.  It will make this a better world to live in. Care and share and do your best. You don't have to be handicapped to be different - everybody is."

1 comment:

  1. Great - I like the science. I am rubbish at understanding calorie requirements and content of food, so it's good that you are able to work it out.
    Don't want to be a party pooper, but is there a level of calories that we use just standing still? Like the walk - would you use 50 calories by lying on the floor? I mention this in case there is a 'correction' to be done on te calories used so you don't over-estimate. You may already have taken this into account though.
    Hope it's helpful.
    Hope you survived the big wet day today.

    ReplyDelete