As promised, here's the follow up to earlier post on going ... er... "flex"-etarian. Part One covered some of the history and theoretical reasons for me taking on this task. I said in the last post, that when I had gone "low-protein" before that I was (among other things) still eating too much and had drastically overestimated my daily caloric need. Basically, I was eating enough calories day-to-day but the once-weekly daily binge was putting me over the edge. Fortunately I keep records of these kinds of things; here in this blog and on spreadsheets when I change or try something new. I think I was in the best physical shape when I was on training for a boxing match. So I looked back to my records and found that I was eating about 1600 calories per day with one cheat day (no holds barred) allowed. What I did this time around was try to estimate what I might have eaten on that given cheat day and divide it over the course of all seven days of the week in an attempt at more stability and regularity in my diet. After throwing some numbers around, what I came to is that I should be eating somewhere between 2100 and 2400 calories per day. Basically I'll take that one giant binge and spread it out to a daily "snack" of anything I want but with some restrictions; say, < 300 calories. We'll see how this goes, fortunately my dieting records usually correlate to exercise, sport, fitness training so I also have a bit of a gauge on how physically active I was during those times. This means that what worked when I was boxing may not produce the same results as when I'm climbing; but we'll see how it goes.
That brings me to the next point. My current lifestyle is actually rather sedentary. I spend a lot of time sitting at a desk and crunching a keyboard. There are several calculators available on the web (I would be severely in doubt of their accuracy) that can give you an estimate of your required daily caloric intake. The "better" ones will include something about exercise schedule or activity level. What I find in my current lifestyle is that I exercise frequently (5 or 6 days per week) but typically cardiovascular intensity is not very high. That is, I work out a lot, but climbing tends to put more stress on my nervous system and connective tissue than on muscular and cardio-pulmonary (heart and lung) capacities. That is of course subject to how I'm training (performance vs. endurance) but at the present time, this is how it stands.
A concept that I dubbed "Sticky Diet" is something that I've become quite a huge fan of. Basically it is a quick summary of your diet that you "stick" to your refrigerator, stove, cabinet, or anywhere in the kitchen (or wherever you cook/eat) that you'll see it frequently. My latest movement has been to use a simple checklist app on my smartphone (Google Keep has my preference). My checklist doesn't get too specific, but does divide things by meals and lists general categorical entries; for example:
- Lunch
- 160 calories Shredded Cheese
- 2 servings Vegetables
- 1 serving Fruit
- 1 serving Starch/Bean (7" tortilla, 56g pasta, etc...)
As I've said before , I'm not explicitly opposed to meat consumption, but opting to exclude as much as I can; hence milk and cheese still being permitted in my diet. I do have some other "beyond the numbers" principles that I apply here. I put some cinnamon in my coffee because it help the body regulate blood sugar better (some diabetics take cinnamon supplements). I also put lemon juice in my drinking water not just for the taste but it also help with digestion. I pretty strict about not drinking calories (i.e. soda, milk, cream & sugar in coffee). The only exception I make is my morning whey-protein/coffee combination because I usually don't feel like eating heaping bowl of eggs or oatmeal first thing in the morning but I still want to get my metabolism kickstarted with a few calories. One last psychological component, I usually shake (purchase) my daily snack out of vending machine rather than buy it with the rest of my groceries. This is purely to resist the temptation of having junk food in the home. If I get the munchies I'll be forced to munch on something nutritious. That's about all for now, I'll leave you with some specific digits and we'll see how things pan out. One last comment, I'm not terribly concerned with my body weight as I'm not presently competing in weight-class-based sports; however if I can shed a few pounds and increase my (finger)strength to weight ratio, I'm all for it. I'm also not terribly concerned about a few pounds here and there because of the 80/20 principle. If I want to loose 20% of my weight its going to take at least an additional 80% of effort. No thanks, for the time being I'll take 80% of the results for 20% of the effort :)
- Average Daily Estimates:
- Calories: 2089 (+ condiments)
- Fat: ~61.7g (26.6%)
- Carbs: ~296.6g (56.8%)
- Protein: ~100.8g (19.3%)
- * I wouldn't mind a bit more protein and fewer carb; I was aiming for a 50/25/25 split but this turned out pretty close.
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