Food/Diet
If you follow this thread, you will know that I was always the really skinny kid who could never put on weight. I’m not sure if it was that my parents wanted me to grow bigger/stronger, or if it was just that I was raised as my parents were raised with the “clean your plate” mentality when it came to eating. It made sense at the time, and to a degree I really enjoyed it. I could eat HUGE amounts of food for my size and never really put on any muscle or fat weight. My step mother used to ask if I had a wooden leg where I stored all of my food when I would go back for a 3rd helping of dinner. This was fine when I was younger and had a metabolism that was running 100mph, but as I grew a few years older this became a problem. You see, I made it a habit to eat until I was full (stuffed actually) every time I ate. I didn’t eat until I wasn’t hungry, I ate until it was painful to take another bite. My regular meal when I went to McDonalds was 2 Big Mac’s, Super Sized French fry, Super Sized Coke (according to their webpage that’s 2160 calories using large drink and fries since they don’t have super sized anymore). I would eat like that 2-4 times a day and also snack like any good red blooded American kid, and had no problems. My weight was fine, cholesterol was fine, and was in good health. When things started to slow down, this became a huge problem. I had been eating like that ever day for years, and that is a hard habit to break.
When I started to learn about nutrition and what was necessary to burn fat, one of the first things I had to figure out how to do was how to cut calories out of my diet. I realized that I could work out like a madman, but unless I cut my calorie intake way back, the changes in my body would happen slowly over a long period of time. The obvious things that I did to lower my calorie intake: I learned the basics of how many calories were in a given food and where to obtain that information (almost all fast food places have this info published in their places of business as well as online). I tried to eliminate extra liquid calories that didn’t really give me anybenefit(when I was in Grad school, I was taking in close to 1000 calories in soft drinks and beer every day, and that was usually no more than 2 beers a day). I also learned to moderate the extras (junk food?) that I ate in accordance with how I was wanting to change my diet. If I was really trying to lean down (like now) I cut the chips, fries and that type of thing out of my diet all together. If I’m trying to maintain I still eat them, but try to keep tabs and make sure it’s not excessive.
One of the most important things that I learned when I started getting back into shape, was that I could train myself to only eat until I was no longer hungry, and not until I was full. I was surprised to find out that in most cases it did not take that much food to keep me from being hungry. This was a key point, because it meant I could eat just about anywhere I wanted to eat, and still lean down or maintain my weight. Instead of eating a foot long sub, bag of chips and soft drink at lunch, I learned that I could have a 6 inch sub, and large diet Coke and be totally satisfied. I can have the Big Mac, or the Chicken Selects or Whopper with cheese and be fine if I switched to diet drinks or water and didn’t eat the French fries. In doing this I could cut my meal from 1200 or 1300 calories down to 350-600 calories. It would take me 6 miles, and about an hour on the treadmill to burn of the calories that I saved just by eating smaller portions, cutting out the chips and going to diet (or unsweetened tea or water works too).
I don’t think that you have to be a health nut in order to change your diet so that you can lose weight. I don’t’ think you should have to eat grilled chicken at every meal, salad or tofu, avoid all fried foods and fear restaurants and fast food. If you understand what is in all of the food, do a little research to learn what you are eating, come up with a general goal for how many calories you want to take in per day or per meal, you will find that there are lots of foods you can eat and still achieve your goal. Like I’ve said before, I’m a real guy with a real life. I work behind a computer like many of you do and can’t maintain a diet that doesn’t allow me to eat where normal people eat.
