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Signs of Middle Age
Jul. 28th, 2012 08:34 pmI have been unusually sedentary this summer (because of the heat, and sitting around the house unemployed), and I am about to turn 40, and I have begun to live out my genetic destiny and develop my mother's little belly. (I must state for the record that I have very little to complain about in re: genetic destiny.) So I was trying to eat more vegetables and not eat just because I'm bored, which is about as close as I have ever been to dieting. mr. flea has a little more weight he'd like to lose, and is at the point of wanting to do something about it. I suggested he should keep a record of what he eats, as a first step to seeing what might be ripe for change. So we downloaded food tracker - slash - calorie counter apps (he on his iPhone, me on the communal iPod touch). Today was my first day.
The first thing I notice is how hard it is to enter things when a lot of your food is made from scratch. I guesstimated on the pizza, for example - I picked a lowish calorie commercial frozen pizza, because we make our own and are sparing with the cheese. I built my own salad and salad dressing in the calorie counter, which is sort of tedious (2 cups of lettuce, 10 cherry tomatoes, 2 tsp olive oil, 1 tsp balsamic vinegar, blah blah). I was thinking about baking tomorrow morning, but estimating the calories will be such a pain! Like, if there are 6 T of butter in 12 scones, then each scone has 1/2 T...
Overall, though, I guess I am not very surprised about what I'm learning, such as how many calories certain foods have, and such. I know how to eat well, is what the machine is telling me. Which is nice. I just need to do a little less of it, now that I am middle aged.
mr. flea immediately developed what I consider a potentially bad habit, of looking at his calorie count after dinner and saying, "ooh, I have 300 calories left, what can I eat?" While this could help limit his evening snacking (he seems to be good at following rules so far), what about those times when he doesn't actually WANT a snack, but feels like he needs to use up those calories? That seems kind of an unhealthy way to look at it.
The first thing I notice is how hard it is to enter things when a lot of your food is made from scratch. I guesstimated on the pizza, for example - I picked a lowish calorie commercial frozen pizza, because we make our own and are sparing with the cheese. I built my own salad and salad dressing in the calorie counter, which is sort of tedious (2 cups of lettuce, 10 cherry tomatoes, 2 tsp olive oil, 1 tsp balsamic vinegar, blah blah). I was thinking about baking tomorrow morning, but estimating the calories will be such a pain! Like, if there are 6 T of butter in 12 scones, then each scone has 1/2 T...
Overall, though, I guess I am not very surprised about what I'm learning, such as how many calories certain foods have, and such. I know how to eat well, is what the machine is telling me. Which is nice. I just need to do a little less of it, now that I am middle aged.
mr. flea immediately developed what I consider a potentially bad habit, of looking at his calorie count after dinner and saying, "ooh, I have 300 calories left, what can I eat?" While this could help limit his evening snacking (he seems to be good at following rules so far), what about those times when he doesn't actually WANT a snack, but feels like he needs to use up those calories? That seems kind of an unhealthy way to look at it.