food log

[crazycanuck]

Hey,

A while back, our coach had a sports nutritionist come in and speak to us about labels etc. The nutritionist suggested taking note of the foods we ate but never thought much of it until last week.

I just started this week writing down every food i eat, how many calories in each plus the amount of exercise i do each day. I found the food & exercise diary at a local bookshop and find it an interesting yet scary experience.

I noticed on monday my calorie total was 1215 for the day but if i subtracted the calories for the excercise i did, i only took in 585. Does that sound right?? I'm a bit lost & am wondering if i'm doing something wrong.

I bought a scale last week but my aim is to weigh myself only once a week just to remind myself the numbers on the scale are just that...numbers...

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks
Cheryl

[Barb]

I suppose that is possible. Are you sure of the cals you burned? Maybe I am a light weight (ok I know that I am!) but I don't burn that many calories in during my average work out. I have been logging what I eat and exercise while working with a nutrionalist and exercise physiologist. We figured out my Basil Metabolic Rate and the additional calories I would need if I exercised X amount during the week. It was really interesting and helpful. She did warn me not do eliminate more than 500 calories in any one day. You need 3500 cal deficit to loose 1 lb. ( I aim for that every week).

[DeniseGoldberg]

My sense is that you're not taking in enough calories for your level of exercise. I have two sports nutrition books that I really like, both written by registered dieticians. They are down to earth books, may be worth a look: Eat Smart, Play Hard : Customized Food Plans for All Your Sports and Fitness Pursuits by Liz Applegate, and Nancy Clark's Sports Nutrition Guidebook by Nancy Clark. Both are available at Amazon.com.

I just did a quick search on the web and found a "healthy body calculator" that seems pretty reasonable. It's on the site Ask the Dietician, which is also authored by a registered dietician. The calculator is at http://www.dietitian.com/ibw/ibw.html

Just out of curiosity, I ran through the calculator a couple of times. With what I would consider a normal work day - which includes 1 to 2 hours of moderate exercise, I came up with a caloric requirement of 2230. I suspect serious cycling falls somewhere between moderate and heavy exercise. If I put in 4 hours of moderate exercise, my calorie needs come out to 2610, and if I put in 4 hours of heavy exercise my calorie needs show as 3040. So likely somewhere between 2610 and 3040. But even my average daily rate, assuming my sedentary work (I sit at a computer all day...) and an hour or 2 of exercise comes out to a lot more than the 1200+ calories that you say you are eating. (Even with no exercise I still came out to need 1800 calories. Oh, and of course height & weight plays in here too - I'm around 5 ft 5 inches and weigh about 115 pounds.)

--- Denise

[tattiefritter]

That sounds very, very low to me unless you are a really tiny person! I struggle on less than 1800 - 2000 cals a day, more if I exercise hard! I'm around 5ft 5 and 140 pounds but I have always struggled with keeping my blood sugar on an even keel and need to eat quite regularly. Where are you getting the calorie counts from?

I have also just re-started taking note of everything I eat again as I have put on a few pounds lately. I use fitday (www.fitday.com) which is a free online tool. I like it because it gives you the breakdown of your carbs/fat/protein for the day as well as overall calories, I tend to eat a diet too high in carbs at the expense of protein and fat and this helps me balance things a bit. I used it a lot last year and looking through my entries for then it seems that 2000 cals was generally the magic number for me to train reasonably well and still lose weight (except for my long Sunday MTB ride, I ate as much as I wanted then).

There is a BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate) calculator on the concept2 (http://www.concept2.co.uk/training/bmr.php) website that gives you an idea of the amount of calories you need daily. It uses your sex/age/weight as a base then you add on your activity level, my calculation came to 2700 a day.

[Dianyla]

That definitely doesn't sound like enough calories. Either you're not eating enough, or you're not calculating portion sizes properly. The thing that always gets me is when I eat/drink a small container of something and then look at the nutrition label and see "150 calories" and think OK, that's 150. Oh, wait! it's 2.5 servings per container!

I use http://www.calorieking.com for calorie and exercise tracking. It's not free like fitday, but it's fairly economical (something like $30/year) and the improved database and user interface is worth it to me.

[Nanci]

I use the Calorie King software on my Palm. I love it! I had a problem Saturday, though, making it believe I could ride a bike for 16 hours, burning 10,000-some calories. It counts them, but just says ERR. I took in about 4000.

Cheryl,

I'm suspicious of your calorie count. I _struggle_ and have to watch _everything_ and weigh/measure everything and have absolutely no treats to hit 1300. But I think the amount burned for cycling, 600? is perfectly reaasonable. That's roughly an hour at 14mph.

Nanci

[Dianyla]

I use the Calorie King software on my Palm. I love it! I had a problem Saturday, though, making it believe I could ride a bike for 16 hours, burning 10,000-some calories. It counts them, but just says ERR. I took in about 4000.

Goodness, I can't say I've ever had that problem! I use the web version because I don't have a handheld and that way I can access it from any internet connection and update it. Could you maybe just enter in two 5,000 calorie events? Or is it a daily max total that you're hitting.

Boy, I'd love to see what the staff there think of that bug report.

[crazycanuck]

I think i'm going to ingest what you ladies have said & go back to square one..
I have nanci clark's book & will sit down & re read it....

Will let you know more a bit later..

Thanks
C

[RedCanny]

Good luck! As I've been trying to lose a total of 20 lbs over several months, this calorie counting business has been a real eye-opener; I'm still trying to figure out what is a good deficit for actual weight loss for me. 500/day may indeed be a magic number: there have been weeks were I had too much of a deficit, and lo and behold, I plateau'ed, if not gained a few back.

One question I have for the CalorieKing users... have you compared it much to FitDay (I use that one)? I'm curious to know if it seems more accurate with foods or activity calorie counts, if it is easier or more fun to use, or ...?

[han-grrl]

MOST people who exercise don't eat enough to support their exercise habits...

for weight loss, you dont' want the difference between calories out/in to be too huge, other wise your body won't want to give up what it has since it thinks the body is under some weird stress.

when you start keeping track of your eating habits, you start to realize how FEW calories certain things have (like salads)...

[RedCanny]

when you start keeping track of your eating habits, you start to realize how FEW calories certain things have (like salads)...

Yes! Last night I was scrambling to find another 400 calories. It was hard, esp. as I would've been better off eating them earlier in the day.

[Dianyla]

One question I have for the CalorieKing users... have you compared it much to FitDay (I use that one)? I'm curious to know if it seems more accurate with foods or activity calorie counts, if it is easier or more fun to use, or ...?

Well, I may not be the best example but I tried to use FitDay for about... 2 days! Got sick of it and went back to CK. I had already been using the free database on Calorie King to look up data for my own manual calorie tracking for years. You can look things up for free, and I found the contents of their database to be more complete and up to date. At the time when I tried it (~1 year ago) FitDay seemed to have mostly generic food items. CalorieKing has generic items but it also has a wide range of packaged store-bought foods as well as restaurant and fast-food stuff.

I use the web version, btw.

[Nanci]

Hey, you're from my home town!! Born in St. Paul, raised in Roseville, lived in St. Paul, Maplewood and Stillwater until I bailed out to Florida when I was 39...

I am not familiar with FitDay. I have used Calorie King Diet Diary since last July. What I like about it is it has a good database- lots of restaurants, pretty much every type of food I eat, plus the ability to save my own foods if they are not in the database, plus the ability to save groups of foods I commonly eat, for example, bun, turkey burger, slice of swiss cheese. I keep it on my Palm (there is a desktop version, too) so I have it with me everywhere. I have not missed counting a single day, meal, snack, exercise since I started in July- so it must be easy to use and semi-entertaining/not annoying.

Since July I have lost about 30#, going by the recommended amount of calories suggested by Diet Diary, based on height/weight and activity level, and whether I wanted to gain, lose or stay the same. To help it along, I round down the recommended amount. If I do a short ride, I don't replace those calories, but on longer rides I replace about a quarter to half of what I burn.

Works for me!

But, works much better with daily cycling, not weekends only.

Nanci

[RedCanny]

Well then, I may give CK a try; there appears to be a free 7-day trial anyway. Thanks for the input!

I've had pretty good luck with Fitday- most of the stuff I eat is in there, and what isn't, I just add myself as a custom food, as most of the power-bars I eat have labels, and most of the cooking I do at home is from Cooking Light magazine, which offers nutritional data on all recipes. However, I have noticed that FitDay's estimation of calories burned in various activities, is quite different from what I read in different sources (or is not there at all. Snowboarding cal/hour, anyone?).

Cheers, and happy trails, all!

39 years in St. Paul, eh Nanci? I hope to move back out to the NW sometime with hubby, but I've been here almost 20 years, now! MN is a great place to live (I love snow).

[Nanci]

Well, Diet Diary just has skating, skiing or snowshoeing. I think, though, if you can find the calories burned for your activity _anywhere_, you can then make a custom exercise with that rate.

Who knows how accurate any of that is, anyway. That's why I err on the side of eating less, and not adding in more calories for what I burn.

Give yourself another 20 years and see how much fun snow really is!!

Nanci