Daily Whatevers, + Calorie Talk

I have been working on the whole eating right and working out thing, I swear. I just haven’t blogged about it.

I’m a student. It’s my last semester at a university where I am required to buy the $1800/semester meal plan for 3 meals a day and 2 on weekends. I basically eat at a buffet daily. Not only a buffet, but a buffet where it is mathematically impossible to eat a full meal and drink for under 500 calories / meal and where pizza, burgers, and fries are standard at every meal. I maintain that pizza that isn’t laden with grease can be healthy in moderation. It better be, as some nights it is my only real option.

Generally, I wake up around 8am, eat some oatmeal and a scone if they have them (~500 calories total for breakfast). Then, I work on my thesis until around 11:30am when I kill myself on the elliptical for 20 minutes (theoretically burning 200+ calories), shower, and either make myself some soup or go to lunch for a salad or garden burger. Dinner is whatever is edible and under 600 calories, which is what I try to allow myself for every meal.

Last semester I took a class on Ethnobotany and one of the projects that we did was record the food and calories of everything that we ate. Appalled at how much I was initially eating (I think it was like 2,500 calories or something like that), I looked up what I should be eating, and that’s when I discovered BMR. Another blog that talked about this and goes into it in more detail is this one.

Despite not like math - at all - following a BMR-based diet is really easy. It made me aware of what I am eating, how I am eating, and what I should be eating. Which is what our culture seems to have a problem with. BMR is what your individual body should be getting based on your age, weight, and sex.

I’m a woman, so my formula is:
BMR = 655 + (4.35 x weight in pounds) + (4.7 x height in inches) - (4.7 x age in years)
Which, for me is:
655+(4.35 x 215) + (4.7 x 66) - (4.7 x 21) = 1801.75

Now I factor in my activity. Which, frankly, despite attempting to hit the gym daily, it pretty sedentary. So I take 1.2 and times it by 1801.75 = 2,162.1
If I ate 2,162 calories a day I would maintain my weight. But I don’t want to maintain my weight. Obviously.
Now, apparently, 3,500 calories equal one pound of weight. So, if I cut out 7,000 calories a week I’ll loose 2 pounds a week. I also burn about 1200 calories every week working out. Which isn’t much, but it’s something.
So, in order to loose weight I need to cut some calories. I try to eat about 1,650 to 1,800 a day.

I spent about two weeks meticulously keeping track of the calories and after two weeks, I had most of the food that I eat regularly memorized. I estimate. I know that the oatmeal+brownsugar combo is a bit more than 350 calories and I know that the particular salad that I eat is about 250 calories. The cookies that they serve at Moody are about 130 calories each, etc.
So now, I don’t keep track of the calories, I just do estimations in my head and try to keep it within my range. If I get too strict, I know that I won’t follow it, so I don’t.

I’m doing pretty well, I think. At the very least, I feel better.