Sunday, 29 April 2007
Good CR day
Had my usual breakfast today of boiled egg, yogurt and fruit which came to 190 cals. Forgot the wheat bran though, so I ate a hazelnut. For lunch I had a slice of waitrose delicatessen vegetable tortilla (165) and 100g of mango (65) so after lunch I was at 420 and not at all hungry! For dinner I made a stuffed pepper but didn't measure out the ingredients... damn it. Plugged it into CoM anyway and it reckons I've had about 800 cals today. w00t!
Saturday, 28 April 2007
Chicken Kebabs - Last night's dinner
I skewered paprika covered chicken with onion, tomato, red and green pepper. Served with Tzatziki which I made with cucumber, yoghurt, dill, mint and waaay too much garlic. My Tzatziki is heavy on the cucumber.
Saturday food insanity
Due to yesterday's doughnut incident I didn't feel very hungry this morning, which is always a warning sign that I've over-eaten the day before. Usually I can't wait to chop up my little strawberries but this morning I just had a boiled egg and 5 hazelnuts. I started my first Japanese class today at SOAS which ran from 10 until 12 and I worried that if I didn't eat breakfast I might get hungry while I was out, which might have lead to unmeasurable eating. I needn't have worried though, because my two arch-nemeses Restaurant Food and Free Food thwarted my plans for anything resembling a CR day.
I met up with my friend for 1pm sushi at Kulu Kulu. I wasn't even hungry yet but I had two pieces of avocado sushi which looked a bit like these ones on the left, 4 pieces of salmon sashimi, a fish soup and a delicious but deadly mochi. Like this but without the cream. So long "not one bite" rule! This is precisely my problem with restaurant eating! :(
After the mochi indulgence I got a huge sugar craving which I managed to stave off until I got home. This was done with great difficulty because I'm completely addicted to sugar and it seemed like everyone and their goat on Regent Street had an ice cream in hand. I've developed a new trick which seems to work quite well though; whenever I see strangers eating food that I'm craving, such as a burger or ice cream, I pretend that they're eating a lump of pure lard or a cone full of butter. This distracts my mind long enough to contain the impulse to get some too.
I seriously just need to stop eating sugar altogether because if I go for long enough (usually 1-2 weeks) without it I no longer crave it at all.
On the way home I purchased some carrots, spring onions, black grapes, strawberries, raspberries and yogurt and was planning on a small dinner. By the time I got home I was pretty dehydrated and frazzled from the day so I made my favourite comfort food: guacamole. I make mine with 1 avocado, 1 spring onion, 2 tomatoes and 1 birds eye chili. I ate the whole damn lot plus 2 Onigiri my flatmate had left for me. How kind of her! Free Food strikes again. :(
I then proceeded to eat an entire bunch of black grapes, 3 strawberries, 10 hazelnuts and 5 almonds. Bleurgh... binging once again but at least this time it's not on doughnuts.
So... I've over-eaten and feel pretty crap right now.
I met up with my friend for 1pm sushi at Kulu Kulu. I wasn't even hungry yet but I had two pieces of avocado sushi which looked a bit like these ones on the left, 4 pieces of salmon sashimi, a fish soup and a delicious but deadly mochi. Like this but without the cream. So long "not one bite" rule! This is precisely my problem with restaurant eating! :(
After the mochi indulgence I got a huge sugar craving which I managed to stave off until I got home. This was done with great difficulty because I'm completely addicted to sugar and it seemed like everyone and their goat on Regent Street had an ice cream in hand. I've developed a new trick which seems to work quite well though; whenever I see strangers eating food that I'm craving, such as a burger or ice cream, I pretend that they're eating a lump of pure lard or a cone full of butter. This distracts my mind long enough to contain the impulse to get some too.
I seriously just need to stop eating sugar altogether because if I go for long enough (usually 1-2 weeks) without it I no longer crave it at all.
On the way home I purchased some carrots, spring onions, black grapes, strawberries, raspberries and yogurt and was planning on a small dinner. By the time I got home I was pretty dehydrated and frazzled from the day so I made my favourite comfort food: guacamole. I make mine with 1 avocado, 1 spring onion, 2 tomatoes and 1 birds eye chili. I ate the whole damn lot plus 2 Onigiri my flatmate had left for me. How kind of her! Free Food strikes again. :(
I then proceeded to eat an entire bunch of black grapes, 3 strawberries, 10 hazelnuts and 5 almonds. Bleurgh... binging once again but at least this time it's not on doughnuts.
So... I've over-eaten and feel pretty crap right now.
Friday, 27 April 2007
The CRON Tipping Point
Welcome to my CRON blog! :)
I've been reading about CRON for about a month now and slowly adopting some of its general practices. It seems to me that it's the most useful and sensible method for me to lose weight, eat a healthier diet and feel better about myself. I don't fully believe in the longevity argument for CRON because I haven't read enough of the evidence but I do think it will enable me to live longer by helping me avoid the risks associated with being overweight or malnourished. I've begun to improve how I measure the basic number of calories in food but haven't started using the CRON-O-Meter yet.
Like a lot of women, my primary goal is to lose weight, but in a healthy way - by losing body fat, not muscle. I need to retain a fairly good muscle mass for my martial arts training. My body fat percentage is around 19% at the moment. I'm reasonably active - I do an hour's aerobic cardio work out twice a week at my taekwondo class and will be extending this to 4 hours per week starting this week. I don't own a car so I walk nearly everywhere. I really love exercising and sports but my body doesn't react as well as I would like due to the excess weight I am carrying. I also want to look cute in my clothes!
Over the past 18 months I have lost approximately 20 lbs. I'm 5'2" and a year and half ago I was verging on 10 stone (140lbs). I got this back down to 133 lbs fairly rapidly then spent a year getting down to 119 lbs which is rougly where I am now. Since January I've been trying to stay at 112 lbs consistently. The lowest I've got this year is 111 lbs but my ideal weight is somewhere around 105 lbs.
I tend to yo-yo between periods of fairly good nutrition and periods of quite bad nutrition where I adopt a 'no cares' attitude, gain weight and feel depressed about my health. I really love food and my weakness is chocolate, ice cream and sweet things. I'm quite lucky in that I rarely drink anything other than water, so wine and coffee hold no temptation for me. Cakes, chocolate and the like are another matter though!
I do better at both calorie restriction and good nutrition (I'm nowhere near optimal yet!) when I eat by myself and cook for myself. My biggest problems are:
I've been reading about CRON for about a month now and slowly adopting some of its general practices. It seems to me that it's the most useful and sensible method for me to lose weight, eat a healthier diet and feel better about myself. I don't fully believe in the longevity argument for CRON because I haven't read enough of the evidence but I do think it will enable me to live longer by helping me avoid the risks associated with being overweight or malnourished. I've begun to improve how I measure the basic number of calories in food but haven't started using the CRON-O-Meter yet.
Like a lot of women, my primary goal is to lose weight, but in a healthy way - by losing body fat, not muscle. I need to retain a fairly good muscle mass for my martial arts training. My body fat percentage is around 19% at the moment. I'm reasonably active - I do an hour's aerobic cardio work out twice a week at my taekwondo class and will be extending this to 4 hours per week starting this week. I don't own a car so I walk nearly everywhere. I really love exercising and sports but my body doesn't react as well as I would like due to the excess weight I am carrying. I also want to look cute in my clothes!
Over the past 18 months I have lost approximately 20 lbs. I'm 5'2" and a year and half ago I was verging on 10 stone (140lbs). I got this back down to 133 lbs fairly rapidly then spent a year getting down to 119 lbs which is rougly where I am now. Since January I've been trying to stay at 112 lbs consistently. The lowest I've got this year is 111 lbs but my ideal weight is somewhere around 105 lbs.
I tend to yo-yo between periods of fairly good nutrition and periods of quite bad nutrition where I adopt a 'no cares' attitude, gain weight and feel depressed about my health. I really love food and my weakness is chocolate, ice cream and sweet things. I'm quite lucky in that I rarely drink anything other than water, so wine and coffee hold no temptation for me. Cakes, chocolate and the like are another matter though!
I do better at both calorie restriction and good nutrition (I'm nowhere near optimal yet!) when I eat by myself and cook for myself. My biggest problems are:
- Eating out. I love going to restaurants with my friends and my boyfriend. There's something so enjoyable for me in engaging in conversation over good food. It's one of my most favourite things. There are so many good restaurants in London and so little time to try them all! My problem is that I tend to adopt this mindset that I must have the yummiest thing on the menu because otherwise I will be missing out. I feel really annoyed when I make myself compromise and choose something healthier. It's almost as though it's a wasted opportunity to try something extra specially tasty.
- Turning down Free Food. This is the big one! I very rarely buy chocolate or sweet things for myself. In fact, I don't keep any sweet food in the house besides splenda and fresh fruit. However, when food is Free I will binge like there's no tomorrow. Even when I'm in a period of healthy eating, I find it impossible to turn down Free Food, even when it's extraordinarily unhealthy. In fact, this morning's binge on Free doughnuts and cookies is what inspired this blog entry. Although it felt amazing to consume the sugar and chocolate, the period of self-loathing following the walk back to my desk made me think: "this is enough!" I was seriously considering throwing up the whole lot in the bathroom but then I thought, no! I want something good to come out of something bad. I want to develop the will power to turn down gak without feeling angry or deprived. Starting now I am going on April's "not one bite" rule and officially committing myself to CRON. No turning back! I guess I should feel grateful to those doughnuts for finally giving me the push I needed. :)
- Interruption of my food routine. For example, when I stay over at my boyfriend's house on a week night I usually eat breakfast at the work canteen which is a higher calorie breakfast than I would have had at home. I also have no way to be sure of the content of what I am eating.
The good news is that I have (what I think is) a pretty good breakfast routine going on at the moment. I weigh myself using Tanita scales every morning after using the bathroom but I don't record this anywhere - I'll start doing that. Then for breakfast I have:
- 1 boiled egg - ~ 50 grams - 77.5 calories
- Tim's Dairy Spring Dew Very low fat yoghurt - 125 grams - 50 calories
- Wheat bran - 6 grams (1.5 tbl spoons) - 12.96 calories
- Fresh strawberries - 30 grams - 9.6 calories
- Fresh blackberries - 25 grams - 10.75 calories
- Sunflower seeds - 2 grams - 11.4 calories
- Pumpkin seeds - 2 grams - 10.82 calories
This works out to about 183 calories with 16.2 grams of protein - nowhere near the 25 grams April recommends! The Zone ratios are 38:42:20. I'm normally quite ready for lunch around 11.30 with this breakfast. I'll try plugging my breakfast into CoM tonight.
I'd like to get the same sort of stability with my lunches and dinners too. At the moment I'm aiming for 1000-1100 calorie diet every day.
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