Geo`s Calorie Experiment - A Caloric Mystery?
It has been a dreadful rainy long weekend which has kept me off the bike so the extent of my exercise regimen has been directed towards my usual winter haunt - the gym. Saturday I managed an sixty minute high intensity spin class followed by some core work. This morning I attended another forty five minute spin followed by a mile treadmill run, machine weight training and basic compound exercises with free weights.
Last night I happened to catch a news show on restaurants and how they resist placing nutritional info on the menus,specifically the amount of calories,fat and sodium content. It was quite enlightening in that we all lambast the fast food vendors but they do,for the most part,supply nutritional information to their customers.The CBC news magazine did some random samplings of menu selections from some of the big restaurant chains and found that apparently healthy selections were caloric "monsters" high in overall calories, fat and sodium.
It got me to thinking and today I decided to log my caloris intake to just see what an average day`s diet would entail in terms of calories and fat.Sedentary males in my age group should consume no more than 2300 calories.Based upon my age, height and weight and since I am active,complete some kind of moderate/intense aerobic exercise daily but have a desk job I speculated that I would need no more than about 3000 calories per day. My recomended fat intake should be c.100 grams per day based upon the above criteria.
As of 7PM this was my daily bread......
Date square - 290 c/9gr f
One slice bread with 1 tbsp of peanut butter - 190c/11gr f
Two packets instant oatmeal,coffee cream/milk - 350c/5gr f
Instant coffee with cream - 59c/5gr f
Banana - 105c/4g f
Salami sandwich with mayo,cheese and spinach - 315c/17gr f
Instant coffee with cream - 59c/5 gr f
Two ounces Geo`s mix(sunflower/pumpkin seeds,almonds,peanuts and raisins)-163c/14.2gr f
3.5 ounces of red wine - 74c
Spagetti with tomato sauce - 400c/4gr f
3.5 ounces red wine - 74C
The total comes in at 2070 calories with a total fat intake of 75.77 well below my maximum. Factor in my morning in the gym and the resulting caloric expediture I should be in good nutritional stead today.
Therein lies my mystery. Whereas this experiment certainly got me thinking about portion size this is pretty much how I eat most days with only some slight variations in amount of food, food type or frequency based upon my scheduled exercise regimen. As I have indicated in many past postings I cannot seem to drop weight regardless of the season,my diet or my exercise level. I seem predisposed to maintain a weight between 202 lbs - 208 lbs.
Go figure? Not that I am a slave to the numbers nor do I care what I weigh as long as I remain healthy shedding a few pounds would definitely benefit my cycling, specifically my ability to climb hills. The plan will be to continue to monitor my caloric intake specifically to target portion size. The objective will be to see if portion control and good eating habits combined with my usual exercise habits will result in additional weight loss.
Last night I happened to catch a news show on restaurants and how they resist placing nutritional info on the menus,specifically the amount of calories,fat and sodium content. It was quite enlightening in that we all lambast the fast food vendors but they do,for the most part,supply nutritional information to their customers.The CBC news magazine did some random samplings of menu selections from some of the big restaurant chains and found that apparently healthy selections were caloric "monsters" high in overall calories, fat and sodium.
It got me to thinking and today I decided to log my caloris intake to just see what an average day`s diet would entail in terms of calories and fat.Sedentary males in my age group should consume no more than 2300 calories.Based upon my age, height and weight and since I am active,complete some kind of moderate/intense aerobic exercise daily but have a desk job I speculated that I would need no more than about 3000 calories per day. My recomended fat intake should be c.100 grams per day based upon the above criteria.
As of 7PM this was my daily bread......
Date square - 290 c/9gr f
One slice bread with 1 tbsp of peanut butter - 190c/11gr f
Two packets instant oatmeal,coffee cream/milk - 350c/5gr f
Instant coffee with cream - 59c/5gr f
Banana - 105c/4g f
Salami sandwich with mayo,cheese and spinach - 315c/17gr f
Instant coffee with cream - 59c/5 gr f
Two ounces Geo`s mix(sunflower/pumpkin seeds,almonds,peanuts and raisins)-163c/14.2gr f
3.5 ounces of red wine - 74c
Spagetti with tomato sauce - 400c/4gr f
3.5 ounces red wine - 74C
The total comes in at 2070 calories with a total fat intake of 75.77 well below my maximum. Factor in my morning in the gym and the resulting caloric expediture I should be in good nutritional stead today.
Therein lies my mystery. Whereas this experiment certainly got me thinking about portion size this is pretty much how I eat most days with only some slight variations in amount of food, food type or frequency based upon my scheduled exercise regimen. As I have indicated in many past postings I cannot seem to drop weight regardless of the season,my diet or my exercise level. I seem predisposed to maintain a weight between 202 lbs - 208 lbs.
Go figure? Not that I am a slave to the numbers nor do I care what I weigh as long as I remain healthy shedding a few pounds would definitely benefit my cycling, specifically my ability to climb hills. The plan will be to continue to monitor my caloric intake specifically to target portion size. The objective will be to see if portion control and good eating habits combined with my usual exercise habits will result in additional weight loss.
Comments
I have asked Kim,the owner and nutritionist at Take Thirty Fitness Centre, to have a look at what you would generally eat in one day and see if she has any tips for you. It seems as though you do not eat enough for all that you do. I will let you know what her thoughts are. Hope you don't mind, I thought it might be fun to see what she had to say. That is her area of expertise. She holds very successful boot camps here and she makes the meal plans for them and her clients do very well.
CS
According to Kim, you need more calories. She said you need to add another snack or mini meal to your day. For the amount of exercise you get the extra calories will boost your metabolism. Try to add more nutrients to your diet, more veggies and fruit, have lean turkey in place of salami, cut up dates on oatmeal instead of the date square, etc. That is all that I can recall, so maybe you can try that and see where that goes.
CS