Now that I've officially regained all twenty pounds that I lost last year, I'm taking a new tack. Which is something I do, and have done periodically all my life, although most of those times I was only trying to "eat healthy" because I've only had weight issues for the last few years, really.Yesterday I obsessively listed generally what I eat in a day, the calorie and points and fiber values for everything, and worked out basically what I should and shouldn't eat. Today I was reading a couple of the "women's" magazines and their recipes, and now I'm pissed off again. Here's what I want to know:
If all food can be made healthier, why do magazines print recipes that are gratuitously not good for you, and then follow them up with articles on dieting? Make up your damn mind. For example, I saw a recipe for "Hearty Pasta and Bean Soup" that began "Heat 1 and half cups of salted water to a boil." Does it really really need to be salted? The recipe, when all was said and done, had 1380 mg sodium per serving, which is more than half of what a healthy person should have in a single day. Why doesn't the recipe suggest low-sodium chicken broth instead of regular, or unsalted canned tomatoes? Would it kill them? Would women rise up in revolt and scream for more salt in their food? The recipe also came to 545 calories per serving. I reworked it using the W8 Watching site and by -- gasp!-- reading the labels on the food and I got it to less than 200 calories per serving. Was that so frickin' hard?
And then there's that whole recommended daily amount of stuff. Really, I'm just disgusted with all that. I want to know: do the nutritionists at the Department of Agriculture, the geniuses who came up with the new food pyramid, really eat 25 grams of fiber a day? Drink eight glasses of water? Have three servings of dairy (more if you're a woman, more if you're a woman over 50), five of fruit, and nine -- nine! -- vegetables? Because if they do, I'd also like very much to know if they ever do anything else but eat and pee and poop, because if you're eating all that stuff -- and let's keep it low in fat, please, and watch your sodium -- they don't have time to have a job or read a newspaper, let alone work in that recommended daily 30 minutes of aerobic activity. In order to fit all that in, you'd have to eat 2500 to 3000 calories a day, which is great if you're working on maintaining your 200 pound weight, which, once again, is great if you happen to six-foot-four.
I never figured out my fiber numbers before yesterday, but baby, I eat plenty of it. There's this theory -- it's called Volumetrics, and it basically says that if you eat more foods that are higher in fiber, they will fill you up more and you'll ultimately eat less, which just sounds logical to me. Not to mention those other ... ahem, benefits, of fiber, especially to those elderly among us. Anyway, I eat whole grains all day, and I am the Kashi cereal company's best customer; I have that stuff for breakfast and for snacks. How much fiber do I eat in a day? Between 15 and 18 grams, more or less. How could I eat more? When would I eat more? How would more not just add a few hundred more calories to my day, hmm?
Well, I took the week off from being super careful about what I eat (although I didn't go crazy), and I didn't do my workouts because I was sore for a few days from last week's fender-bender. The other thing that's kept me from doing the workouts is the heat. Not that it's especially hot in my house when I wake up because it's air conditioned, but I couldn't bear the thought of intentionally becoming overheated and sweat-covered and then showering, only to spend my entire day overheated and sweat-covered at work. The heat is finally breaking (although Monday is still supposed to be in the 80s), and this week, I'd like to get back on track. Work out, watch what I eat a little more closely. Again, my whole point here is to be healthy, not skinny. I passed skinny in 1980. I wasn't skinny this time last year when I weighed 20 pounds less than I do now, but I felt way better about myself, and not in the appearance sense. I think I more or less look the same. What I gained back is all different than it was before, I don't know why and I can't really explain how.
Okay, I'll let you know.
