A Caloric Odyssey

Counting calories vs. counting macronutrients Hey Folx, Calories in food come from the amount of energy that is stored in chemical structure of that food. When we eat, our body process the food in our stomachs and then disperses the broken down material to systems in our body to use for energy. When we move, breathe, do anything, our bodies are using energy. So energy-in transforms to energy-out.  Food contains macronutrients, which are protein, carbohydrates, and fat. Not every body reacts  the same to each food, and not every food contains the same combination of macronutrients. Some people respond differently to certain macronutrients (i.e. celiacs), and not everybody uses up the same amount of energy in a day.  Food also contains micronutrients, which are salts, vitamins and minerals. Many diets focus on either macronutrient ratios (like the Paleo or Keto diet), and many focus on the micronutrient ratios (like vegan). From my research, none of them ex...

My exercise regiment Hey Folx, Ya, no. I don’t have one. I surf, I skateboard, and I like walking. During the school year, I generally surf about 3 times per week, between 45 min - 2 hours. The picture was from spring 2019 (pre-weight loss), and if you zoom in on it, you can see I've got some extra layering. I’ll skateboard with my son (as he scoots) 1-4 times a week; its a nice cross-training for surfing (I love my Carver skateboard). And when we walk (1-2 times a week), we usually walk a route that is just shy of two miles, with a decent hill component. Nightly, I have a short 10 minute stretch routine too (that may be the only regimented activity). If I feel that I have been slacking, I’ll do some pushups and lunges, but that seems to be rare. Nothing is really regimented though, and I wouldn’t do any of it if I didn’t like it. I’ll never join a gym because no, and I need my physical activity to be functional. In committing to counting calories, I committed to keeping u...

How I count calories Hey Folx, So, the great reveal… I was ready to take control and count calories . I bought a food scale that measures in ounces (oz) (solid, not fluid) and grams (g), and a tupperware set for meal prepping. Of course, I already had measuring cups and spoons. I set up a spreadsheet calculator in google sheets and input the calorie and macronutrient (protein, carbohydrates, and fat) content of the foods I would eat, obtained from google searches. Then, I started tracking what I ate.  The first week I ate as I normally would, developing a base for how many calories I would normally eat in a day - I think it was somewhere between 4000-5000 calories. I signed up for MyFitnessPal App, which, like many other apps or online calculators, gave me a number of calories to eat per day based on my current weight, height, age, and weight-loss goals. The magical number, based on my personal parameters and wanting to lose 1.5 pounds per week, was 2100 calories. The...

How I got here... Hey Folx, I used to think about calorie counting with such a negative connotation to it. It sounds like a lot of work, it sounds like the hard way of doing things, and I even used to think it was a bunch of BS, that it was too simple an idea to work. Paleo, Mediterranean, and even Vegan had to be better options (and I tried them) because they had an allure and mystique about them, along with great nutritional advice. But in the end, THEY ALL END UP BEING A VERSION OF CALORIE DEFICIT!  I realized that the hardest thing for me, and why I couldn’t stick to other diets, was the fact that I was going to have to change what I was typically eating. I couldn’t have bread-carbs, I couldn’t eat meat, I had to eat a shit load of vegetables, etc. For some meals, I was fine with one of those, I even craved it sometimes. But another one of those meals, no way. I couldn’t consistently commit to the rules of each diet because they took me away from my decades long pursuit ...

The gist... Hey Folx,  The gist of how I got here (these topics and more will be explored deeper in future posts):  I was introduced to delicious foods in elementary school (mmmm yellow tail sushi), kick starting a love for food and cooking In middle school, I started skateboarding and eating a lot ( where my comfort eating started), of which I could afford due to excessive physical activity  In high school, I continued skateboarding, and eventually started surfing, and I continued to eat well (read: eat a lot of rich high calorie food) Through college, these trends continued After college, when I started working professionally, making money and working in an office, my physical activity nearly ceased, but my obsession with food was already ingrained in me The following 8+ years of these same trends handed me some dumb injuries and realizations of getting older and not healthier, so I started to explore many diets with no success After having our first kid,...