My favorite restaurant ever? Dough Rollers.
I don't know if there are any still in existence. Friends and I always ate there when vacationing in Ocean City, Maryland during high school. It was always the highlight of the trip for me!
As a child, my favorite foods were pancakes, pizza, and cake. As a teen, it was mac and cheese. Today, I still love on my pancakes, but I also love sweet potatoes, oatmeal, and any whole grain.
My love of carbs is not diminished by my favorite weight loss story.
Back in 2004, I waited tables at a prominent Boston tourist trap, pulling 13 hour shifts a day. The restaurant didn't allow servers to eat anything on the menu, and refused to give us breaks to run out to get grub. Complimentary cornbread was given out to every table. So that's what I pinched. All summer long, I subsisted off cornbread and Dunkin' Donuts mochas. And I lost twenty pounds.
Those pounds never came back. And yet, I've known for a while now that I'm not as thin as I should be. I am a gluten free, soy free vegan who counts her sugars and works out four days a week. And look at me:
Do I look like a fat girl?
Maybe not from this angle...
How about here?
Maybe "fleshy" is a better term?
Or there is the godawful "curvy" that is used waaaaay too much.
Me and Dainty Bones on New Year'sOkay, maybe I'm not fat.
But I'm definitely not as thin as I should be.
To get to the lardy bottom of me, I scheduled a wellness coaching session at my gym. In the meeting, Coach Mike measured my percentage body fat. I held my breath as he wrote down the numbers. It came out to 27%.
GAH!!!
That's ten percent more than it was in college, when I didn't work out, when I was a smoker who drank forties of malt liquor every single night. That's also fifteen percent higher than I thought it would be.Coach Mike offered lots of great suggestions.
- Do shorter, more intense cardio
- Less yoga at home, more classes
- Use nautilus machines to work on "problem areas"
- Use a balance ball to do crunches and planks
- Eat MORE often: Six small meals a day
- Log food and exercise at My Fitness Pal!
The last one, I started right away.
Currently, my Fitness Pal has me on a regimen of working out four days a week for forty-five minute intervals and eating 1200 calories a day.
Mid-way through the very first day, I noticed something. Post lunch, I'd exceeded my fat intake, and way underscored my carb intake. Together, this added up to a high calorie count for the day, but without eating that much food.
During the second and third days, I learned more and more. Did you know that it's insanely less caloric to eat a salad with hummus instead of evoo and nooch? I didn't.
Holy Nooch!
Did you know that one single avocado eats up one-fourth of sedentary calorie intake and nearly an entire day's worth of fat? I knew they were fatty, but geez!
Avocado on Udis... my new favorite dinner!
Let's not forget my daily snack of chocolate bars...
... And my love of drinking!!!
Am I talking bad about fats? Absolutely NOT! My problem was that I was eating far too much of them. I put nut butter AND coconut oil cacao sauce on my sweet potatoes. Then I ate a heavily noochy and evoo'd salad. Most days, I ate an avocado. For dinner, I threw a huge slab of vegan soy free butter into brown rice, amaranth or quinoa.
There's a lot of vegan butter under those veggies!Combine these meals with a moderate workout aaaaand... I'm guessing fat's how I got my lovely lady lumps.
In the back of my mind, I can't help but wonder if my love of carbs is somehow instinctual. Could it be that my body is thinnest on carbs? Furthermore - how am I going to balance this fitness program with my super-raw IBS-friendly diet?
Stay tuned!!!
Toots
How do you feel about the whole fat controversy?
Do you think fat is good or bad for you?
What do you do to maintain your weight?
How do you feel about the whole fat controversy?
Do you think fat is good or bad for you?
What do you do to maintain your weight?
Posts
9 comments:
You know how much I love my carbs too! Wonderfully potatoey carbs. :)
I have always thought of you as skinny. Even now, I think you have an awesome figure. I know you will be successful in eliminating some of your fat intake. It just takes dedication to yourself (and a bit of a stubborn streak) to stick to any diet. You are already well aware that though.
Hang in there, you'll do great. :)
Sigh. You just reminded me that I need to get out of maintenance mode and lose those 15 to 20 pounds that I've been intending to shed...
I wrote a really long comment and lost it. Sad and frustrated!
I'm built very similarly to you, and thanks to my higher levels of ouch I've been putting on weight. Not happy! My carb intake is probably too high since standing to cook isn't easy anymore, but I'm making myself eat more fresh, whole foods and (aside from today, when my dot has me immobile) I've begun a wheelchair workout dvd as well as enrolled in aquatherapy - woohoo!
I spent almost 20 years with eating disorders so my feelings on body fat are skewed, but I think it's okay to be kinda squishy as long as I'm eating right and getting some exercise. At the moment, I am too squishy, hehe.
I have a similar story and problem. I became a vegetarian when I was 13. For the next ten years I pretty much ate only pizza, and anything sweet (and yes a ton of booze including those 1.99 st ives malt liquor 40's). I'm 5 6 and never weighed more than 115 pounds. I couldn't seem to gain weight. I was impossibly skinny. I started to clean up my act around 23, started running and exercising and eating a little better. Over the next few years I became a vegan and a health nut. I try to limit carbs and other white stuff, but I do have a weakness for baking. I run marathons, and I'm at my heaviest ever! I weigh about 135 pounds. Like you, I don't think I'm “fat” but for all the work I put into my health and the fact that I eat healthier than most people I know AND exercise more than most people I know, it's pretty frustrating that I can't seem to shake off a few extra pounds. I should be skinny! I try not to focus on it, but it does nag at me... Like you, I wonder, would I be skinny if I ate pizzas all day? I do think a lot has to do with our metabolisms slowing as we age. (I'm 29 this month). I'm curious to see how it goes for you on your new plan. I'm curious why the trainer recommended yoga classes versus yoga at home? I tend to think any yoga is a good thing.
First off, may I say you're a fine looking girl and you haven't much work to do to get where you want to be, just some fine tuning. I'm sort of in the same boat, lots of cardio and a vegan diet haven't got me where I want to be- while I'm a healthy weight (123lb@5'5') I'd like to lose some butt and hip fat and grow some proper muscle. What I've learnt recently:
The things about fats is you get so many calories for such a small amount of food! And to get all the vitamins and minerals from foods also high in fat you end up eating too many overall calories (eg almonds for calcium). There is a lot of talk on healthy food blogs of 'don't fear the healthy fats' and that's all very true, but for women ~2000cals is pretty easy reached with a couple of dips into the nut butter jar or a handful of almonds or chia seeds in oatmeal on top of other foods. I try to watch my fat intake really carefully (I only eat nuts occasionally, nut butter maybe at most once a day, usually every other and no more than a tbsp).
The trainer is right, you need to do HIIT to lose fat. I'm currently aquajogging with the middle of my session as all out 30 sec sprints on and off for 10-15 minutes. It's hell at the time but you feel great after. To loss fat, you have to SWEAT! It's fun, I promise!
Remember way back your mom was telling you to eat more protein? Maybe that's worth revisiting. Protein fills you up and isn't as calorie dense a macronutrient as fat. As there are not too many sources of lean vegan protein that aren't either soy or pulses, brown rice protein in your smoothies might be worth a shot.
I'm really loving getting started with weight training. Makes me feel badass, and I think it'll get me where I want to me. Not only that, it'll make me stronger to run better and with less chance of injury. I love running, but long cardio sessions aren't really great for a good figure:( I suspect you feel the same about yoga- as much as you love it, yoga's not really energetic enough on its own for a healthy young woman.
Good luck, looking forward to reading more!:)
First off, I think you look hot, so that's my main comment. :)
But in terms of the whole fat, carbs, protein thing...I found at Jenny Craig that the best way for people to lose weight was to include complex carbs, protein, and fat in each meal. Small amounts of each (like 1 cup sweet potatoes with 2/5 block of tofu, veggies, and a pat of almond butter), plus two snacks that included protein (like an apple with almond butter). Also, reducing sugar makes a huge difference, but I know I'm preaching to the choir on that one. I've also found that to be the best way to curb night-time hunger binges, by eating steady, complete meals during the day. Okay, it's occurred to me that I could go on and on so I'll just stop here...
I think I am in a similar situation in terms of my fat intake. So many vegan and raw foods are full of healthy fats and at the end of the day they're still fats but it can be hard to remember what a moderate amount is. I like the idea of My Fitness Pal, I think I'm going to go sign up right now. Thanks for the tip and sharing your experience!
This was a great post to read, I really needed this! I needed to take an honest look at the foods I eat and not see calorie-counting as a negative thing (in fact, not "caring" about the amount of calories I consume everyday is just plain ignorant if my goal is to lose this belly fat). Soooo...thank you. :)
And I joined myfitnesspal too! How are you liking it so far?
-Lisa
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