How I Define Health and Setting My Nutrition Goals

This is going to be one of the longer entries that I write because I’m going over how I’m setting my nutrition goals. I promise, all my entries will not be this long!

First, the training. I didn’t get in my run yesterday. How horrible to have to say that on the first day of the official training and the public forum of this blog. But, it is what it is. It was raining a light steady rain all day and I haven’t been able to have any ME time for many weeks due to being a care-taker for a family member out of town for five weeks and then coming home and throwing myself right into finals week at school. I needed to re-charge so I spent my weekend doing two things that I love: watching DVDs and making jewelry.

Today, I had a 30 minute cross-training work-out scheduled. Since I missed my 4 mile run yesterday, and one of the Web sites I modeled my training schedule after said that cross-training can be an easy jog if one felt up to it… I decided to run today and just keep it to a slow easy run in my neighborhood.

Miles: 2.52
Time: 32:12
Pace: 12:46 minute/mile or 4.7mph
Calories burned: 196

It was a struggle to finish today. Around mile 2 is when I hit my wall and today was no exception. My heart rate was up more than it should have been since it was humid, the wind was against me, and I’d been slugging about for two days. Today, running was a total mental game. Sheer determination. Mind over matter. The mantra, “just keep running, just keep running” repeated in my head as I slowed my pace to try to make it a little easier on myself. Yeah, on days like this, I don’t love running… but I love how I feel when I’m done and I know that I didn’t quit and that I have it in me to push through a hard physical task.

I also took a long walk to the Farmer's Market today where I realized that the market is on Saturdays, not Sundays (oops). 50 minutes, 2.5 miles, 150 calories.

Total calories burned with exercise today: approximately 350.


Nutrition time!

It’s time to put some of the knowledge that has filled my brain this past year into practice using myself as a subject. This year, I took my first Medical Nutrition Therapy class and learned how to assess nutritional status and do all those calculations to decide all the “should be’s” about someone – what should someone weigh, what should someone eat in terms of calories, fat, protein, etc. I have learned the basic “rules.”

Before I get into the specifics about myself, however, I have to say, that I totally disagree with the industry standard of using the HAMWII method to determine ideal body weight. According to this formula, I should weigh 28 pounds less than I do – I haven’t weighed that little since I was a child! I could barely even maintain a weight that is 13 pounds less than I am now when I was an exercise demon 15 years ago! According to this formula, I am “obese.”

Really?

You see my picture over there, which was taken just over one week ago. This is obese?? I beg to differ. That being said, HAMWII is currently what is used, so that’s how I’m moving forward figuring out what I should be eating to fuel my body, my exercise, and lose some weight. Some weight, not 28 pounds of weight.

I want to take a minute here to talk about how my perspective has changed since my heart attack. While I was in the hospital, I had a hard time with my body. I was angry at it for having a heart attack. I felt like I could no longer trust my body. It had let me down and I was pissed off because I did not abuse my body the way some people do. Sure, I wasn’t as good to my body as I should have been; but I didn’t mistreat it so much that I deserved a heart attack!

Then my perspective changed. I realized that this body, no matter its shape or size or imperfections, had carried me through one of the hardest physical things I’d ever endured. I started having a new respect for my body. It was strong. I had always carried some extra weight and this was the first real step in my life towards fully accepting my body – extra pounds, imperfections, and all. This body was able to withstand physical stress and it saved my life. I was no longer angry; I was thankful.

My weight is not the main focus of my health the way it used to be. I used to define how healthy I was by the number on the scale. No longer. Now that number has become to me what it really is – an arbitrary number. Sure, if I were very overweight or underweight, that number would be more important. For me, as a healthy person who is close to their “ideal” body weight, that number is simply not that important anymore.

Health to me is defined by how I FEEL and what my body is able to do. Health is defined by what I put into my body and how I exercise my body. If I feel good, if my body is able to do what I ask it to, if I am eating nutritious foods, and if I am exercising consistently – then I am healthy. Getting that scale to some number in a range that I’ve decided is what I SHOULD weigh, sure, it’s a good way to set one of a few measurable goals, but it is not the END goal. The end goal is GOOD HEALTH, not body weight.

Oh, and that whole running a 15k thing too. That’s another measurable goal.

Right. So my numbers.

Seeing as how I’m considered “obese,” I’ve used my Adjusted Body Weight and the Mifflin St. Jeor formula with a 1.3 Activity Factor and determined that my daily calorie intake for maintenance of body weight is 1,516 calories. Using my actual body weight, it comes to 1,622 calories. For the break-down, I’ve incorporated 7% saturated fats and no more than 27% total fat since I have heart disease. I do not eat trans fats so that category is a big zero intake. Figuring 8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight gives me 50 grams of protein a day, which is only 12-13% of total calories. Since my training schedule is pretty intense, I think that’s too low, so I’ll up my protein intake to 18% calories. That leaves 55% from carbohydrates, which is a good percentage.

Calories: 1500-1600 daily
Carbohydrates: 825-880 calories (206-220 grams)
Protein: 270-288 calories (67-72 grams)
Fats: 405-432 calories (45-48 grams) maximum
Saturated fats: 105-112 calories (11-12 grams) maximum

And of course, I’ll keep my sodium intake less than 2,400 mgs a day and cholesterol less than 200 mgs a day. Other areas of focus that I won’t keep track of but will think about as I choose meals is adequate calcium, magnesium, and potassium intake as well as a majority of the fats I eat being monounsaturated, followed by polyunsaturated with a good dose of those omega’s.

For this blog, from now on I’ll simply report my totals and perhaps how close (or not) I am to staying in those ranges. I just figured some of you out there might be interested in how I arrived at my ranges. Keeping track of my nutrition as well as my exercise will help me be able to figure out any patterns when things aren’t going the way I think they should!

To lose weight, one can either eat less (within limits) or one can move more. I am not going to restrict my caloric intake any less than my maintenance levels because even cutting 500 calories a day puts me below 1,200 and that’s simply too low. Eating that little while exercising intensely will have the opposite effect of what I want – my body will hold on to all the calories it can and I’ll go into a cycle of slowed metabolism that will be very hard to re-normalize. In fact, I’d bet many registered dietitians might even tell me that 1,600 is too low an intake with the physical training I’m doing… right… that falls under what they’re teaching us is “clinical judgment”… so, moving on. My weight loss is going to have to come from moving more.

Based on my training program, I estimate I’ll be burning about 2,000 calories a week. Since it takes 3,500 calories to lose 1 pound, I’ll be losing about 2 ½ pounds a month. That is super slow weight loss but that’s my first goal. I’ll have to see how my body reacts to all of this before I make any tweaks. Besides, as I’ve said, my goal is not a number on the scale and I only want to lose about 10-15 pounds so I should be where I want to be (on the scale) in 4-6 months. Seeing as how I’m happy with my “obese” body right now and my overall health, 4-6 months is fine.

I’m in no hurry.

Life is a journey after all...

Update: Nutrition Totals for the day are...

Calories: 1560 (in range)
Carbs: 269g (over)
Protein: 88g (over)
Fat: 25g (under)
Sat Fat: 7g (under)
Sodium: 2,750mg (over)
Cholesterol: 25mg (under)

So, I ate in my calorie range and ate very little fat which forced my carb/pro totals up to hit my calorie goal. A little too much sodium too... darn canned salsa!