TL Health and Fitness Initiative 2012 - Page 28

hehehe, she just realized that she was way too thin and wanted to do something about it. Then she found out that eating plenty and lifting weights was the best way to do it.

Hey guys, congrats on the new subforum!

I figured I would post an update here. It's been about 4 months now since I started living/eating more healthily. I've lost 34 lbs, and it's really great eating healthy food. In conjunction with eating healthier, I've learned to cook many of the meals I eat, so that's a plus too, as I think it's a pretty important skill to have. I started teaching full time this semester, so I was thrown off for a bit because certain days of mine are really busy now, so what I started doing is cooking a large meal the night before, eating half for dinner, and taking the other half to work, so as to avoid eating less healthy and more expensive alternatives.

My current weight is 211lb, my goal is 140? I guess, just chosen because according to the internet, that's the upper bound for healthy weight of someone of my height (5'4"), though mentally I'm taking it in small steps, each 5 lb increment is my goal, and once I reach it, I go for the next 5 lbs.

Interesting story: A couple months ago, I might be walking by a mirror and look at myself and I'd say "Well, you've got a long way to go, but you're getting better every day!" But a couple weeks ago, I noticed myself in the mirror, and thought "DAMN, you look like shit!" It's funny because in that I noticed a psychological change; before I thought of myself as an unhealthy person trying to be more healthy, whereas now I think of myself as a healthy person whose body hasn't caught up yet. I'd definitely say the proper education about nutrition and health makes a huge impact. Simply because I know how little nutritional value there is in many less healthy foods, they're less attractive to me. It's actually really easy!

Currently I'm eating almost exclusively fruits and vegetables. I've been tracking my nutrition on fitday, and that has been really helpful too. I'm focusing on eating 1800 calories on days when I lift weights, and a bit less on days when I don't. From a recent motivational update (I think Snapplecakes'?) I figured 1400 was a good number to shoot for on off days, but I'm a bit more lenient on that.

As I mentioned, I'm lifting weights, though I don't have a gym membership, I'm just doing what I can at home. I bought a barbell and some weights and am doing squats/DL/overhead press/ bent-over row, etc. I plan on getting more proper equipment after I move into a new place in a month or so, and let some paychecks come in from teaching.

Anyway, thanks for the help guys. The resources here were invaluable. A couple quick questions:

1. Where are you guys getting your calories? As I've been paying more attention to the stuff on fitday, and removing breads/pasta (especially) and other less healthy foods, I've found it actually difficult to consume 1800 or whatever calories. So I did some math on my weekly consumption. Each week I consume approx.:

7 lbs of meat (chicken, beef, maybe some pork) ~ 3500 calories
various veggies with the meat ~ 1500 calories
fruit (nectarine or bananas are my favorite, 1/day) ~ 500 calories
a dozen O-3 eggs ~ 1200 calories
the occasional less healthy food/alcohol ~ 1500 calories

This comes out to only 8200 calories. On an 1800/1400 plan weightlifting 4 days/week, I should be consuming 11400 calories. So I recently wondered, "where are those other calories coming from?" I'm still trying to figure this out, so I'm going to pay more attention to what I eat for the next few weeks. But I feel like this must be something you guys have dealt with. All of the above leaves me wondering where you guys get that last 3200 calories each week. Should I be eating more meat? More fruit? Vegetables? I mean, vegetables don't really have many calories in them. I thought I was supposed keep the fruit in moderation. So I guess I'm not sure here.

2. I really don't like the taste or smell of fish, and it seems expensive. What's so great about fish, and is there an alternative to getting that nutrition besides buying something expensive and I don't even like the taste of?

Thanks for your help.