2444 Diet, Day 1

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Thomas Edison: "Many of life's failures are people
who did not realize how close they were to success
when they gave up."

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I went to a site yesterday recommended by Becs, which redirected me to LiveStrong.com. You can enter what you eat, and they'll fill in all the numbers for you, and track you by day. I put in my current height and weight and activity level, and asked how many calories I would need per day to lose weight at the rate of 1.5 pounds per week.

It said 1153.

Then I started filling in what I ate. For some things it works well. Put in "Apple", and you get the numbers. Put in "CoffeeMate regular" and you get the numbers. But then I ran into trouble. I use CoffeeMate Vanilla Sugar-free, which is not at all the same as regular. It isn't on LiveStrong's list, and the program doesn't allow you to fill in the numbers from the package yourself. I ate a diabetic pre-packaged meal for lunch, which wasn't on the list of choices, so I tried looking up the separate parts of the meal, but LiveStrong's numbers were wildly different from those on the meal package.

So, in the end, I decided that LiveStrong would be useful for looking up data on some things, but to keep track of my daily fare I'll need to do it myself.

I set up a little database, and kept track of everything I ate yesterday. I used the package numbers for everything but the blueberries. Blueberry numbers I got from LiveStrong. (I'm amazed that nothing includes calcium numbers, but I take 1800 whatevers in tablet form per day.)

Daily requirements/Limits (per LiveStrong):
Calories - 1153
Carbs - 299g
Fat - 67g
Protein - 47g
Cholesterol - 297mg
Sodium - 2402mg

What I ate yesterday:
1 cup blueberries
oatmeal and a baked apple (diabetic pre-packaged meal)
cup coffee with CoffeeMate (sugar-free)
Lean Cuisine - garlic chicken, creamed spinach w. carrots
Ice cream - one Eskimo Pie
Water
The usual vitamins and minerals, not included in totals below.

Totals for yesterday:
Calories - 694 (out of 1153 allowed)
Carbs - 83 (299g allowed)
Sugar - 28g
Fiber - 12g
Fat - 31 (67g allowed)
Protein - 29 (47g allowed)
Cholesterol - 45 (297mg allowed)
Sodium - 807 (2402mg allowed)

Yesterday's fare is pretty typical for me. I didn't cheat at all - that's a typical day, that was my actual intake, and those are my actual totals. So, why don't I look like Paris Hilton?

Sob. I don't understand.

I'm going to track every day for a month.
.