Resolution 2: Track Calories, Part 2

Average calorie intake this week: 1478

Today is the final day of my week in which I meticulously tracked calories. When looking only at my results, it would be easy to deem my calorie intake a true success: the goal I had set for myself was to stay at (or slightly under) 1800 calories a day, which is the total recommended by the Mayo Clinic for my weight, age, gender, and activity level, and I came in an average of 300 calories under that recommendation. If anything, a critic may say I averaged too few calories per day, on average, since eating too few calories a day can stall one's metabolism. 

Despite my apparent success, when looking closer at my past week, it is quickly noticed that my "success" isn't all it appears to be at first glance.  First of all, on Monday morning I awoke with slight nausea--a few hours later it had turned into my becoming intensely ill. While home from work Monday and Tuesday, with what I presume to have been Norovirus (Olmstead County has been struggling with the scourge of the virus for weeks), I took in very few calories: 640 calories on Monday and 980 calories on Tuesday. (In fact, I lost 6.4 pounds in two days, but it is not a weight loss method I would recommend to anyone.) When averaging my calorie consumption for only the days I felt well, my average equates to 1746--still a solid success in my book!

I found tracking calories to be complicated at first, primarily because Scott and I rarely eat prepackaged foods. When food comes in a box or a bag, calorie tracking is simple--just check the label. When a meal is cooked at home, the calories in each ingredient has to be tallied, totaled, and averaged out by the servings created. When living a busy life like mine, this is a time consuming process that was simply too much for me. Rather, what I ended up doing was searching on the internet for a similar dish and calling it close enough, rounding up whenever I felt unsure of the results I had found. Additionally, when going out to eat, it is not hard to find a calorie count online for a meal when sitting down to eat at a chain restaurant. However, Scott and I prefer to spend our dollars at locally owned establishments, but Newt's and Whistle Binkie's do not list their calories for each entree, making my resolution a bit more tricky to stick to. Again, I simply visited my buddy Google, and searched for a similar item, tracking the calories I found in my online search. 

Nonetheless, as complicated as it may have been to track my calories at times, being aware that I had to write down each thing I ingested made me think twice about snacking when I was bored rather than truly hungry. For that reason alone, I plan to continue my calorie awareness over in the weeks to come.