Monday 22 January 2007

Thank you for recent comments; it's really good to know there are people out there, reading and considering what I write and taking the time to reply to a complete stranger with sensible advice. I wish I didn't sound like such a complete nut when I write, but... this is just one side of me. The rest is quite rational, really.
:-)

Yes, food is An Issue. It would be so nice if it would stopped being, because as Emily rightly identifies, it's been An Issue since my early twenties - when I was working as a chef and doing a PhD and starting a little bit of a "diet" that just went a little over-the-top and deposited me at just under 7 stone (around 98lb). I was never anorexic, or if I was it was borderline... It's just that I couldn't stop thinking about the food in my job, and recipes (I also had to plan the meals to be vegan, or fat-free, or wheat-free, or low-sugar), and calories and... I really hope I don't go there again; I'll admit to being a little freaked out about the possibility of that, since I was being so good about it last year. But if I walk away from this now, that won't help me at all. I will hope that CRON brings some new balance, eventually. Fifteen years of it is getting more than a little tiresome, and to be so obsessive really is terribly self-indulgent.

I will try not to continue in this self-indulgent vein here because it can be a bit self-perpetuating, and no doubt incredibly tedious to read - "Oh, she's off again..."

ANYWAY.

The sheer quantity of what I chopped up and put together yesterday in order to get me near a 1000 cals with 75% ON was a little freaky. I did cheat, actually, and I didn't eat the broccoli and carrot I had chopped up, so I ended the day around about 900 cals with 70% nutrition. I have no idea where to get D from - that was abysmal at 3%. But I can't expect to get it right first time.. and it's not going to kill me outright if I don't. I was shocked at how wrong I was in counting my cals though. I mean, I did know I was low intellectually, but emotionally I thought I was pretty much on a 1000 a day target, despite the blindingly obvious. Last year, in addition to my salads etc, I was eating oatcakes, rice cakes, some bread, more cheese, occassionally some pasta or rice, quite often a lot of tinned pulses. I've cut all those out this year, more or less, and it's easy to see that actually they were making up the bulk of my calories, when I was probably hitting 1500 a day. Maybe!

Today I began the day with my oatmeal breakfast since I wanted a decent gym workout and I really felt the difference. I entered it in COM afterwards and it was over 300 cals - which seemed a lot. But I was able to speed walk / run at 4 minute intervals for 40 minutes and do my weights, and last week on berries I was flopping with exhaustion after 20 and dropping dumb bells all over the place so... Lunch was just the hugest salad imaginable, and I ate it all (I prepared it without entering in COM so I just hope my nutrition guesses are correct - mushrooms for Bs, right?). I mean, it was HUGE. It filled my largest salad bowl and it took me about 6 smaller bowls to eat the whole lot. God knows where I'd have put it if I'd had to take the thing to work. I'd probably have eaten half that amount if I hadn't crunched the numbers yesterday.

Breakfast:
50g oatmeal made with water
50g yoghurt
50g blueberries
2 almonds
1 brazilnut
Pumpkin seeds

Lunch:
100g raw spinach
100g tomatoes
100g mushrooms
25g watercress
25g avocado (I *never* eat avocado even though I love it because it is "high cal" in my mind, so this is unusual for me - Robin, I am sort of copying your lunch salad here!)
25g spring onions / scallions
3 eggwhites, hardboiled and chopped
Dressing with 1tsp flax, lemon juice and 1 clove chopped garlic.
50g blueberries
50g yoghurt
2 dried figs
2 almonds

Dinner will be as much as I can eat of:
200g broccoli (actually I've already eaten 100g of this steamed this afternoon)
100g fennel
1 red pepper
100g celery
100g leek
100g carrot
125g tofu
cooked in a little water with a 400g can of chopped tomatoes

I just crunched it, and if I eat it all, it looks almost halfway decent! :-) Lamentable lack of D, of course, and low on B12.

===========================================
Nutrition Summary for 22 January 2007
===========================================

General (82%)
===========================================
Energy | 1166.9 kcal 97%
Protein | 73.6 g 105%
Fat | 34.4 g 48%
Carbs | 160.5 g 67%
Fiber | 44.6 g 178%
Water | 2095.2 g 78%

Vitamins (82%)
===========================================
Vitamin A | 40194.9 IU 1723%
Folate | 741.9 mcg 185%
B1 (Thiamine) | 1.7 mg 151%
B2 (Riboflavin) | 2.6 mg 235%
B3 (Niacin) | 17.4 mg 124%
B5 (Pantothenic Acid)| 8.1 mg 163%
B6 (Pyridoxine) | 2.5 mg 195%
B12 (Cyanocobalamin) | 0.2 mcg 8%
Vitamin C | 491.9 mg 656%
Vitamin D | 0.0 IU 0%
Vitamin E | 11.6 mg 77%
Vitamin K | 966.9 mcg 1074%

Minerals (98%)
===========================================
Calcium | 1500.2 mg 150%
Copper | 2.9 mg 328%
Iron | 21.2 mg 118%
Magnesium | 559.2 mg 175%
Manganese | 8.0 mg 445%
Phosphorus | 1312.4 mg 187%
Potassium | 5718.3 mg 122%
Selenium | 174.9 mcg 318%
Sodium | 1163.0 mg 78%
Zinc | 9.9 mg 124%

Amino Acids
===========================================

Lipids (55%)
===========================================
Saturated | 5.1 g 26%
Omega-3 | 4.1 g 374%
Omega-6 | 11.2 g 94%
Cholesterol | 0.0 g 0%

4 comments:

Robin said...

Hey there Sara,

Do you eat meat? Because a little meat will take care of B12 for you. If you want things low on the food chain, shrimp and scallops are good sources. Fish is probably pretty good, too.

You can get Vitamin D from enriched milk products if you do those. The only veggie source I know about is shiitake mushrooms. But you would have to eat *a lot* of shiitakes to get enough D.

Until you can figure out how to get enough via food, be sure to take a Vitamin D supplement. I think most CRONies supplement B vitamins as well.

-Robin

Sara said...

Hi Robin.
No, I don't eat meat - totally veggie: no meat, no fish, no shellfish. So I guess supplements will be the way to go for those missing nutrients...

No, I don't think I can face the thought of a lot of shiitakes on top of the piles of everything else! :-)

April said...

Sara,

Don't worry about D, just supplement.

You're doing well, I think you could and perhaps should eat more. How do you feel? Can you remind me of how tall you are? If I eat 1200 or less I drop weight like a hot potato, and I'm 5 2.

I do wish you could come to our CR weekend in March. I know it's far, but we'd love to have you!

a

Sara said...

Hi April

I'm somewhere between 5'6" and 5'7".

I really don't think I could eat more - I still have a bowl of yesterday's food leftover this morning and feel totally stuffed (berries for breakfast then!). Everyone else seems to eat so much less (inc you); I really don't understand it! :-) I'm not dropping weight that fast, to reassure you.

I've never been to Philadelphia... Thank you for saying I would be welcome.