So what does a calorie counter eat, anyway?

 Obviously, as a calorie counter my meal choices are extremely limited. 

Just kidding!

I know, I know, I said at the end of the last post that I would be discussing support systems. But I'm not. I'm pretty sure y'all are smart enough to keep up without getting hopelessly confused.

I'm going back to food (because I love it!). To recap, way back in 2010 my initial goal was to get healthier and feel physically better, but once I discovered calorie counting really worked and could help me lose weight, I jumped on the calorie counting bandwagon and, except for a brief, semi-disastrous attempt at Intuitive Eating that I might or might not discuss later, I've been a proud calorie counter ever since.

[Random tangent: Yes, I did say "proud" calorie counter. What I mean by that is, never be ashamed of whatever (healthy) tools you use in order to accomplish your goal. Counting calories isn't something that needs to be hidden or secret - it just is. It's a matter-of-fact process. Of course, I don't make announcements at dinner - "This pot pie has to be at least 650 calories a serving!" - and I don't wear a button advertising my calorie tracking software, but I'm not shy about looking at nutrition labels in front of friends and family, or asking restaurants for their nutrition info, or politely making special requests of my servers. There's absolutely no reason to be ashamed of taking control of your health. End tangent.]

More than one person has emailed or messaged me since I started writing this series, and one of the main questions I get is about what I eat on a day-to-day basis. I guess I sort of understand the curiosity, but I'm hesitant to answer that question because I'm pretty firm in my belief that one size definitely does NOT fit all. What works for me might not work for you. To be honest, what worked for me at the beginning of this process doesn't work for me now, two years later. I've had to constantly refine my eating and exercising and I'm pretty sure that I'll always be tweaking things and changing them up. But, rather than give you a meal-by-meal account of the things I eat (because that would be such scintillating Saturday morning reading!) I thought I'd give some general principles that seem to be true for me that I discovered along the way.

- All calories are NOT created equal:
This is sacrilege, blasphemy, and completely counter to what science says. Good thing I'm not so science-y.

Yes, yes, yes, a calorie is a calorie is a calorie. A slice of bakery bread might be around 120 calories, and a tablespoon of extra-virgin olive oil (kill me if I ever start referring to that as EVOO, ok?) is also 120 calories. If I eat one or the other, I've used up 120 calories of my allowance for the day.

BUT. I know, from experience and tracking and looking back at my food journal, that that tablespoon of olive oil, despite being smaller than the slice of bread, is going to make me feel much fuller over the long run. So if I decide to have chicken and veggies for dinner one night, I'm going to go with the oil drizzled over the top instead of the toasted bread on the side because I know that if I have the bread, chances are I'll be hungry before I go to bed. If I go with the oil, I won't be.

Fat and protein are your friends. They contribute to satiety - feeling full - and little amounts go a long way. I never set out to eat "low-carb" or "high protein" or any of the other low/high/trendy ways of eating, but over time I've learned that the biggest bang for my calorie buck is found when I eat fat and protein. Eggs, chicken, turkey, cheese, hummus, avocado, olive oil, fish . . . these are all staples for me.

What about carbs? Do you have to be afraid of them? Well, again, speaking just for myself, I've chosen to get almost all my carbs in the form of veggies, fruit, beans - unprocessed foods, basically - and the occasional whole wheat tortilla or bread. But that's now. At the beginning of my journey a good portion of my daily calories were "low cal" bread, 100 calorie cookie packs, baked chips. There's absolutely nothing wrong with these, but I like the way I feel better now, having mostly eliminated those.


- Fill up on veggies:
Vegetables (non-starchy ones, like broccoli, green beans, kale, spinach, eggplant, zucchini, celery, leeks, cabbage . . . you get the idea, basically anything that's not potato, corn, peas, or beans) are the calorie counter's best friends. They DO have calories - there are, I promise you, no "negative calorie" foods - but the calorie counts are so low that you can eat cups and cups of veggies for very few calories. Add veggies to everything, including microwave meals and canned soups. Experiment with new vegetables. Put more lettuce (or, better yet, spinach) on your sandwiches. Eat a side salad with dinner. Combine raw veggies with fat and protein - a cheese stick, for instance - for a filling snack. Eat more veggies!

- There's no "best" time to eat:
Three big meals? Six mini-meals? Two big meals, two snacks? Occasional fasting? Eat every three hours? Skip breakfast? No eating after 6? After 7? After midnight or you'll turn into a Gremlin?

Oh, gosh. Eat whenever you want to. If you get X number of calories per day, you can eat them all at once if you'd like to. Chances are you won't feel that great, but some people successfully do it this way. There is absolutely nothing magical about when you do or don't eat, and the whole "mini-meals to boost your metabolism" thing is bogus, no matter what the magazines in the checkout line at the grocery store say. I've experimented a lot with this, and I feel best when I get hungry - like, actually feel hunger pangs - and then eat a big meal. Eating small meals more often was harder on my schedule and also always left me feeling vaguely unsatisfied. Do whatever you like.

Speaking of being hungry . . .

- Hunger is not an emergency:
This is a hard one for most of us. It's possible, especially when we've been overweight for a long time, that we've never or only rarely experienced "real" hunger - usually, we have a snack before we've allowed ourselves to actually get hungry. True, physical hunger might be slightly different for most people, but usually involves stomach pangs and fun gurgling noises. :) If you've been eating a really high-carb diet (which is true for most people) a lot of times people think that headaches and shakiness are part of hunger - they are, but it's really more of a symptom of uneven blood sugar. If your blood sugar is even and ok, your stomach is the best indicator of hunger.

On the other hand, some books and experts will tell you that you should only ever eat in reaction to true, physical hunger. Um, I call balderdash. Whether or not I'm hungry on my birthday, I'm going to eat a slice of cake with some ice cream. On Thanksgiving, I'm going to have a second small scoop of my Daddy's cornbread dressing, because that's the only time I get to enjoy it. I think it's OK to eat for reasons other than hunger . . . sometimes.

Boredom is not a reason to eat. Watching TV is not a reason to eat. Attending a party, going to the movies, having an office celebration (birthday party, bridal/baby shower), church potluck . . . none of these are reasons you MUST eat. Some of us eat out of politeness: How many times have you been at work and a colleague brings in cookies she's made, and tells you, "Just try one, it won't hurt. I made them just for you!" It stinks (especially at first) but the more you get used to saying, "No, thank you. I really can't," firmly and without excuses or apologies, the more people will leave you alone after a while. No one is in charge of my body except for me, and if people really don't understand that, that's their problem.

- Trigger foods:
Now, I told you before that one of the reasons I decided to try calorie counting is because I was attracted by the idea that no foods were off limits. Chocolate, sugar, potato chips, pancakes . . . I can eat anything I want as long as I account for it. Yay!

Except, really, I can't. Many - most? - of us have some sort of "trigger food," which is the term used to talk about foods we have trouble eating in limited quantities. These are the foods that we can eat the whole bag of while watching TV. Or (and I've done this) we can carefully measure and portion out, putting the bag back in the pantry . . . then methodically eat the whole package this way over the course of an evening. For myself, I'm a sweets girl. Cookies, brownies, baked goods, candy - I love them all and have a great deal of trouble controlling myself around these once I get started.

There are different techniques for dealing with trigger foods, but the #1 most effective thing to do, once you've identified what they are for you, is to immediately stop buying them. Don't. Buy. The. Cookies. Just don't. Look at them longingly as you walk through the aisles (I've been known to gaze wistfully at the ice cream in the freezer section of my local Publix) but don't put them in your cart. If it's a true trigger food, 99.9% of the time it's going to end badly.

Now, some people have told me this doesn't work because they live with family members who have no trouble with Doritos. My argument to this is that Doritos are healthy for absolutely no one so there's zero "need" to buy them. But if your husband/wife/kids insist on having the Doritos in the house, ask them to put them somewhere where you can't find them - or at least somewhere where you don't see them every time you open the pantry. Play a mental game with yourself and convince yourself you can't eat that food because it's not yours, it's theirs. My roommate has had a package of Thin Mints in the freezer and a jar of Nutella in the cabinet the entire time I've lived here (what kind of superwoman is she?), and I've never been seriously tempted by them because it's her food, not mine. 

Do you need to forever eliminate trigger foods? Maybe, but that's probably not practical. When you really want to have whatever that food is, my suggestion is to buy a single serving when you're out of your house. Most grocery stores sell single slices of cake, or have a small bag of chips with your sandwich at lunch. But don't buy packages for your house.

Last, crazy suggestion (borne of experience). Say the package of cookies magically appeared in your house. Immediately put individual portions in small Ziplock bags and store them in the trunk of your car. Yes, you read that right. I have done this with those so-good-they're-evil Lofthouse iced sugar cookies (please see the beginning of this post regarding feeling no shame about doing what works for you). I ate one cookie a day for however many days. Good thing is was winter and not summer in Atlanta!

OK, that's enough babbling about food. I hope it helped those of you who had questions. No idea what my next post will be about . . . any suggestions or requests? I have thoughts but I don't want to bore anyone (except my sister, whom I am always happy to bore - now let's see if she's reading!).