How do you stay calorically neutral?

I saw a Frontline show not long ago on obesity. One of the things they
talked about was having a slight caloric in-balance. It was considered a
factor for many adults who had developed overweight problems in later life.
They said eating a mere 10 calories a day too much, i.e. more than you're
burning, will over 10 or 20 years cause a rising BMI eventually putting you
in the overweight or obese categories.

Alright, just say this happened to you, and you went calorically negative
for a while and eventually succeeded to lose the weight you wanted. Or say
you never were overweight but are conscious of the problem a slight caloric
in-balance can cause over time. So you need to develop a way of eating and a
way of life that will basically keep you calorically neutral.

But my question is how do you deal with the little bumps life throws your
way? You might live calorically neutral day to day most of the time. But
every now and then there's a dinner party or a night out where we'll spluge
a bit calorie wise. There are times when we don't exercise, when we're sick,
or have an injury, or the weather is no good, or we just need a break from
it. It's all too easy for us to slip into that few extra calories until we
realize we've gained weight and need to diet (go calorically negative).

The only way I can think around this problem is we need to eat slightly less
than we need on a day-to-day basis to compensate for the few days when we do
overeat a bit or take a break from the exercise. Do you think this is
reasonable? Are there any other solutions or perspectives on this problem of
remaining calorically neutral?

"BCJ" wrote in
:

But my question is how do you deal with the little bumps life throws
your way?

Remember what your mother told you?

Don't eat fast food crap. Don't drink caffienated drinks. Don't believe
Frontline, drink lots of water, learn portion control, etc...

Andy

--
"Ladies and gentlemen, The Beatles!"
- Ed Sullivan (1964)

"BCJ" wrote in message
...
I saw a Frontline show not long ago on obesity. One of the things they
talked about was having a slight caloric in-balance. It was considered a
factor for many adults who had developed overweight problems in later life.
They said eating a mere 10 calories a day too much, i.e. more than you're
burning, will over 10 or 20 years cause a rising BMI eventually putting you
in the overweight or obese categories.

If you eat an extra 10 cals/day you'll gain around a pound in a year. At
this rate, you'd probably be obese by the time you turn 70, but that's
provided you're on a desert island with no scale, no mirrors, no measuring
tape & no clothes that no longer fit ;-)

Alright, just say this happened to you, and you went calorically negative
for a while and eventually succeeded to lose the weight you wanted. Or say
you never were overweight but are conscious of the problem a slight
caloric in-balance can cause over time. So you need to develop a way of
eating and a way of life that will basically keep you calorically neutral.

Caloric neutrality is impossible for 2 reasons:

1) You don't always know exactly how many calories you eat. If you eat out
or go to s/one's house you won't always know the caloric value of the dishes
you're eating 'coz you don't know how they were prepared, how much fat,
sugar, etc. was used. Any figure you come up with will be a *guesstimate*.

2) There is no way to accurately measure how many calories you burn. There
are tables, databases, online calculators, spreadsheets & a number of
devices but not one of them will tell you exactly how many calories you did
burn over a period of time. Any numbers will just be an *educated guess*.

But my question is how do you deal with the little bumps life throws your
way? You might live calorically neutral day to day most of the time. But
every now and then there's a dinner party or a night out where we'll
spluge a bit calorie wise. There are times when we don't exercise, when
we're sick, or have an injury, or the weather is no good, or we just need
a break from it. It's all too easy for us to slip into that few extra
calories until we realize we've gained weight and need to diet (go
calorically negative).

The only way I can think around this problem is we need to eat slightly
less than we need on a day-to-day basis to compensate for the few days
when we do overeat a bit or take a break from the exercise. Do you think
this is reasonable? Are there any other solutions or perspectives on this
problem of remaining calorically neutral?


* Apply common sense - you know what foods are high in calories, if in
doubt, there's plenty of info online.
* Try to compensate for excesses either before or after the fact. Study
Chris's posts & you'll see something like "...xxxx calories today, a bit low
but tomorrow I'll have a splurge dinner..."
* Monitor your weight on a regular basis. This way you'll know if you've
gained a few pounds long before becoming obese.

My way of staying calorically neutral when I was simply "eating less"
was to watch the scale, and to eat less if the weight started going
up.

Well that's what I was thinking to do. Weigh myself once a week and if it
rises make a conscious effort to reduce portion size a bit. (actually I do a
caliper test which I think is more accurate than a scale because I do some
weight lifting)

Right now, I am on a low carb diet and somehow, by magic, my weight
stays stable without me making any effort whatsoever.

That's even better. I'm glad that's working for you. I am careful with carbs
but I don't follow any kind of low carb diet. I believe you said you didn't
track your calories or nutrients Ig. So what kind of low carb diet is it?
What rules do you follow?

* Apply common sense - you know what foods are high in calories, if in
doubt, there's plenty of info online.
* Try to compensate for excesses either before or after the fact. Study
Chris's posts & you'll see something like "...xxxx calories today, a bit low
but tomorrow I'll have a splurge dinner..."
* Monitor your weight on a regular basis. This way you'll know if you've
gained a few pounds long before becoming obese.

Yes that's good advice. I have noticed how Chris as lower and higher days. I
guess the trick is not to let it swing too far either way.

Remember what your mother told you?

Don't eat fast food crap. Don't drink caffienated drinks. Don't believe
Frontline, drink lots of water, learn portion control, etc...

hehe well my mother would only score about 50% on those things.

But seriously, I do occassionly eat fast food and it's high cal stuff. But
you're right. I should still be able to portion control it so I don't have
to go hungry the next day to compensate.

You are never going to be able to perfectly balance on an ongoing
basis, unless you are one of those lucky people who just have a
terrific built in set point that keeps them stable without any thought
on their parts.

Since your caloric needs will vary daily, even if your routine is
completely unchanged, you will either creep up, or creep down - unless
you do some conscious monitoring and adjusting. After all, being under
the weather is going to change everything, getting older means your
metabolism is slowing down every year, etc. etc.

So...you weigh yourself regularly - weekly, monthly - whatever interval
works best for you - and you take steps to make minor tweeks in the
equation, so you stay within your selected margin around your chosen
goal weight.

Going on my daily weight doesn't do it for me, since even at 135, my
weight can still fluctuate several pounds due to fluid retention. I
need the aggregate picture over several days to see if its actually a
real change in what I weigh or just a blip in the up and down of water
weight.

Mary G.
195/135/135..ish

wrote:
You are never going to be able to perfectly balance on an ongoing
basis, unless you are one of those lucky people who just have a
terrific built in set point that keeps them stable without any
thought
on their parts.

Since your caloric needs will vary daily, even if your routine is
completely unchanged, you will either creep up, or creep down -
unless
you do some conscious monitoring and adjusting. After all, being
under
the weather is going to change everything, getting older means your
metabolism is slowing down every year, etc. etc.

So...you weigh yourself regularly - weekly, monthly - whatever
interval
works best for you - and you take steps to make minor tweeks in the
equation, so you stay within your selected margin around your chosen
goal weight.

Going on my daily weight doesn't do it for me, since even at 135, my
weight can still fluctuate several pounds due to fluid retention. I
need the aggregate picture over several days to see if its actually a
real change in what I weigh or just a blip in the up and down of
water
weight.

Mary G.
195/135/135..ish

As a self-described geek, I've thought about this question quite a bit.
As the OP points out, weight loss or gain can be a matter of just a few
calories per day one way or the other. So, how do you keep "on
target"?

Counting calories is difficult and error-prone, and only takes into
account one half of the energy balance equation. Estimating the other
side of the equation (calories burned) is even more error-prone.

Fortunately, your weight itself holds the answer. All you need to do
is record your weight once each day, and then apply some statistical
analysis to your weight history. Specifically, a technique called
"linear regression" applied to your daily weight history can accurately
determine your "energy balance" - without counting calories.

Unfortunately, the math for this is rather complex.

Which is one reason (in addition to fame and fortune :-) ), that I
created a program to do this for you. It's called "WeightWare", and
it's primarily a weight, health, and exercise diary. Each day when you
weigh yourself, you can instantly see how your current energy balance
is doing, and get advanced warning when your weight program is getting
off track.

For anyone interested, you can download a free, fully functional,
30-day trial version from my website: http://www.WeightWare.com

Sorry if this comes across as spammy, but I truly believe in the value
of this approach, and it is relevant to the OP's question.

GG

My low carb diet is simply not eating any starches, sugar, and very
little fruits and dairy. I eat vegs. That works out to a sensible carb
count, by itself. So far, it is quite okay as I do like eating fatty
things and no longer want sweet things.

Starches, does that include bread? You don't eat any bread? Do you eat eggs?
What about alcohol?

The only people I know who don't eat sweet things are diabetics. Don't you
miss chocolate? I could more or less give up most sweet things - cakes,
cookies, candy, deserts, but chocolate .... that'd be like coming off
heroin.

Looks interesting and relevant to the topic of discussion - thank you.