Wow. August flew by and I did not get a chance to sit down and write at all. With all the long summer work hours and the long hours of training, I found myself with little time or energy to blog although I often thought about it. Today I would like to address something I have been meaning to do for a long time.
How many calories to you eat in a day? How do you know? Do you carefully read all the labels on your store bought food? Do you weigh your produce and other foods so you can calculate the calories using one of the many free online tools? If you go out to eat, do you count the calories? Do you keep a food journal so you can write down everything you eat in a day? If you don't do these things then you can't really honestly say how many calories you eat in a day. Studies have shown that most people are way off when told to estimate how many calories a particular meal may contain. There is really no way to be accurate without taking some extra time to write down everything that you eat and then look up the calories for each item and tally them up.
One day last week, I did exactly that. Before work, I weighed all my fruit and calculated the calories with a special scale we have. The scale has a number pad and an accompanying code book that lets you figure out just how many calories an apple has or just about any other food. I also wrote down the calories for everything I ate and drank that day. At the end of the day, I counted it all up and came up with a number that sort of surprised me. Before I get to that number, here is what I had to eat that day.
Breakfast at my desk at work
Banana, Orange, Red Grapes, Lara Bar-all organic of course
10AM Snack
Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich on Whole Wheat Bread-Again, all organic
Lunch
Martin's Garden Veggie Sandwich and 1 helping of Food Should Taste Good Multigrain Chips. Not all organic this time.
Afternoon Snack
Banana, Lara Bar- Organic
Drive Home Snack
Apple-Organic
Pre-workout snack
Banana, Honey Stinger Waffle, two servings of Vanilla Hammer Gel-Not all organic
My workout was 1 hour of hill repeats with Pro K Racing.
Dinner
Roasted Vegetables over Whole Wheat Spaghetti with Tomato sauce and Mixed Greens - All organic
After Dinner Snack
Large Glass of Organic Apple Juice not from concentrate. Just apples, no chemicals.
So when I added up all the calories for my day, I came up with 2750. I was surprised because I did not think I was taking in that many calories. The Hammer Gels and Honey Stinger Waffle account for over 300 calories and the apple juice is also high in calories. One thing that was interesting is that I weighed all the vegetables that I cut up before I roasted them. We roast quite a bit of roasted vegetables when we have spaghetti. When I tallied them up, they only came to about 100 calories. There is one thing I did not account for that would have pushed up the calorie count just slightly. I drizzle organic extra virgin olive oil on the veggies before baking them. It is really not much but is one detail I left out of my journal.
I am happy with the results of my experiment. It was a light workout day compared to a long day on the bike so it was easy to account for everything. I am not sure what the magic number is for optimal performance but I think overall, I am doing well with fueling my body. I tend to think of food as fuel rather than a treat or reward. And I have been pretty steady on the scale, holding at 137 lbs. I do want to pick another day and see how one of our other typical meals compares to :Tuesday night Pro K racing and spaghetti night." Hopefully I will get a chance to do that in the near future.
Thanks for reading, comments appreciated.
