http://www.cncahealth.com/explore/learn/nutrition-food/fooled-by-food-labels-9-deceptive-claims-to-watch-out-for
While counting my nutritional intakes on fitness trackers, I've often found myself starving on a 1,300-1,500 calorie diet. I assumed it was a flaw in the program, so I included housework as strength exercises and jumped up my physical exercise to remedy the problem of being hungry due to low calories. With this newfound information about label calories, how am I still hungry when matching these calories on a food tracker?! It doesn't make sense to me at all!
Mental note:
Non heme iron sources come from veggies, nuts, fortified cereals, and vitamins where as heme iron comes from meats, especially red meats. Red meats are the best option for iron absorbtion in someone who doesn't absorb iron as well as average folks.
It's all so very confusing! One moment I'm reading that wood chips are healthy, then I read that 1gram of trans-fat can increase my likelihood of heart disease by 23% which is cool with the FDA to not mention, and that food labels legally lie about 20% of their calories. All the while, I'm still hungry as heck counting every calorie. I increase my calcium for bone strength and then I lose almost all of the iron in my body. This is not assisted by my female cycle, which swells my entire torso (I can't even pride myself with the literal puffing in my chest), makes my hips and back ache, and further depletes the iron in my body. Hey, there's no baby in there and I need that iron! I am literally afraid to roll off of the couch. This iron thing makes more and more sense though, the sluggish fainting spells around this time of the month, the sleepy sloth-like 13+ hours I spend in bed, the difficulty I have to find my 'get up and go' regardless of or more so due to soda or coffee consumption, which deter iron absorbtion...
I am extremely stressed out by the idea of taking an iron supplement. Can you tell? Lol! I imagine the extreme bowel discomfort, the lack of research that the pill-form will absorb at all, and the fact that insurance doesn't cover OTC pills even though I need 150mg just furthers my unwillingness to submit to a pill. Everything I see leads more and more to making choices towards having a clean diet. A clean diet is basically a diet that does not contain any processed foods, white flour, or sugar. Here's an excellent article on the clean diet. The author suggests that one can lose 3 pounds a week by eating clean and doing strength and cardio exercises:
http://www.webmd.com/diet/eat-clean-diet
Many of my fitness friends have suggested clean dieting to beat the weight plateau. It's something I've considered, but also avoided. Obviously, the strength and cardio alone just aren't enough by themselves. I cannot entirely deprive my family of their precious jelly toast and the occasional soda or chips. However, I have made great strides with them in limiting their consumption of junk foods. This is partly because of our food budget, but also because mama don't like temptation and she does the grocery shopping. Of course I want lean meats and fresh greens, but our food budget, tight schedule, and limited transportation never seems to accommodate perishables. We now take the bus on Saturday's for family days in which we do shopping, run errands, and maybe get frozen yogurt. That solves the accessibility problem. We are not in a food desert, TG. With careful meal planning and a stack of recipes, I can incorporate perishable foods into our meals. The Good Lord knows we're extremely accustomed to eating one type of entree for an entire month simply because it's what's on sale. Besides, my mama will let me use her seal-a-meal and meat grinder with no problem as long as I buy bags and clean the items when I'm finished using them.
According to my flawed home scale, I have dropped down to exactly 110 pounds while weighing myself in the same clothing, at the exact time of day, and the same date within the month. These factors make me feel like there is some consistency and acuracy within my scale weight. My waist has swolen a bit earlier than last month, so I will have to pick another date to record my measurements. Now on my doctor's scale I have lost about 8-9 pounds. I'm 117 pounds on that scale where as I was about 125 (give or take a pound) before. I remember that because I was horrified that I was over 125 even though I had worn shorts way too early in the summer. My home scale is extremely flawed! I've put 2 ten pound weights on it to accurately read 20 pounds, but I imagine if I placed 60 pounds in weights on the scale, it would read about 58 pounds. The reason I'm mentioning this decrease in weight is because I've lost even more weight despite my looser dedication to exercise, due to my fatigue.
"Permanent changes = permanent results!" The phrase plays over and over in my head. I want to get back on my machines before my metabolism drops back down, so I force myself to consume 3oz to 4oz of meat at dinner, shove canned black eyed peas and beans in my mouth even though they are gross, avoid caffiene and dairy as best I can, and consider eating a stinking supplemental pill even though I fear and hate them. I walk down to my fitness area every day and search for the will to use the machines or at least spend an hour or so dancing with crunches, squats, and jumping until I get tired. It's a real kick in the arse for trying and ain't that the story of my life?! The betrayal, ignorance, misinformation, and conflicting advice are in every aspect of the world around me. My intellectual side burns with a reminder to "keep it simple, stupid." I will try to buy clean foods and serve clean meals, while also keeping in mind food that are sources of iron. Shoot, if I can cut back on our junk food, I can increase our clean meals. It'll be an interesting challenge on the budget since the boy has requested to bring lunch to school this year. Please let me know if anyone has any tips for how to cook liver so that it doesn't taste like liver.
No comments:
Post a Comment