Friday, January 23, 2009

I'm not a glutton, so why am I fat?

Something that's been bothering me a lot lately is the perception that if you are not in shape, it must be because you sit around all day stuffing crap into your face. Or at least the perception that you must be at least eating more than you should.

When I keep track of the calories that I eat, without restricting what I eat further than normal, I eat between 1500-1600 calories a day. I work out regularly, although I will admit to a bit of a slump in that this week due to travel plans messing with my program. I avoid fried foods, processed junk food, and Starbucks. The last heavenly cup of Pinkberry I had was the first weekend of the New Year, and I'm not getting another one until spring.

And yet I still fall on the "Overweight" side of the BMI scale.

True, I could be more vigilant in counting calories and watching what I eat. True, I could spend more time in the gym, although a big reason I'm not at the gym more involves the completion of a couple of other projects in other realms of life (most notably teaching myself Flash so I can update my poor, unloved portfolio site, which is in dire need of an update.)

I read the magazines and the websites, and I hear all these platitudes "Just ten minutes a day!" "Just cut down to 1500 calories!" "Just replace one meal with cereal!" I feel that somehow something is wrong. When I was loosing weight steadily, I was eating under 1200 calories a day consistently. I was not only at the gym, but *on* the machines for over an hour, three days a week, with weight training added in I would spend over two hours at the gym, not counting showers.

So what is it? Are Oprah, Self, and FitTV lying to us? Or am I just being whiney and unwilling to do what it takes? Is the answer that I just need to commit myself to molding my life around my fitness routine until I reach my goal? Or am I doomed to maintain indefinitely at a weight I'm not happy with?

-Meg

1 comment:

Penny said...

It's impossible to answer this question because everyone is so different, and everybody's metabolisms are so different. In the majority of cases, if somebody is above a weight that is right for them, and they work out regularly and eat no more than 1500 calories a day, then they will lose weight over time. Maybe your body feels it is at the right weight, so it is reluctant to lose more? Maybe you just need to give it more time?

TA x

Tracking Transformation: Where I stand now