Sh&Sw 2: 1200 Calories

Darren and I are tracking our calories to get our eating under control. (It's odd, from a historical perspective, that we are so well off that we have to train ourselves to eat less.) On the one hand, it's a lot more fun working on it together. On the other hand, it's no fun whatsoever to be the female half of the team. You know how many calories Darren gets in a day? Hm, let's see... he considers 750 for lunch to be a good target. That's more than half of my entire daily allowance. Not only is life unfair, but biology is too.

In fact, for the first two weeks on myfitnesspal.com, I ended each day nearly in tears. Even with walking or running a mile or two a day, I was still overshooting my goal. And it's not like I sat around eating candy bars and doughnuts all day.

Here's what has made a difference:

1. Darren's friend Maureen, who is helping keep him on track, wrote to me that "1200 calories can be a little food or a lot of food, depending on what you eat." She suggested lots of veggies... as in, entire packages of frozen vegetables. So I took her up on it, filling up my bowl with broccoli or soybeans and adding a bit of rice or cheese or chicken to make it more interesting. It works, it really does.

2. Tracking my calories is like budgeting: it shows up where I spend the most. In my case, it's snacks. I can eat 245 for breakfast, 312 for lunch, 390 for supper... and 500 for snacks. Getting the snack section under control has made it much easier to see green numbers at the end of the day.


The scale is consistently five pounds lower than it was a month ago, which is pleasing. Darren's progress is even more remarkable, because he's been disciplined, active, and because biology isn't fair.

-- SJ