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April 8, 2005
Take It Home and Weigh It
No, this is not some CR'd cavegirl's idea of what to do with a man on a first date.
This is Mary's approach to restaurant eating, and I think it's a brilliant one.
For months now, I've been wondering how Mary can be so confident of her calorie counts on days when she eats out. Ever since I started hanging out with the hardcore CR boys who weigh everything they eat and therefore KNOW FOR SURE how many calories they're consuming (not just MR: Kenton, Dean, and the Chain Eater of Lettuce all fall into this category) I've noticed that people who actually *know* how many Calories they're consuming report higher Calorie levels than people who eat out a lot and therefore don't really know.
For example, I know a guy who eats 1900 calories a day and has a BMI of 16.7. Let's call him George, not because that's his name, but because I've always wanted to know someone named George. George never, ever eats out and meticulously weighs and measures every morsel he consumes. George is quite thin, and was, even pre-CR. He's on the lighter end even for CR practitioners. So he's one of those naturally skinny people we used to hate whom we now love, and he's a serious CR practitioner.
Meanwhile, there's Jeff. We'll call him Jeff, not because that's his name, but because I don't currently know anyone who practices CR whose name is Jeff, and I think we need one. Maybe Jeff the Three Hundred brother will join us? Anyway, Jeff thinks he's eating 1600 calories a day, but he eats out several times a week. His BMI is much higher than George's.
Now I'm not saying that Jeff is a liar, or that Jeff is intentionally quoting low calorie levels in order to impress girls. (Though I have been told that many men adopt CR as an intentional strategy to pick up women.) Weight is definitely not a proxy for calorie consumption, nor is BMI. Lots of people who aren't CR'd are naturally skinny... lots of CR'd folks don't look as skinny as you'd think they would. Take me for example. I don't look skinny at all at 105, but pre-CR I weighed 137.
But Jeff is *much* less skinny than George. And Jeff eats out a lot.
Then there's Raoul. Raoul is a hardcore CR practitioner who not only eats a consistent number of Calories, carefully measured, every day, Raoul also participates daily in a very active sport that can only be practiced in an ocean. Raoul is really skinny. Raoul is both a serious athelete and a serious CR practitioner, wow. He knows he's eating 1750 a day, and his BMI is about 17.6 -- he's a little shorter than George and Jeff. He eats fewer Calories, and basically falls over with exhaustion if he tries to lower his Calories even more. But he's really, really skinny.
So George and Raoul know how many Calories they're eating. And they're eating *more* than Jeff says he's eating. But because Jeff doesn't know *for sure* what he's eating when he eats out, it seems likey to me that Jeff doesn't really know how many Calories he's eating.
Am I calling Jeff a liar? Of course not, that would be absurd. I am observing that we tend to grossly underestimate our calories when we don't have direct control over our food.
Take my own case in point. Everyone knows that basically since the dawn of CR time, I have had a pattern of carefully measuring my food at home for about four - five days (in the beginning I did it more with packaged foods that had clearly labeled calorie counts, now I have my very own, very nice scale.) and then eating out and not really watching that carefully what I was eating. This pattern resulted in 32 pounds of weight loss over about eight months, and worked really well with my social life. I thought I was eating maybe 1100 Calories a day, when you average the in meals with the out meals.
I now believe that I was eating way more than that. And when you look at what one can consume in an out meal: soups, sauces, even one small slice of bread, wine, a Cosmopolitian here and there... it adds up. Normal people have no idea how much they eat. What looks like a normal or even small dinner can be 1000+ calories. Easily.
So... I think I was eating more than I thought I was. And here's why I think so. Going to MR's house and spending eight to eleven days in a perfectly calorie controlled environment (it's so relaxing... you should all try it. Wait, I mean you should try it at home... MR won't appreciate it if I invite the entire universe of bloggiefriends to crash at his place for eleven days!) I discovered that I feel great for about eight days, then get wiggy with hunger. Like eating celery between meals and seriously contemplating the macronutrient composition of my dinner companion... as though I might cook and eat him! And recognizing that in order to make a Zoned meal out of MR, I'd have to add quite a bit of oil. He's very lowfat, lean protein. But I could have a giant amount of wine, as that's all carbs and the human body has very few carbs. And the calcium would be great in all those bones! See, when you start thinking these thoughts about the man you love, whom you would do anything to protect from harm, you realize that you're REALLY, REALLY HUNGRY!
So we tried upping my calories to 1100 on my last trip, and sure enough, I still got wiggy with hunger after a number of days.
So guess what? The calorie deficit caused by not eating out is more than 100 Calories a day for five days. So I must be eating a lot more when I go out.
Now that's okay... my weight has stabilized and I am feeling good and blah blah blah... but it does mean that I was misreporting my Calories. Which might be confusing to someone who is starting CR. It's bad if you go too low... it sets you up for failure, makes you less likely to get the full health benefit of CR due to overly rapid weight loss, and is just generally unpleasant.
Now that I realize that I've been miscounting those "out" meals, I can correct my error and figure out more carefully how much I am really eating. Then if I want to go lower, I'll have information with which to make the decision about what precisely constitutes lower.
So I've been wondering how to figure out HOW MANY CALORIES I'm REALLY EATING when I go out.
Then I come across Mary's suggestion. Take it home and weigh it!
This is a brilliant idea! I'm going to take home my favorite dishes at places where I eat out and weigh them on my fancy new scale. Maybe I'll even press the MR button and watch, say, sea scallops be magically transformed into my angel. That would definitely be worth the $32 it cost to get the scale on eBay... and much cheaper than a plane ticket to Canada!
And don't worry, I won't cook and eat him. I'm still a vegetarian at heart.
Posted by april at April 8, 2005 9:07 AM
Comments
Of course, you are right. One never knows when you eat out. It's all a guess. Even if you weigh, you can't be sure what they put into it. I am sure I underestimate to some extent. I had the same experience when I started my blog. I was weighing and recording more carefully and started losing weight at what I thought was the same level of calories. It's all sort of relative though, isn't it? I think that I was eating 1800 calories a day before. Maybe I was eating 2200!? I am certainly eating 60-70% of what I was eating before - or less. And I weigh 40 pounds less.
Another issue to keep in mind on the varying brothers. The salad eater's calories don't seem to count as much. Us restaurant eaters don't consume the vast quantities of high fiber foods. My fiber content is pretty low - around 20 g a day. This is probably well below CR Society average - but, of course, more or less the RDA.
Posted by: Mary at April 8, 2005 5:32 PM
Do you suggest measuring the foods even if the caloric/nutritional content is available on the website and/or menu of the restaurant?
Posted by: Leigh at December 25, 2007 10:55 PM