So I'm currently skimming two articles and two books trying to plan my upcoming diet. I've found so much conflicting information its kind of confusing. But today I found this formula for calculating healthy body weight. For woman: give yourself 100 lbs for the first 5 feet and 5 lbs for every inch after that. I'm 5'8" so my ideal healthy body weight is 140. If you have a small frame subtract 10%, if you have a large frame add 10%.
Then convert to kilograms by dividing by 2.2. For me that's 63.6 kg. For moderate activity level, about 20 minutes a day, a person needs about 25 calories per kg. So my daily caloric intake should be 1590 to maintain my ideal weight. Is it just me or does that seem a little high? That's the problem with formulas, they don't take into account you as an individual. But it does give me a starting point.
Now I need to figure out exactly how many calories I should adjust that to fit me. And how to break that down. And then how many carbs should I eat? That's confusing too. The recommended dietary allowance for carbohydrates is 130 grams per day. That's based on the minimum requirements for the brain. They then suggest to lose weight and maintain blood glucose levels a low carb diet is beneficial. That's only 20 to 30 grams of carbs a day. Wow. 100 grams less a day.
Now go to the store and pick up a loaf of bread, some pasta, or a box of cereal and look at the nutritional information. One serving of most of these things exceeds the recommended low carb diet limit. Exceeds. One slice of bread, the whole wheat nutty stuff. Wow.
I've decided to make a chart of the good and bad carb items. That seems like a good starting point while I work out exactly how much of what I should eat. And a phone call to my sister who always seems to know everything about anything is in order.
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