So I went to a registered dietician last night. My hairdresser Trisha has been seeing her for about six months and has lost twenty-five pounds. Trisha has had nothing but praise for the R.D., so I decided to make an appointment.
Here's what I learned:
I'm not eating frequently enough. That surprised me. I'm not much of a snacker, so I tend to have three large meals a day and nothing in between. Apparently, this M.O. wreaks havoc with my blood sugar. The R.D., whose name is Adrianne, compared it to doing paperwork for my job. She said that if my boss came by my desk, dumped a three-foot high stack of paperwork on it, and told me to get as much of it done as possible, I would only be able to do so much of it before the end of the day, and would have to set the rest of it aside for later. That's what happens when you eat too much food at any given meal: your body uses only as much energy from it (calories) as it needs, then stores the rest of it as fat for later, in case you don't eat again.
Adrianne then told me to imagine my boss instead giving me smaller assignments every two or three hours...I'd get it all done before the next task. And so it is with your body. If you eat smaller meals more frequently, your body continuously uses the energy you're giving it every couple of hours. She told me that you can actually train (or retrain, as the case may be) your metabolism to be more effective by doing this.
Here are the rules for the next two weeks:
- My magic number is three. I must eat every three hours from the time I wake up until two or three hours before bedtime. Each meal must be about the size of my two fists, approximately. The deal is, if I'm eating this often, I won't be as hungry, so I won't feel the need to consume as much food. Even if I do not feel particularly hungry, I must eat every three hours. This will stabilize my blood sugar and correct my metabolic rate.
- I am currently not eating enough protein. So I need to make sure that every meal I eat contains a form of protein and a form of carbohydrate. The catch is that the carbohydrates I consume must have at least 3 grams of fiber. My goal is to consume 20 grams or more of fiber per day. No white breads or white-flour pasta or white rice or white crackers. This will be VERY hard for me, as I just adore simple carbs. Sigh.
- I hate water. Hate it. I've tried every trick in the book to make it more appealing (adding lemon, trying that fruit-flavored water) with no success. Instead, I drink about a half-gallon of diet iced tea per day. I was all proud of myself because it took a long time for me to kick my two-can a day Pepsi habit, and I somehow managed to do it. Granted, I still treat myself occasionally to Pepsi a few times a month, but overall I have drastically reduced my soda consumption. However, that is NOT enough, Adrianne told me. So now, for every two cups of diet iced tea I drink, I must drink one glass of water. This will also be hard, but doable, I think.
- I walk almost three miles daily, but my body has become accustomed to it. As Adrianne told me last night, if you keep doing what you've always done, you'll keep getting what you've always gotten. So I have to incorporate two high-intensity interval sessions per week, which will also rev up the old metabolism. Each session lasts only twenty minutes, so that's definitely doable. I need to buy a heart rate monitor to do the interval sessions. More about this later...
Our appointment wasn't all doom and gloom. Fortunately, I am a picky eater and don't like many "bad" foods (mayo, most fast food, most junk food, most sweets) so that works in my favor. She told me that my portion sizes have been sensible and praised me for my consistent walking habit. I just need to kick it up another notch and make a few changes.
I'm meeting her again in two weeks and have to track my daily food intake and exercise for that period. Wish me luck! I may have to hold some kind of formal white-flour purging ceremony tonight in my pantry...
In My Head
