Pressdog.com

Brutal Diet Math
Part 2 of P-Dog on a Diet

By Bill Zahren
(Posted 04/01/02)

Behind all the “Miracle Diets,” beyond all the gallons of cottage cheese and bushels of gargantuan grapefruit, just past the Slabs-o-Bacon Diet, weight gain or loss comes down to this brutal piece of math:

Calories Consumed – Calories Burned = Fat or Skinny.

Oh, how I wish it weren’t so. How I wish there was a “fat blocker” or “fat burner” that could overcome the bitter physiological law of Calories In vs. Calories Out. The excellent Weight Watchers Point thing? Just an easy way to do the math above. My diet software? Just a computer-assisted way to do the math above.

(Note to the legal community: I hereby strongly advise all readers to consult a physician before starting any diet because I am not a doctor and may well have no clue what I am saying.)

Let’s talk about the P-Dog’s Diet Truths, confirmed over more than 20 years of “watching what I eat”:

Think of Calories Like Money — Just pretend you’ve got $18 to spend (1800 cents). Work with me here. And, as I remind my daughters, you can only spend it once. Every thing you eat has a caloric price tag. That big Butterfinger is going to cost ya $2.90 (290 calories) out of your $18 (1800 calories total). Now you have $15.10 for the rest of the day. Deal with it. If you overspend, you get fatter. If you under spend, you get skinnier.

Oh, and don't think you can sneak a Ho-Ho by the hyper-anal calorie accountant inside your body. You can't say "Look at that BABE!" and then snork down a Frosty Malt thinking your body will not record those calories. Your calorie accountant has a meter right at the top of your throat that measures things to the .0000001 calorie. The Bastard.

Fat Free is Not Calorie Free — Whoever said, “Fat makes you fat” should be beaten with a dusty NordicTrack machine. That tired mantra has us all fixated on “fat-free” stuff. Grocery isles are festooned with green-labeled “reduced fat” versions of products. Which is OK, as long as you understand “fat-free” does not, not, NOT mean “calorie free.” Problem is, a lot of fat-free items are PACKED with calories. And calories, no matter where they come from, are what make you fat. Remember, ALL beer contains ZERO fat. I rest my case.

Don’t Nickel and Dime Your Calorie Budget — I think most people, including me, piss away their daily calorie budget (about 1800 to 2000 for most people) about 25 calories at time. For example, if you have three Hershey’s Kisses in the morning from a coworker’s ever-present candy dish, that’s 75 calories (about 25 per kiss). Five snack crackers is 100 gone.

Women trying to lose weight live on a calorie budget of maybe 1500. Just keep it in mind next time you invest about 10% of your total calories for the day in 1 oz. of Whoppers. Or that “low-fat” giant muffin that costs you almost a third of your daily allowance. For the same calories as in that “low-fat” muffin, you could eat four pieces of toast with real butter or seven oranges or four ounces of sirloin steak.

NEVER EAT FRENCH FRIES: Fast food will make you a blimp. That’s a news flash, huh? Think “damage control” when you go into a fast-food place. A small serving of fries at McDonalds is 450 calories all by itself. That’s like eating two fried eggs and two pieces of bacon and two pieces of toast with real butter with your Big Mac. Or you could just say, "I'd like a Big Mac and one-and-a-half large Butterfingers to go, please." Supersize those fries and it jumps to 610 (or roughly the blood cholesterol of someone who eats only fast food). “Supersized” is what I’ll become if I eat a lot of those meals.

When you do go for the fast food, look for something featuring grilled, unbreaded chicken. A chicken McGrilled sandwich (always hold the mayo) is only 340 calories, a relative lightweight in the fast food world. If you do have a burger, say NO to the special sauces and mayo. Damage control. But above all, eating fries is like driving lard sticks into your butt.

Carbohydrate + Fat = Bigger Pants Size. Carbohydrate combined with fat is deadly stuff. French fries and chips are perfect examples. Carbos alone aren’t bad. The calories in fruits and vegetables come almost entirely from carbohydrates. Carbohydrates make up the majority fuel source of a healthy diet. But when you combine it with fat, it goes right to your body's favorite flab storage center. Chips. Candy and cookies. It’s all carbo and fat combined. Keep them separate as much as you can.

Protein is Not Evil — Protein builds and repairs muscle. Muscle is what burns calories in your body. The more muscle you have, the more calories you burn just sitting around. Muscle is good. My vegetarian friends would disagree, but I think humans are natural meat eaters. I love the stuff. The problem is animal protein always comes with some amount of fat and sometimes it’s a HUGE amount. So the trick is to get a lot of protein without a lot of fat.

Still, a 6-ounce top sirloin is around 500 calories, only about 100 calories more than a Big Mac and 100 calories less than those supersized fries. It’s also less than 4 ounces of barbequed potato chips. I know which one I’d rather have. Again, it’s a matter of how much. Go to a steak place and swine down a 12-ounce T-Bone and you’ve just inhaled 1000 calories. Then add all that sour cream and butter on your baked potato or some fries, and you got a 2000-calorie meal. Yowser.

Important note: Don’t start snarfing down the animal protein if your blood cholesterol is high without talking to your doctor first. My cholesterol is 157, (thanks Mom and Dad!) so I’m good to go. Bring on the New York strip!

Exercise — Don’t worry about “working up a sweat.” Moving muscle burns calories. So walk, bike, vacuum, wash the car, whatever. BUT, exercise is not an excuse to eat crappy food. You can be ultra buff and still have a blood cholesterol of 298 (in the “Virtually Dead” range) because of what you eat, not how much. Doesn’t that suck? You run 34 miles a day to burn off all the stuff you eat and you can still die because you ate too much fat or something. Doesn't that suck even more? The body is a cruel trickster, I tell you. You have to eat right AND exercise. Damn.

Finally, READ THE LABELS — Especially on “light” and “low-fat” stuff. Check that calorie line. Compare it to the regular, high-fat stuff. You may be shocked at how little difference there is. Read the fast food nutritional chart (if only so I’m not the only geek doing it). Ask yourself, “is this worth what it costs my calorie budget?”

Oh yeah, that’s the tough question. And if P-dog had the answer, he’d have 15% body fat rather than 25%. Knowing the rules and following them are two different things.

Hope your ribs are showing soon.

Printer-friendly version

-- end --