some notes from an RD
 

Hey all...

I visited an R.D. yesterday for a consultation and just thought I'd share some of the things she suggested to me. As they say in OA...take what you need and leave the rest. ;)

-- As society has gotten larger, the estimated number of calories people think they need has gotten larger. If you are a woman who leads the normal American lifestyle (i.e., you are not a bodybuilder or a marathon runner), you probably don't need more than 1500 calories per day.

-- Make a weekly exercise goal rather than a daily exercise goal, and start out small. If you make a goal of exercising for 100 minutes a week, that's a little less than 15 minutes per day. That way, you can spread it out if you have a busy week. It might be tough to find an hour to go to the gym, but everyone can find 15 minutes to jog in the living room.

-- If you must count anything, count your fiber grams. We need 20 g. of fiber per day, but most Americans get less than 10 g. per day.

-- Don't obsess over water intake. Six to eight - 8 oz. glasses of FLUID is what we need. If it becomes liquid at body temperature, it's fluid. Just be careful WHAT you drink. It's not the caffiene, really, that's doing people in - it's the crap that usually comes along with caffiene, like sugar and whole milk in lattes and sugar in sodas.

We also talked about breaking bad habits. One of the things I stopped doing back in December when I started following OA was eating in my car. (Although, for me it wasn't so much a habit as it was a fabulous place for eating in secret!) I dealt with some of my bad habits cold-turkey, but only because I felt it necessary to salvage my mental health. She talked about setting bad-habit goals, though. Pick a bad habit a week and concentrate on it.

In other news...she had the coolest scale! It was a scale with counterweights, but instead of a balance bar it had a level bubble. I just thought it was nifty. :)

That was interesting, Jennelle -- thanks for sharing it!

I agree. She gave you some great pointers. A habit for me I'm working on is only eating in the kitchen. I'm used to sitting down in front of the TV and scarfing down my meal. (I'm having my evening snack right now so I go into the kitchen grab a handful of popcorn, chew and swallow and then come back here to type. That way I'm not mindlessly eating a whole bag of popcorn. I'm actually enjoying it.)

Thanks so much for sharing....very interesting points....especially about the water!

1500 calories - very interesting.

I had alos read about making a weekly exercise goal. I think I read that if you really want to lose weight, you should shoot for 200 min. of cardio a week. I don't think I ever meet that - but I think I will start to shoot for it!!

Thanks for sharing!