The 300 Calorie Project
A few weeks ago, I sat down in my doctor's office and got "the speech." I've heard it all before - the extra steps each day, taking the stairs, eating small meals, blah blah blah.
And the thing is? I do all that stuff. And yet I got the hairy eyeball when I told my doctor that I typically don't consume more than 1,500 calories a day, and while I do have the occasional hamburger or cookie, most of my meals are pretty well balanced and healthy.
He looked at my overflowing cup of a body and suggested a weight loss class. I wanted to cry.
In some of the reading I've been doing, I've heard that:
Hypothyroid people's bodies are already prone to hoarding calories, so low calorie diets aren't the best idea, even when trying to shed pounds.
The best way to help your metabolism is daily exercise, with an emphasis on building muscle, and to eat five or six small meals a day.
I've pretty much given up snacking, and have been focusing on having three solid meals a day, so this is a whole new thing for me. At this point, I'm just recording what I eat, and then after I have a few weeks of "data" I will start refining my diet, to correct any obvious missing foods or whatever.
The biggest problem so far? Trying to eat 5 meals a day. I'm just not that hungry. I had a good breakfast, and I wasn't hungry mid-morning, so I ate a nice lunch, and had a snack around 4pm, and then ate dinner at around 6 pm, and that's still only four "meals."
We'll see if I can get that fifth meal in there tomorrow. It's also sort of fun to see what exactly you can eat that totals out to about 300 calories.
