First short bike ride after the Ironman on Saturday…40 minutes, easy-for-me pace…online Food Diary credited 498 calories for the effort…nice to get a bit more cushion back into the calorie-watching equation…_very_ tough without exercise in there for me to stay under 2,000 calories a day when I’ve been used to eating 3-4,000 calories a day.
A big part of that is simply habit of course…I’m used to eating the same things each day a lot of the time…I need to adjust that now, to leave a few calories in the budget for the end of the day, and only eat when hungry…not when I’m used to eating.
Sadly, without exercise on a 2,000 calorie budget, my usual fruit smoothie breakfast and egg sandwich during the morning total 825 calories, only leaving me 1,175 calories for the rest of the day, including ‘lunch’…that’s a _real_ challenge to stay inside of, since I’m used to ‘grazing’ in the afternoon…never mind trying to drop a few pounds.
..as the theory goes, losing only a 1/2 pound a week means running a 250 calorie deficit each day…to lose 1 pound a week, a 500 calorie deficit per day…and never mind having a couple of beers at the odd dinner out…and mabe dessert every once in a while…geez.
‘Running the numbers’, shows just how tight it really is without exercise in there. At my weight, and typical intensity, 1-1.5 hours a day can give me an extra 1,000 calories of exercise burn to play with…opens up a lot more options….even 30 minutes of exercise takes 500 calories out…and that can definitely be the difference for me whether I drop a few pounds a month, or gain them.
So for the next 8 weeks of lighter than normal exercise, so far I’ve cut back/out the cheese…and that alcohol thing is coming under severe portion control scrutiny.