Saturday, June 16, 2012

Jeep Diet, Update


Hey all.  Well, it's been about two months since I announced I was going on the Jeep Diet, and it's been six weeks since I started it in earnest. 

The first few weeks I spent logging everything I ate, but not changing anything*.  I did this to get a grip on what I was actually consuming on a daily basis so I could understand better what I needed to change.  As expected, my daily calorie intake wasn't substantially huge.  But my fat and sodium were higher than I'd like and my protein was sort of low.  Additionally, the number of minutes I was averaging daily with exercise was pretty pathetic.  It's not that I never exercised, just that I did it so inconsistently that the workouts I did were reduced in efficiency by the number of days in between them. 

In May, specifically on May 5th, I started in earnest trying to change my diet and exercise.  I started going to the gym or working out at home more consistently.  I made better choices in what I was eating.  I didn't give up any one particular or group of foods.  I just made a different choice sometimes (and greatly reduced the "white group" as previously discussed here ).  I continued to keep track of all of my numbers just to see what would happen.  At the end of May, I calculated out the average daily numbers for both April and May.

Here's how they looked in April (4/17-4/30):

Calories:  1634
Carbs:  147
Fat:  78
Protein:  81
Sodium:  2081
Exercise:  11 mins

Here's how they looked in May:

Calories:  1449
Carbs:  169
Fat:  51
Protein:  88
Sodium:  1560
Exercise:  24 mins

Obviously the average calories consumed didn't drop that much, but the fat was cut by 35% and the sodium by 25%.  Exercise was easily doubled.  The result so far is that I've lost ten pounds.

Here's how it looks so far in June (6/1-6/15):

Calories:  1452
Carbs:  150
Fat:  59
Protein:  81
Sodium:  1615
Exercise:  41 mins

So, looking at my numbers so far for June, I can see that while I'm doing fine on my calories, the fat is creeping up, as is the sodium.  It's not by much, but I think I need to adjust it right now in order to stay where I want to be.  The increased exercise is a good thing.  I'd like to see it hit a solid 45 minutes daily but since it's already almost quadrupled from April, I won't complain too loudly.  And while I know it will get harder as I get closer to my goal, I think with a few minor tweaks I will continue making progress.

*Keep in mind that while I wasn't making better choices consciously, I do believe that the mere act of writing down what I eat makes me subconsciously better behaved so my best guess is that the numbers are slightly skewed to the good.

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