Me, me, me

Being a bloody-minded little b**** I have now returned to my pre-Xmas weight of 89.5lb (no, don’t throw things, please!). Fascinating how right now the media is full of stuff about how people must feel ghastly not to mention guilty after the excesses of the holiday period. This means that the magazines are crammed full of healthy recipes, which is good, but a healthy lifestyle is not just for January. I managed to be quite restrained over the holidays - didn’t eat junk or high fat and sugar foods, which in no way prevented me from having a pleasurable time - and have never felt better in a January. Last year I was just starting CRON and feeling my way, making lots of mistakes. This year I think I am enjoying the results of the effort I have put into it. Also I have not had my usual bout of winter colds, in fact I have not had a full-blown cold since I started CRON.

In line with my New Year resolution, I am working harder at using Cron-O-Meter, and in particular have been trying to use it as a tool to sculpt what I am eating to my own personal requirements. No point in looking at the books, as they all seem to assume I am an average sized man living in California, and the guys who guzzle their 1800-1900 calories a day find the specific problems of mini-me a little bewildering. No-one is going to tailor my nutrition to me except me. So this sister has to do it for herself.

Getting RDAs on 1200 calories a day is bloody hard, so I have to skew what I eat to foods which provide nutrients out of all proportion to the amount of calories. With CoM calibrated to my calories, I have been entering in quantities of foodstuffs which give 10% of my daily calories, (figure chosen for ease of computation) and then looking at what percentage of vital nutrients that amount provides. I am focusing especially on those nutrients which I am finding it most of a struggle to get from food alone. Not a lot of point for example in bothering to chase vitamin C or A of which I get stacks from the amount of greenstuff I munch my way through. I am making up a spreadsheet for easy reference. Very much a work in progress right now.

There are three main categories of foods on my sheet. One is what I call the star foods, things like mushrooms and spinach, packed with nutrients and very low cal. Then there are ‘good but not starry’ providing more than 10% of nutrients per 10% of calories but not spectacularly so. Oats, for example, and many fruits. Then there are foods I would say were OK – still good fresh foods such as apples and pears, but they underperform compared with the others. I include those to add variety, but don’t emphasise them. Some of the results have been real eye-openers. So the idea is that when I am considering what to have for dinner I can look at my results for the day, see where there are low scores and quickly look up what I need to bump up the values.

All this is a counsel of perfection and of course I fall way short of that. I eat out once a week, and have to be careful what I choose and do my best to estimate what I have eaten. One thing in which I am very fortunate – I have no cravings whatsoever for junk food, so the chances of going on a Mars Bar bender are pretty much nil.