Chickpea Chat

[ruth frances]

NB. was going to have the username chickpea on MFP, but somebody already had it BAH!

[CaliSweden]

Hi ladies, you can add me on MFP too, my name is the same as here : CaliSweden. Feel free to add me, and of course you can also feel free to add me, I have my food diary open to friends.


Btw Plum, that site you recommended for the BMR thing is pretty cool. I was playing with all the calculators and figuring out my ratios etc. I'm a total number freak too.

My BMR is 1550.3, it used to be 1597.28 at the weight I began dieting. According to the Harris Benedict Formula for moderately active(3-5 exercise days) (1550.3 * 1.55 = 2402.96) I surely don't want to maintain my weight.

On MFP I have my calories set to 1200 a day, that's in order to loose 1.4 lbs a week, according to mfp. I burn from 160-500 calories with my exercise, and according to mfp I should eat back the calories. But I don't always, it depends to if I'm hungry or not, I noticed with strict low GL foods I'm not that hungry and the calories are low. But days like this past weekend with all the bad foods and I'm starving but calorie intake was much higher. I can see the slipper slope to weight gain on high GL foods.

So far what I've noticed is that with strict low GL it's easier to stick to 1200 calories a day, and with high GL foods, it's much harder to stick to 1200.

I workout at least 5 days a week, but usually 6 or 7 days of exercise. I've become addicted to working out. I don't eat back all the workout calories, and according to MFP they said I'd be 15-17 lbs lighter in 5 weeks, that was almost 3 weeks ago, and I've only so far lost over 2 lbs. I don't take what they say seriously, just use it more as a way to keep track of what I eat by numbers. But so far what low GL says is correct:

Eat strict low GL you loose 1-2 lbs a week
Eat low GL you loose .5 -1 lbs a week
Eat not strict low GL you loose 0-.5 lb a week
Eat high GL you gain weight

[Plumfoodie]

NB. was going to have the username chickpea on MFP, but somebody already had it BAH!

THIEFS! Hmph.

[ruth frances]

Gosh MFP is quite addictive isn't it?
It's so time consuming though- I guess it gets quicker as you have more things 'saved' as meals etc.

[Plumfoodie]

Cali I am really curious as to whether MFP calculated your BMR to be the same as what the calculator said? As if so I'm really surprised that it cut you down to 1200 calories - I would have thought 1400 for a 1000 calorie deficit. I have seen in the forums that it seems to cut most people down to 1200 whether this makes sense or not and so maybe that is true!

Interesting that you're seeing exactly what all the GI/GL books tell us, that on higher GI/GL foods you will feel hungrier and exactly as you say it is easy to see how that could be a very slippery slope.

[Plumfoodie]

Gosh MFP is quite addictive isn't it?
It's so time consuming though- I guess it gets quicker as you have more things 'saved' as meals etc.

Yep. I have gotten a little bit obsessed with adding things to it. It does get faster when you save things as recipes or meals and also your 'recently used' and 'most used' lists will build up the things you tend to eat.

[CaliSweden]

I noticed it too that mfp seems to just throw a huge chunk of people on a 1200 calorie a day diet.

I just fiddled around with my mfp diet/fitness profile settings, and no matter which normal daily activities I pick it all kept my calories at 1200 if I want to lose 2 lbs a week. Only when I put it to someone with a very active lifestyle(bike messanger or carpenter), it raised my calories to 1320. No wonder why the forums there are full of posts of people being confused on why they haven't lost weight or gained weight when according to mfp they should have lost blah blah amount by then.

I think what MFP forgets to incorporate is that each person's body is different on how it takes in, burns and stores calories. Also the fact that not all calories are the same in how it effects the body. The more I look at it, the more low GL makes a lot more sense. It's crazy since at first I couldn't figure it out. But after reading most of the book and seeing how my body reacts to low or high GL, it just makes sense.

[Plumfoodie]

Hmm I'm a little bit concerned about this week's weigh-in. I'm meeting a friend to help her with some paperwork and I was hoping to do it on Thursday after I weighed but we need to do it Tuesday instead. I just know that there will be a cake or a bun or something as she wants to treat me to say thanks. She is dieting herself but likes to joke that if somebody else buys you food than it is calorie-free. Which is amusing but of course not actually true. And I was actually on track for a possible loss this week even factoring in The Curse of the Weigh-In Day! :'(

Anybody got a suggestion of which types of cakes or buns might be a better choice? Or how to withstand well-meaning peer pressure to consume cake when one knows one should just say no? Where's Nancy Reagan when you need her?

[CaliSweden]

I have no idea what kind of cake is a good cake. Carrot cake, since it has carrots in it? I have no idea, as so far I'm the poster child for what not to do on low GL >_<

Molly!!! Where are you? I know Molly would have the answer to this for sure!

[Plumfoodie]

I was thinking maybe carrot cake, or a gluten-free cake if they have one as those tend to have ground almonds as the major ingredient. Gosh. I just don't know.

Normally if I decided to have a piece of cake it would be no big deal but I guess I feel in this case like the decision is out of my hands if that makes sense? So if I'm going to have cake when I don't particularly want to have cake then I would like to pick the least bad cake possible. I could obviously choose just to say no but I don't want to hurt my friend's feelings.

[CaliSweden]

What ever decision you make, it will be ok. Because after all you're eating low GL majority of the time. The cake can be the 20% naughty part

[AshieFan]

How about

*mini muffin
*toasted teacake - its still a cake!
*Weight Watchers Carrot Cakes - slice of 27g=71 calories
*Marks and Spencer Dark Chocolate Jaffa Cakes Calories and 1 Serving=1 Cake=43 calories

[Plumfoodie]

Thanks ladies. A toasted teacake is a good idea, they're not very sweet at all and just about everywhere has them.

[AshieFan]

Where's Nancy Reagan when you need her?

It took me a while to work the Nancy Reagan reference out. You're showing your age Plum But then again, so am I

[Plumfoodie]

It took me a while to work the Nancy Reagan reference out. You're showing your age Plum

LOL!