Getting Beach Ready

The  plan for this semester is saving money and  Getting Beach Ready

  by Margo Belton 
Originally From  My column for the Brooklyn College Kingsman)October 9, 2009

Photo by Samuel Silitonga from Pexels

Guess what!?? 
You can eat nutritiously on campus. How do you ask? PLAN!!! No kidding! How much money do you think you spend on fast food at the Junction? A whole lot of money. Try this for a week instead: Don't buy anything you couldn't prepare at home. You say you're too busy, huh? What are you a Chemistry-Mandarin major? You only have time to study, to go class, study some more, and sleep? How will you feed yourself after you graduate and make the big bucks? I'm appalled by how many people don't know how to cook. You don't have to know how to cook to eat nutritiously on campus.

Here is the experiment:

1.Make a list of your favorite foods on Sunday.

2.Go over the list on Monday and categorize your list as follows: meat, fresh vegetables and fruits, and fun foods. You can put more categories if you desire
 see    https://www.eatthis.com/weight-loss/    Don't overdo the fun foods category though.

3.Go shopping and take someone who will make you stick to your list. Buy just enough for that school week.

4.While you're at the supermarket, grab some plastic containers.

After shopping, you or your mom will prepare one meat, one fresh, and one fun food and you will pack it and take it with you the next day. Repeat for five days.

As you go through the five days, write down what you would have purchased on that day at the Junction and add up the cost of the total of the five days. Why are you doing this? Because nutrition is not getting any cheaper, and you should be aware of how you are spending your money (especially if you have school loans racking up).

If at the end of the week you feel better, less bloated, less irritable, than you would normally feel, it is because you controlled what you put into you body as fuel. It was probably more nutritious than what you would have purchased. How do you know?

http://www.nutritiondata.com/ This is a site that is designed for the average person. It is free and user friendly. Here is how you navigate through this website and become a healthy educated consumer:

1. On the top right hand corner (next to the vegetable icons) type in the search field "enter food name" and enter the food you ate.

2. Scroll down the list and find EXACTLY what you had. (Note: some ethnic foods might not turn up; we typed in hummus and got some interesting data. Try it.)

3. In terms of data, you do need to determine a reasonable serving size. We used a serving size of 1 cup for fresh foods and 6-8oz for meat. Fun foods were held at 4 oz because we are trying to eat better. The site is really colorful and pretty. It actually created a personalized food label and showed us how nutritiously we were eating that day.  for bodybuilders trying to get their protein ratios on point  (0.9 x body weight   divided by 2.2    for non  students  who are sitting  and up tp 1.9 x body weight divided by 2.2 for people lifting weights for 2 hours a day 4-6 times a week - will give you the parameters for your protein  intake. The site will let you use the ratios for Zone diet   by helping you track 30 % carbs-- 30% fat --30% protein and 10 % fun foods if you are willing to do some work in a notebook first i.e. keeping a food log.   This is because the site is set up on the  Average American intake   of 10 % fats ,  60%   and 30% protein on 2000 calories a day. If you want to take full advantage of the features built into this website go to  https://www.fns.usda.gov/resource/myplate-miplato

If over the Columbus Day weekend  you have lots of reading to cover, you are sitting here storing calories with every flip of the page. Then you are going to eat a big dinner  aren't you?  You will never keep your waistline down this way.

Family and friends are such a big part of your life  for motivation and support for weight loss. The problem is you may not utilize them correctly. Instead of letting your mom  stuffing you with her dinners , you would help her around the house instead. Even better, let her know what your goal is and have her do a simple activity with you, like walking. If you weigh 150 lbs this is what you would burn off in one hour:
150 lbs

Walking -2 mph - 51 calories an hour

Walking 3.5 Mph - 95 calories an hour

Low Impact Aerobics class - 136 calories an hour

Inline skating - 374 calories an hour

Biking, stationary- vigorous (Spinning) - 324 calories/hr

Shoveling snow - 413 calories an hour

170 lbs

Walking -2 mph - 58 calories an hour

Walking 3.5 Mph - 108 calories an hour

Aerobics low impact class- 154 calories an hour

Inline skating 424 calories an hour

Biking stationary vigorous (Spinning) - 367 calories/hr

Most websites are based on 150 lbs. For every 15 lbs over 150 lbs  calculate 6% more

 for every 15 lbs under 150 calculate 6 % less.

For instance, if you weigh  120 you are 30 lbs or 12 %  less efficient at burning calories.

  Let’s Do the Math

Ice Skating example  from Chart 

424  calories  = 1 hour   = 100%

x                   = 1 hour   = 12 %

x = 424  times 12 divided by 100

x = 50.88

424 - 50.88 =   373 calories  burned in  one hour of ice skating If you weight 120 lbs.

 If you  skated for 1/2 hour   use .5     

424  calories  = .5 hour   = 100%

x                   = .5 hour   = 12 %

Of course, you have to do some math, which is why most of you would rather use a website, but remember they are basing their numbers on a hypothetical person so even if you enter your exact weight, height, gender, etc the result will be about 3 % off.  That is because these sites that calculate your calories burned (energy expenditure) do not take into account the amount of fat on your body.  The hypothetical person could be at 23 % fat and you would be at 18 and are trying to get down to 7% for a photoshoot with A and F.  You had better call a professional for that.  eatright.org will help you search for Dietitians in your zipcode and a decent job of analyzing just your intake over 3 days runs upwards of 200 dollars, without the body fat analysis or activity survey. 

 In writing this article and figuring out where I wanted to be, I got measured at the gym with calipers for Body fat composition. You can now go across the street to the new building and ask the Physiology Department to do an analysis  - its @ 150 dollars but they will check your oxygen capacity and heart rate range as well. If you are planning to train for the Ironman, you will need these numbers. To get these numbers for less money, you may have to post that you are available for a study on the Brooklyn College WEB page  and maybe a nutrition student and or a physiology student will do the math for you, after using the calipers and studying your logs.

The easy way to get fit is to skip all the math!  Just use your fist. Make a fist. If the food you are about to eat is bigger than your fist and you are intending to eat 4 helpings of it, you are probably putting too much of one item in at a time. Now if the items are varied and they include one carbohydrate (apple)  one protein  (can of sardines ) one fat (the oil from the sardines) and by using your hands you can see that you are not exceeding the size of your fist or the circumference of your finger for any of the above, you can control your caloric intake for that meal.  You can eat about 5-6 min meals in this manner. No math, just eyeball it instead.