In this diet I have been counting fat. Most of my previous diets have been calorie-counting ones. I know Weightwatchers and Slimming World have a kind of amalgamated approach. Does it really matter which you count, fat grams or calories?
Take today's meals. Here is the summary of what I have eaten today:
* Based on a 1100 calorie target for the day I am way over, at 1700 calories
* Based on a 45g fat target for the day I am well below, at 30g
So based on this it appears I'm eating lower in fat, but overall my intake is too high. Perhaps I have eaten too many sugary things, for example my hot cross bun and the beans. I spent about 150 calories just on my bun snack and almost 300 just on bread. Having a scrape of butter obviously cost me 100 cals and 12g fat (and wasn't necessary for the beans on toast if I'm honest). My cereal portion was a bit big too, costing 350 cals, though only 2g fat.
How could I have improved things? Well obviously missing out the butter, the sausage, the bun, eating reduced salt and sugar beans (yuck, tried before but never again), reducing the size of my cereal.
* Based on my calorie target I would still have been beyond by almost 100cal at 1190cal, but obviously lower than I was.
* My fat intake would be even tinier, at 12.2g
I do know that I would have been hungrier, and for me, less likely to stick to it if hungry. I also know that I prefer to focus on the fat because counting calories in such fine detail would probably send me loopy, as it has in previous diets.
Obviously I already choose diet options for drinks etc where they are available, but overall I think a fat-based approach has really been quite successful for me so far. After all a world where a banana costs you the same amount of calories as a Kitkat despite the whopping 5g fat difference feels like a world where calories really aren't king.
Nevertheless, it has been really interesting looking at things another way today. I have been relaxing a bit this week but it gave me a bit of a kick to see exactly how empty that butter addition at lunch was, so I will cut that back out.
Which approach do you prefer?
What I ate today:
Shreddies with semi-skimmed milk
TLC hot cross bun
Beans on 2 x toast (one toast scraped with butter)
A cocktail sausage (please, somebody eat them!)
A TLC Spicy Pasta ready meal which was bland at best
A slice of bread and butter (mmmmm, this WAS good!)
A single Bounty Celebration
Exercise of the day:
None!
Product of the day:
How has it taken me this long to find the amazing weightlossresources.co.uk site? You can get a 24-hour free trial (properly free) or full membership, which allows you to keep your food diary and analyse your intake - it's what I used to compile the stats today. It really does look a fantastic site and I may well join it properly...
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