October 10, 2005
Calorie Trade-Offs
So how can you work "extras" into your diet? You know, the stuff that tastes really good, but is loaded with extra calories. I'm talking cookies, cake, beer, wine or whatever your particular poison happens to be.
You do it by using a method that works very well and has been promoted by "Weight Watchers" for quite a while: Work it into your daily calorie limit.
I use this method personally, usually on the weekends when I'm not as strict about what I eat. The idea is to keep firmly in mind that everything you eat adds to your daily caloric total, so what you want to do is think: "Ok, if I'm going to eat/drink this dessert/beer, what won't I eat later?"
For example, the other day my wife mentioned that she was going to make a batch of her killer, homemade (from scratch), chocolate chip cookies. At one point during the day I was in the mood for a beer so I decided I was going to have to choose either the beer now or the cookies later. In this particular case, cookies trumped beer, so I passed and delayed my gratification until later (it was totally worth it, BTW).
Did the cookies have a ton of calories? Sure, but knowing I wouldn't be able to say no to them later did I save myself 150-300 calories from the one or two beers I would have had earlier in the day?
You betcha.
Vic,
I have another example of this. Just last night, I was in a class, and there was a lot of leftover candy from Halloween lying around. Normally, I'm not tempted to eat any munchies, but last night I felt like indulging, so I ate a few pieces. The class goes really late (we're talking after 10 p.m.), so I had already eaten all my calories for the day, which meant I couldn't substitute the candy for something else. So what I did was after I got home, I went jogging. Normally, I try not to exercise so late at night, and I usually don't jog on Wednesdays since I'm out so late, but I needed to burn off the calories. Ideally, I would have declined the candy, but under the circumstances, I think I handled things reasonably well. 
Brian
Same thing happened to me last night as well... had a couple of mini Snickers bars and when I got home I thought I felt hungry. Instead I drank a bunch of water (which took the edge off) and then went to bed instead of eating right before bedtime.
Vic
