Is Ignorance is Bliss?

My business travel is at about 75%.  So, I am quite frequently dining out with co-workers.  Because I am using my blackberry (smart phone) to track calories, everyone sees me pulling up restaurant nutrition info on my phone before placing orders and then while waiting for the food, I am usually keying my menu or calorie counts into my phone.  I recently hired two new team members who are now in the process of re-locating from Spain to Nashville, Tennessee.  The other day, I overheard them in the back seat of my car, talking in Spanish about my always entering what I eat into my cell phone.  They weren't really making fun of me but just talking about my new quirk.  Sometimes at dinner, co-workers have begun asking me about their calorie counts, usually while they are eating.  This is a bit dangerous as they are usually uncomfortable when they realize that their pizza is 600 calories a slice or that their 18 ounce rib eye steak cooked with butter is close to 1200 calories.  Most people worry about calories when they are aware of the counts but actually would rather remain blissfully ignorant.

Low Carb vs. Reduced Calorie Diets

I did low carbohydrate diets off and on over the years and lost significant weight in doing so.  I am now a month into a reduced calorie diet.  The early results from reduced calories have been roughly equivalent to the results I had doing low carb before.  The following are my observations from doing the both diets.  These are my current opinions, subject to change after more time doing the reduced calorie diet.

Low Carb: Can eat as much as you want as long as you avoid carbs.
Reduced Calorie:  Can eat anything you want with moderation.

Low Carb:  When ketosis kicks in, my breath stinks and my cognitive abilities suffer.
Reduced Calorie:  Breath is fine and my mind is clear.

Low Carb:  Each month I lost half of what I did the previous month.
Reduced Calorie: Long term effectiveness to be determined.

Low Carb:  To lose weight, I had to consume less than 30-45 net carbs a day.  I found effective maintenance is difficult.  For me, it was all or nothing.
Reduced Calorie:  Maintenance difficult is to be determined.  But, bumping my caloric intake up to a level where I will not lose or gain weight should be simple.  And, with my body type, my base metabolic rate is relatively high so this should not be a problem.

Low Carb:  I had to take vitamin supplements because I wasn't getting the right mix of nutrients.  For example, if I didn't take potassium, I got muscle cramps.
Reduced Calorie:  I seem to be getting a good variety of foods in my diet.  If I need to take vitamins has not yet been determined.

Low Carb: Energy level was high.
Reduced Calorie:  Energy level is also high. Note that I took a great deal of effort in setting an appropriate target for daily calorie intake.

Low Carb:  Cravings for sweets generally went away when they were removed from my diet.
Reduced Calorie:  Still crave sweets.  My personal caloric intake goals allow me to have some desserts and I am doing okay at consuming them in smaller portion sizes.

Low Carb:  Eating out is difficult.  At sit down restaurants I  usually had to ask for substitutions which is a pain in the butt.  Fast food has almost no options other than salads and I quickly tire of salads.
Reduced Calories:  Substitutions are not usually necessary.  Plus, many restaurants have calories posted.  There are options even at fast food restaurants.  McDonalds even has a pretty low calorie ice cream cone.  Wendy's chili is a great substitution for fries.

Low Carb:  Others just don't get it.  Politely eating what others have prepared is difficult.  Waitresses think something is wrong when you eat just the topings off a sandwich or pizza.
Reduced Calorie:  Everybody gets it.  There is no need to explain the details of what you can or can't eat.  When at someone's house, you can manage your diet through portion control.

Low Carb:  Food costs about doubled.
Reduced Calorie:  Food costs about the same as before, maybe a little less.

Low Carb:  The online community is tight and supportive.  The rest of the world however constantly tries to convince you that it's a dangerous diet.
Reduced Calorie:  Experience so far shows the online community to be not as passionate.  This may be due to the diet being widely accepted with the world at large.

Low Carb:  There are lots of poorly conducted studies trying to debunk it's effectiveness.  I had great personal success doing low carb.  It works, often with little baring on the amount of calories eaten.
Reduced Calorie:  Most "experts" on diet and health assume this works.  But, I don't think it's as simple as just "calories in vs. calories out".

With either diet, everyBODY is different.  Your personal experiences may differ from mine.

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Author comments on May 25, 2012:



I should add one more comparison... this one in favor of low carb:


Low Carb:  Can drink lots of clear alcohols as they have few to no carbs.  Drinking never seemed to impact my personal ability to lose weight while doing low carb.


Reduced Calorie:  When I go out after work, I can't drink with the crowd.  I might have one or possibly two drinks but I have not figured out how to get drunk without blowing my caloric intake goals.

First Month Results on Weight-Loss

I have been doing the reduced calorie thing for 4 weeks now.  The results are much better than I had expected.  I have lost 19 pounds.  My waist and hips have shrunk my 1.5 inches each.  Within the end of next month, I hope to introduce exercise into my routing.  I have not yet decided if I will bump up the daily intake of calories according to how much exercise I get each day.  

Hurray!

My New Friend, Papa Murphy

I have a new best friend.  His name is Papa Murphy.  He brought pizza back into my diet.  That's right, Papa Murphy's is a nation-wide to-go pizza store where they make the pizza but you bake it at home.  And, their "DeLite" series of pizzas are low calorie, ranging between 143 and 200 calories per generous slice (also only between 13 and 19 net carbs).  Nutrition Info.  Yeah, I'm so happy!

2nd Week Weight-loss Progress

Last week, I only lost 1 pound compared to 12 the first week.  But, my waste-line and hips continued to shrink so I'm not going to let it get me down.

Counting calories while on the road has not been as bad as I had thought.  But, it does require doing a little bit of homework.  Most restaurants have their nutrition facts posted on their web pages.  My calorie counter phone app has some chains.  But, for most restaurants, I'm just printing the calorie charts before leaving the office.  I'm on the road again this week.

The hardest part of last week was going with co-workers to Mellow Mushroom, my favorite pizza restaurant.  I could afford only 1 piece of pizza or a huge salad and baked stuffed portebela mushroom.  I opted for the salad and mushroom.  While they were good and filling, I felt like I was drooling over my favorite pizza.  I think I still made the right choice as one piece of their amazing pizza would only have left me craving more.

1st Week Diet Results

Tomorrow morning will be one week on the diet.  I have lost 12 pounds and measured 1/2 inch smaller around the waist and about an inch smaller around the hips.  This has not been nearly as difficult as I had expected.

I am amazed at how easy it is to pick the right satisfying foods and to keep track of the calories when cooking at home!  While mostly selecting foods with a low caloric density, I am finding that it is actually difficult to keep my calories high enough to reach my daily target caloric intake of 1995 calories.  Most days I've fallen short by 300 to 500 calories.  Part of me thinks I should eat something extra so that I am closer to my plan.  Another part of me can't see eating when I am not hungry.  I'm worried that if my calories drop any lower that my metabolism will slow and my body will try to conserve energy.

This coming week will be the real challenge.  I will be on the road, living in a hotel.  As such, all meals will be from restaurants.  I can manage with sit-down dinners in the evenings but am a bit concerned about what I will find to eat for lunch.  I don't want to bring groceries and eat at the office.  I am expected to go out with everybody else.  Often the team does fast food, Mexican, sandwich shops, Thai, and Chinese buffets.  Do any of you have advise as to what and where to eat without being hungry?

Diet Apps for Smartphones and Blackberries

Do any of you use an app on your cell phone to look up and track calories?  I downloaded the blackberry app"Calorie Counter" by FatSecret.com.  It is real easy to look up foods and even has many restaurant menus with calorie counts.  But, the journal stinks because you can't easily add meals add-hoc.  For example, if you made a meal yourself you'd have to enter each ingredient and portion size rather than the total count for the meal.  There must be something better out there.  Rather than downloading hundreds of apps and trying them all out, I was hoping that perhaps some readers might be able to direct me to something better.  Please note that I have a blackberry so many iphone apps are not available to me.  PLEASE post comments... I'd like some help here.

Comments Added April 12, 2013:  
My wife found the app MyFitnessPal on her iPhone and thought it looked pretty good.  I added it to my blackberry.  It is awesome!  I no longer need to carry around a paper journal and calorie counter book!  With the app you can look up foods and even many restaurant menu items.  These can be easily added to a food journal which does all of your math for you.  And, if you want you can do a "quick add" to just add calories to your log.  Her iPhone app has one nice feature that the blackberry version doesn't.  With her iPhone, she can take a picture of a UPC code on a package and it will automatically look up the nutrition facts and/or add to her journal.  It's a fantastic FREE app!  It also has a means to track calories burned from exercise, however, I haven't explored this yet. And, you can record your weight, waist, hip, and neck measurements over time.  This is going to be my primary means of tracking calories and progress.