The Hungry Writer

It's confirmed: I have a slow metabolism.

Our workplace has a nutritionist who comes by, and any employee can make an appointment with her. She has a device that measures resting metabolic rate. For my height and frame, the standard formula estimated I should have a RMR of about 1340 calories a day. The actual measured RMR was 1260.

This isn't big news to me, actually. Both my parents have historically struggled with weight, with varying success, and I noticed a significant decline in my own metabolism a few years ago. Like most women with moderately slow metabolisms, that means I have to be careful about what I eat in order to not gain weight. (Blargh.)

I do eat out. Like the food trucks that come by the work place each week: there's this Greek food truck that makes the most delicious lemon-soaked herb fries, and a dumpling truck with all sorts of delicious sauces. And of course I go to girls' night, where we do eat red meat and bacon and cheese and all sorts of unhealthy things...

...And where we also eat collard salads made with raspberries, cranberries, apple slices, banana slices, tomatoes, and balsamic vinegar. Where every meal has something green and delicious, like asparagus with lemon zest and cherry tomatoes, or cooked kale...

...And gravy, butter, and olive oil flow like water, and the ginger ale mysteriously disappears by the gallon.

The #1 thing trick to not gaining weight, for me, is being satisfied with what I do eat. And that means eating delicious things. Part of that means enjoying girls' night and using it to discover healthy new alternatives, while using the indulgence to restore my mental health.

I get 1325 calories most days (if it seems low, that's to accommodate the days I eat out, so I can still enjoy splurging with the girls and with writers' groups). And the local farmers' market is fantastic (excited jig because it's almost strawberry season). So hey, looking forward to a little bit of creative cooking!

I'm glad I did figure out what my RMR really was. Guessing has been troublesome, and I've often worried whether I was eating too much or too little. Now I know what I have to work with, so it should help me manage better.

Have you ever had your resting metabolic rate officially checked? Can you guess how it compares to average? How does that effect your eating habits and lifestyle choices?

Keeping Sane

How does an author, locked up in her tiny apartment by herself for days on end, stay sane?

Everything's fine. No, haven't seen a thing.

Doctor Who Girls' Night. (Extra credit if you understand the photo reference!)

Yes, there's the regular job. And for some people, that may be social time enough. But the interactions between coworkers are often more formal, which means less relaxing. And if you work in a cubicle forest like I do, it's really not all that social.

It's important to keep up a social connection in what can arguably be called one of the most introverted professions around. We're humans - we need social company, even those of us with introvert qualities. It's kind of important to the continued functioning of our sanity (or, in some cases, functional insanity.)

Scheduling your life should include at least one, if not more, arranged social periods. Yes, that's right, playdates for grown-ups.

In my case, I host a weekly girls' night. This consists of several of us getting together, cooking dinner, and watching an episode or two of Doctor Who. Or sometimes we just end up talking so much that we don't get around to watching, but that's okay, too. It's about the company, not about the activity.

I could use this time to write. I could use this time to clean. I'm particularly fond of dishes, and there's always the hassle of more-or-less cleaning the apartment* before everyone gets here. But I never regret the company, and it's always fun.

(*Disclaimer: Cleanliness is relative. Dishes are clean; bathroom's Lysoled. That's what counts, right?)

Maybe you won't crack open a bottle of mead and have 6 cooks trying to work in a tiny apartment kitchen. But that's no excuse to neglect your mental health. Whether it's friend time, family time, or spouse time, make time in the week to be with other people. Even if this means heading over the local game shop for board-game night, or doing a hang-out on Google+ with old college friends. Our minds work best with at least a little human interaction. So make time.

Do you have a regularly scheduled social time? If so, what do you do? If not, what could you do?

Avoiding the Computer Desk Pounds

Writing isn't exactly considered aerobic exercise.  So staying in shape when I'm putting a lot of time on the keyboard isn't something that just spontaneously happens - I have to manage my lifestyle to make sure I don't pack on the pounds.

What works for me may or may not work for you, but here's how I maintain a healthy weight:

1.  Walk every day.  The advantage to writing is that I can get out while there's sunshine, so throwing in a short 30-45 minute walk is no big deal.  It's harder when I've got a job that keeps me inside during daylight - I've done gyms in the past, once or twice a week, but that was all I could make myself go.  Personally, I prefer walking outside to a full-body workout in a small, sweaty-smelling room, but that's just me.  Exercise, afer all, is exercise.

2.  Eat whole wheat.  Controlling calories, of course, is part of staying fit (but I never eat less than 900 per day, because that basically kills the metabolism!)  The problem with white bread is that my body digests it more quickly than whole wheat, so I'm hungry again faster.  And this goes for breakfast, too - by trading out rice and sugar cereals for whole wheat ones, I go about five hours before needing lunch, even without stuffing myself.

3.  One of the big keys to not getting hungry, for me, is that I don't have a set eating routine.  I do always eat breakfast, because it jump starts the metabolism, but I don't always eat it at the same time.  And I vary my lunchtime, so my body has adjusted to not getting hungry at any specific time.  If I don't feel hungry, I eat less.  The same goes for lunch and dinner.  Some days I'll wait until 3 or 4 to eat lunch, especially if I'm working late.  Other days, I'll eat earlier, like when I plan on cooking dinner and expect that I'll be eating a larger than usual dinner.

4.  I also often eat my biggest meal at lunchtime.  Pasta, eggs and sausage, potatoes, pretty much anything that's really filling and keeps me full.  Then, at dinner, my appetite is smaller, so I'm less likely to gorge.  And since I work evenings, I'm full before I go to work - since one of my jobs is delivering pizza, being full before work is pretty important.  That's not to say I don't ever nibble a slice or two of pizza; it just means I do so less often than if I relied on pizza as dinner.

5.  I drink lots of liquids.  No, I don't measure out eight gallons of water a day, or any nonsense like that - but I also don't wait until I'm thirsty to drink.  I just keep a glass within reach of the computer chair and sip every now and then.  Some people snack.  I drink tea or water.  Since thirst can be misinterpreted by the body as hunger, it prevents excess snacking.

6.  Speaking of, I try not to habit-snack.  Sure, I'll grab a handful of crackers when I do get hungry, but I don't keep bowls of junk food by the computer.  Since I have to get up to nibble, I'm less likely to do so unless I'm actually hungry - thus, no habit-eating.

7.  I don't deny myself sweets, I just eat them slowly.  This seems pretty counter-intuitive: after all, aren't sweets one of the reasons people gain weight?  But eating my chocolates one a time, and taking time to savor them, fills the sweets craving and makes me feel like I've had more than I had.  And since I don't deny myself, I also don't feel the need to splurge.  I do, however, take into account the approximate caloric count of the sweet.  If it's particularly high, I eat a lower-calorie dinner, like stew.

8.  Do I actually count calories?  Erm, not exactly.  But I try to have an approximate idea of how many I've had, and when I've had too few.  If I'm below a 1000, I will, in fact, actually force myself to eat more.  If I know I'm going to have a high-calorie item at some point in the day, I stick to lower-calorie options for the other meals.  If I'm losing more weight than I want and feel like I need to start gaining, I eat both a large lunch and a large dinner.  And yes, I do splurge.  If I'm going out to eat (which I do very rarely, about once or twice a month) I don't even count calories.  One meal doesn't ruin a lifestyle.  If, however, I ate out more often, I would take that into account.

9. Anything-goes meals.  Breakfast for dinner? If I feel like it.  Pasta for breakfast?  Sure, I need to eat those leftovers.  Yes, I usually do eat cereal for breakfast, but I'm not exclusive, which means I can switch out my highest calorie foods when I need to.

10.  I don't diet - all these things listed above are my lifestyle, and I'm not going to stop them as soon as I reach the weight I want.  That's the problem inherent with diets - they're temporary, so the results don't last.  And by telling myself that these eating habits will one day end, I adopt habits I don't want to keep in the long term, which means, of course, I won't.  So I eat in a style that I'm comfortable with, and don't deny myself the things I really want - I just make up for them.  Since I know my healthiest weight range (I try to keep between 125-134,) I also know when I need to lose - or gain - weight.  By tweaking my average daily calorie count, I can slowly add or subtract until I'm back in the middle of my zone.

I'll admit that I have a few natural advantages on the weight issue. I never stopped eating breakfast, and I never got in the habit of skipping meals, so I've kept a decent metabolism my whole life.  When I get stressed out, my appetite's the first thing to go, so I have a tendency to lose weight instead of gain it.  I also like vegetables (except bell peppers and okra), so I enjoy eating healthy foods, another bonus. I do, however, have to make sure I don't let my blood sugar drop, because that makes my brain slow down (seriously, if it gets too low, my speech starts to slur and I have trouble finding the words I want to use. I'm 99% sure that this is a bad thing, one of the main reasons I've never gotten in the habit of skipping meals.)

How do you keep in shape while writing?

Budget shopping

$10 worth of groceries: 

Technically, $10.69

Stole a sip of my roommate's milk this morning for tea - time to go grocery shopping again! If you're like me, you've probably got a backstock of food in your pantry of stuff you've bought over the months and just haven't got around to eating.  I decided there was no point in wasting money by buying non-essentials, which would probably just end up cluttering my pantry.  Therefore, I decided I'd limit myself to the $10 cash in my wallet.  (Budgeting tip: if you're trying to save money, pay cash instead of plastic!)

Admittedly, the milk sale ($2.77 for a gallon) improved my budget.  I was low on pasta... there's always a sale on one brand or another, so that was an easy buy.  I was also low on cereal, so I checked for sales - store brands are often on sale.  Whole wheat cereals leave me feeling full for hours and keep my blood sugar stable.  I've learned the hard way that rice cereals suck at both tasks, so breakfast food was an easy choice (store brands not made of rice or pure sugar: fake-raisen bran, fake-cheerios, fake-mini-wheats.  I like neither raisens nor cheerios.) 

With my most important items bought, I went to fill the remaining holes in my pantry. I grabbed a BOGO bread-substitute (weirdly enough, while I love loaf bread, I hate sliced bread.) The apple juice (again, an item that always has one brand or another on sale) was cheap, but they were out of the kind I wanted (of the sale brands, anyway,) so I got a raincheck instead.  That meant I had a couple of dollars left for some fruit.

The apple, btw, will not be surviving the end of this post.  (Munch-munch!)

What are your pantry priorities?