The Scale (Mac)

Out of curiosity, I have been tracking my caloric intake for the last week or so just to give me an idea of what I am eating, how much energy I am consuming, as well as what my nutrient intake is like.  So far, my average intake of all known essential nutrients are above the RDA except for calcium. Am I worried about that?  No, not really because I think the bigger issue is about calcium balance - not losing more than you are gaining.  I wonder how the government and nutritional wizards out there can explain how I manage to get all of my vitamins and minerals without eating grains, tiny amounts of fruits and veggies and a rare smidgen of dairy here and there.  I am hazarding a guess that all the information we hear about needing to eat bread, cereal, fruit, and dairy is driven much more by the slick marketing of the companies that sell these products than about the reality of human nutrition - much like the current media bombardment of yogurt and probiotics.  Pretty soon everyone will be bending over backwards to make sure they get their daily does of probiotics and all to the benefit of the yogurt manufacturers - wake up and smell the damn coffee, people.  I wonder what healthy-must-have-gonna-die-without-it, mass-marketed food product  is coming at us next?

Anyway, last week from Monday to Thursday I averaged 1,723 calories and my weight on Thursday was 187 lbs. Friday I ate 3,160 calories and weighed 186 lbs. Saturday I ate 3,176 calories and weighed 188 lbs. Sunday I ate 3,258 calories and weighed 193 lbs. Yesterday I ate 1,845 calories and weighed 188 lbs and this morning I weigh 186 lbs. and will eat my usual 1700-1800 cal for the rest of the week. So the couple days over the weekend where I ate a lot more than I usually do didn't do anything to my weight over the long term in fact I ended up right where I was from before eating more.

So from Friday to Sunday I "gained" 7 lbs.  Most people would be horrified, but you will see that come this morning I didn't end up gaining a single pound despite eating almost twice what I normally eat and tomorrow morning I'll probably be down to 185 lbs.  I think the idea here is to control consumption of carbohydrates (sugar) and don't overeat every single day of every single month - we didn't evolve to have 3000 calories a day every single day of our lives.  Overeating (proper foods) here and there won't do any harm and daily fluctuations of the scale do not mean you are gaining or losing fat.  The body is in a constant cycle of water, waste, and food so the scale can easily vary 2-3 lbs daily or in my case, 7 lbs over the weekend.