Back to School #3: Room for Improvement?

Back in the olden days, there was a space for teacher comments on the back of my report card. Here my teacher could write comments about areas in which I exceled or (more often) I needed to improve. Mine usually had to do with talking during class too much (except when I shut my mouth because I didn’t know the answer to a question). So, what opportunities for improvement await you this semester?

Here’s an example from my own WLS journey. It was an offshoot of my New Year’s resolution, which was to log my food every day. After weeks of living that resolution, I was dissatisfied with its effect on my weight, and suddenly realized that although I’d been faithfully logging my food every day, I hadn't been paying much attention to the resulting nutritional data.

In that instance, I had earned an A for effort and an F for achievement. That’s partly because I love keeping logs and journals. I can play with Excel documents 'til long after the cows come home, without any expectation of coming up with useful information. I analyze things just for the fun of analysis, so it’s far too easy for me to overlook the ways in which I might use all that stuff to improve my insight or change my behavior.

So if I don’t pay attention to the data in my food log, I can’t evaluate the quality of my food intake. I’d been logging about 1400-1500 calories a day (a calorie goal that accounted for my exercise level and weight loss goal) without taking the time to notice some major inconsistencies in my macronutrients, especially protein. I need to pay attention to my protein intake not just because my body needs good-quality protein to repair the muscles I use during my daily workouts, but because low protein intake often represents maladaptive eating. Rather than slow down and eat carefully so that solid protein doesn’t cause me problems, I take the easy way out and eat the easy stuff, almost always in the form of carbs that don’t offer much satiety value, never mind nutritional value.

When I was a clueless little kid, I had to rely on adults to tell me exactly how to improve my school grades, but I’m glad to report that I’m not a clueless little kid any more. I’m an occasionally clueless adult. If my realization about the quality of my food intake had never materialized, eventually I would have asked an expert, like my dietitian or doctor, for guidance. Armed with their suggestions, I would get back on the bandwagon and give that food log another honest try. And (fingers crossed) eventually earn an A for achievement!