How many calories do I use in a day?

I am not a farmer or a welder or a cowboy. I am mostly a teacher and a wife, a maid, cook, nurse and a driver. Sometimes a professional health coach, often a reader of print or screen, and at least once per day an eater of delicious food. So is my life active, sedentary, vigorous? How many calories do I really need? How close to correct is that standard 2,000 calorie diet information on the side of the milk box? I imagined that my life required far less than the standard 2,000 calories- I do not do a lot of physical activity. I decided to find out.

First, I (very roughly) broke my day into its physical components, averaging weekly activity into daily units. Then I went to the Toolele County Health Department to look up how many calories those activities consumed. What I discovered: I need about 2,600 calories a day. I have no idea how many calories I actually consume in a day, but I need 2,600. This sounds really high to me and I wonder if my numbers are off somewhere.

UPDATE 8.11.2008
I had math errors in my spread sheet. My daily total is now 2,400, which still sounds high. I tried counting my calories yesterday, but discovered this requires measuring.

Managing the anxiety/insomnia cycle

A crucial part to managing anxiety is getting good sleep. A low-sleep you will be a more anxious you, no matter what you do to treat the anxiety. It's been my experience that most women who struggle with anxiety also struggle with insomnia and that the two are related: disturbing thoughts and images come with great intensity while trying to fall asleep or during the middle of the night.

For me, using ambien or other sleeping pills made sure I stayed asleep- but my sleep quality was synthetic and my dreams were useless. Plus, I eventually could not fall asleep without an a pill. So I stopped entirely for 2 weeks (during which time I rented a bunch of low-stim old movies and stayed up a lot) until the ambien was out of my system.

Then I switched to 6 mg of melatonin right at bed time, the very last thing I do before I turn out the light. In about 3 nights, the melatonin was opening a sleep window for me. Not a big window, mind you, not like the ambien vortex of sleep, but still a window. If I was all brushed, peed, and ready to roll over, that window was big enough. After about 5 months, I switched to 5 mg, and then to 3 mg.

When disturbing thoughts or images come into your mind, it takes simple discipline to think of something else. It can sometimes feel that our thoughts are out of control when in fact we are in complete control of where our brain goes, at least when we are awake! Here are things I do to get control of my thoughts:

• imagine tying knots, imagine each thread, try to follow it through the knots, try to imagine a knot that represents peacefulness... what does it look like? how would you tie it? untie it?
• try to remember exactly what I was thinking about what I fell asleep last night
• think of a happy place (beach, childhood home, my own bed, etc. etc.) and go through all my senses: what do my eyes see, what does my nose smell, what does my heart feel, etc.

If I just cannot manage and am feeling like I am going to jump out of my skin:

• get up and turn on lights, read a distracting book, take a bath, check on my kids
• call my friends in other time-zones and chat
• have hot milk or cold beer
  
• I do NOT go online (always end up looking at depressing things)
• I do NOT eat (reinforces anxious thinking behavior), although once I am not stressed out anymore I'll have a night-snack

Usually one of these tricks has my anxiety managed in an hour or so.

And last, but not least, consider that you may have a legitimate reason to feel anxious. Maybe taking a moment to feel gratitude for your nerves can help- as in, thank you anxiety for giving me a bearable vehicle to express my unbearable feelings.

Hypothyroid and anemia

Maybe it is the water around here, but I know several women in my immediate circle who have hypothyroid (low thyroid functioning). Hypothyroid is more common in women than in men. Many women also have anemia, due to menstruation and/or poor diet. A diagnosis of anemia can be particularly alarming for women who also have hypothyroid, like myself. Is it a sign of something more serious? How can I treat it?

There are basically 3 causes of anemia: loss of blood (low iron); low production of blood cells; early destruction of blood cells. Low production and early destruction are the ones to worry about, and also the least common. Iron deficiency anemia can come from menstruation and/or low-iron diets, and is the most common form of anemia.

Identifying the cause of your anemia is a worthwhile venture because anemia can be an issue itself (not enough iron in the body) or a symptom of something else (various diseases, including thyroid issues). Sometimes, the cause of anemia cannot be found and then one just treats the symptoms. Your red blood cell count, as well as a visual of your red blood cells, helps to diagnose your anemia. Large red blood cells point towards pernicious anemia, a B-12 deficiency. Small red blood cells indicate iron deficiency anemia, caused by poor diet or blood loss.

TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone) and ferritin (iron transport protein) work together (along with a bunch of other compounds) to help your body metabolize iron. So if your thyroid numbers are off, this can have an effect on your iron levels and/or ferritin levels. Vitamin B-12, follic acid, vitamin C, iron, iodine, selenium, and zinc are necessary for healthy thyroid functioning; if your iron levels are off a cascade reaction can happen where the other things are disrupted as well, like your TSH. Vitamin C is also necessary to fully metabolize iron. All these things are interrelated in a complex web. If one point of the web is disrupted, it will effect every other point.

Some tips for anemia in the hypothyroid population:

• Get your thyroid numbers as close to perfect as you can make them. Re-test every 4 months until your anemia and TSH are on target.
  
• Get a CBC, if you haven't had one already, to make sure that only your iron and TSH are off. This is a simple test that yields valuable information and can easily exclude many serious things.
  
• Take B-12, folic acid, vitamin C, iron, iodine, selenium, and zinc.
• Consume extra fiber because iron supplements can be very constipating, as can low thyroid.
  
• Eat broth made from fish heads or marrow bones. The fish broth will have trace amounts of naturally occurring iodine and naturally occurring thyroid hormone from the fish's thyroid glands. Marrow broth is rich in iron.
  
• Sweet red peppers and most hot peppers (chile, habenero) have very high vitamin C content, as do strawberries! Eat as much RAW, natural occurring vitamin C as you can stomach.
• I don't usually suggest copious amounts of red meat because iron pills are just as effective without the fat, but I do love organic chicken livers, mashed with egg yoke, and chased with fresh squeezed OJ. I often eat this after a heavy menstruation.
  
• Treat yourself like a person who has given too much blood: rest, iron, vitamin C rich foods, and COPIOUS AMOUNTS OF CLEAR FLUIDS.
  
• Expect to feel significant improvement of your energy levels at the 20 day mark, and slight improvements each day after that. By five weeks you should be back to whatever normal is for you, if not, go back to the doctor.
• Keep a "couch-active" schedule as opposed to a bed rest schedule. I find that bed resting makes me sluggish and depressed, but couch-active (reading aloud, working on the internet, lessons while laying down, etc.) helps keep my brain and soul happy while my body heals.
  
• Spend time seeing the weak areas of your body surrounded by healing blue light, visualize healthy organs, visualize an energetic self, etc.

Here are the links I used for this research:
http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/dci/Diseases/anemia/anemia_causes.html
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000560.htm
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/anemia/DS00321/DSECTION=3
http://www.hopkinshospital.org/health_info/Blood_disorders/Reading/anemia_and_fatigue.html
http://thyroidhost.proboards30.com/index.cgi?board=Talk1&action=display&thread=5483

I am starving when I get home from work- how do I keep from stuffing my face?

I work part-time a few nights a week. I leave around 4 and get home around 10. I fix a dinner for the family before I leave, but I don't eat with them because it is too early. I often get a coffee to make it through the evening with a sharp brain. When I come home, I can't go right to bed. My brain is going a million miles an hour. And I'm starving. I make really bad food choices at this time of day, often fast food or chips. I am just so hungry I can't really think straight.

Does this sound like you? This is a conglomerate profile of several women I know; women who home school their children and work part time (or go to school part time). Having a schedule that takes you away from home at dinner time is a real challenge. I really like the Soup Suggestion to deal with this situation.

Soup Suggestion - Short version:
When you get home, make a very large bowl of broth with a handful of whole grains and thinly sliced vegetables, seasoned to your liking. I use vegetable broth, brown rice, paper-thin cabbage and onion slices, and a handful of cilantro.

Soup Suggestion - Long version:
When you are really using your brain, it needs sugar to run. A lot of sugar. So while we are out there experiencing the freedom and joy of our part-time pursuits, our brains are gobbling down every available sugar calorie. When your readily available sugars are used up, your brain sends immediate and intense hunger messages to your body. The result is a ravenous hunger, usually accompanied by a craving for protein. For many of us, we are also dehydrated by this point in the day. So in addition to the ravenous hunger caused by brain work, we also have the rumbling hunger caused by dehydration.

A large bowl of broth satisfies the immediate needs for fluid and for volume. Thinly sliced vegetables provide chewing and crunching, both necessary to activate the satiety response. A small amount of whole grains gives your belly a full, satisfied sensation without too many calories. And nothing is more comforting to me than a bowl of soup. I feel full, happy, warm, and sleepy by the time I am done making and eating it, no matter how wound up I was when I started.

Is there saturated fat in vegetables?

The short answer is no, with the exception of coconut, palm, and palm kernel oils.

Generally, if you are watching your saturated fat intake, it's fine to consume vegetable oils including peanut or soy oils. However, even unsaturated fat is calorie dense. So if you are trying to limit calories, you'll have to watch all fats, even unsaturated ones.

There is never a reason to eat trans fats. In fact, trans fats should be banned.

Fat is not the bad guy it's cracked up to be. Fat provides us with fatty acids, which are not made by the body and must be imported through diet. Fatty acids are necessary for dealing with inflammation, keeping strong clotting functions, and brain development in children. Fat also keeps the body's largest organ healthy: the skin. Hair benefits from fat in the diet, and fat is required in order to make use of vitamins A, D, E, and K. In other words, without fats you would be dumb, inflamed, bleeding, itchy, and bald.

The important thing is the type of fat you have in your diet, not necessarily the quantity. For example, even a small amount of trans fat can increase your risk for heart disease.

Read more about fat and heart disease risk or more about different kinds of fats.

Want to get stick to your goals? Don't have too many.

Sasha, my friend who refuses to keep a blog despite my pleading, has sent me this wonderful article on how will power functions. Apparently, it is a fixed sum game. You have X units of willpower in your little brain and once you use them up in a day, they are gone. For example, using your willpower to clean house in the morning will mean that you have less willpower to use for controlling your portion sizes later. Some of us have more willpower coupons than others, and we can each increase our willpower capacity by doing things that require discipline (like brushing your teeth with the non-dominant hand). The more you do stuff that requires discipline, the easier discipline becomes for you. In my own habit-changing experiences, this rings true.

When I am changing an unhealthy behavior, it consumes my full attention and all my resources. Like riding my stationary bike regularly. At first, it was really a pain in the ass. When I did manage to force myself through it, I was useless for any other disciplined project that day. I used up my willpower juice in 30 short cycling minutes. Eventually, though, I started feeling good about riding my bike. I even started, sort of, looking forward to it. At least not dreading it.

When I first starting doing this, it was hard. I had to rely, a LOT, on my discipline. As I did it more, it became easier. As it became easier, I did it more. Eventually, I would like to feel about riding my bike the way I feel about brushing my teeth; it would be weird to go a day without. In the meantime, I'll parcel my coupons carefully.

Leaving me with plenty of willpower to fold the laundry.

My wellness coaching practice

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