As I approach my sixth year
of spending all day sitting at a desk doing avionics engineering, it’s
hard not to notice that I have put on a little weight. My eating habits
are not drastically different than they were in the past, but since
walking around the college campus and lifting eighty pounds of computer
tapes is no longer built into my regular life, I have become very
physically inactive.
As a general rule, if you do not use at least as many calories as
you consume, you will gain weight. The obvious solution in my case is
to become more active, and indeed, I have been purposefully increasing
my physical exercise. But I want to be even more proactive than that,
and ensure that I am not unwittingly consuming far more calories than I
really should be. Thus, tonight I signed up with Weight Watchers.
During check-in, I was surprised to see that I had put on even more
weight than I realized. (I guess that explains the huge pants I’ve been
wearing…) Thankfully, they did not make newcomers like me stand up in
front of the class and say “hi, I’m Trevis, and I’m obese” or something
like that.
The Weight Watchers program measures daily food intake using a
system of points, rather than strictly measuring calories: points are
determined using a function of calories, fat, and dietary fiber present
in the food. Each program participant must calculate the maximum number
of points they can eat each day based on a variety of criteria; my
daily point intake value came out to be 47. They also encourage eating
a range of different foods: grains, fruits, vegetables, proteins, etc…
basically, the food pyramid we forgot about from elementary school.
I can’t say that I am looking forward to counting everything I eat,
but being on a regular program with weekly advice and encouragement
should help me on my journey back to my normal pants, and more
importantly, to being healthier overall.