Happy St. Pat's to you!

Happy St. Patrick's Day! I'm Irish and I think I'm required to drink a beer today.... something about defending the Guiness family against the recession. :)

But, I won't be. Sadly, no. My WW point tracker (side note: do any of you use the online system? Is it crazy or is just me?? the defaults to 'breakfast' are killer and I feel like 99% of the organic brands aren't listed!) says I have 8.5 pts left today. So, what's 8.5 pts??

• 5 cups of baby carrots and 1 100-cal fat free ranch dressing
• 2 100-cal snack packs of cookies + 2 popsicles (sugar free, of course)
• 1 3-ounce chicken breast, 1/2 cup of corn, broccoli and a slice of lite oatmeal bread
• 2 laughing cow cheese wedges + 36 all-bran crackers (garlic seasoned is the best)
• 1 glass of wine + 1/2 cup of Edy's slow churned ice cream
• 12 almonds and 1/2 pint of Guiness

Pretty variable huh? I'm liking the "accountability" of WW again, but I am desperately trying not to eat my AP (activity points) that I earn while at the gym. B/c when you think about it, you are really only going to lose weight if you burn more than you eat, right?

My trainer did all these crazy calculations about my body fat, my weight, my metabolic rate, etc when I joined the gym. Now, most of this is 99% to scare you into hiring a trainer. But, something caught my eye and I flashed back to college. We were able to determine how many calories you burn just being you. It's a calculation like "lifestyle + weight + height + body fat" and you end up with the number of calories that will keep you at the weight you were at. Now, disclaimer: that equation is nowhere near right. It's an example. Okay? So, don't sue me if you calculate that you are 100lbs and need to eat 4500 calories to stay 100lbs and you end up 200lbs. Okay?

So, back to my fat ass at the gym. (a little self-deprecation is good and it keeps me from throwing things at the wee blonde girls at the gym who don't sweat. I mean c'mon! It's the gym! Sweat already!) At my current weight(ahem: 290), I need 3000 calories a day to stay this way. On WW, I am allotted 35 pts/day (plus my 35 'extra points') which is roughly 1pt = 50 calories, so.... 1750 calories per day. That's less than the doctor recommended 2000 calories non-dieting people eat. Also, each workout at the gym (50-60 minutes) earns me 12-14 points (600-700 calories).

Does this mean in reality I am only giving my body, at most, 1150 calories per day to run on? Hmm... no wonder I'm hungry! And, with the strength training, I am burning calories longer after my workout, which is fabulous.

So, a non-knitting post from me. See you tomorrow!