Got Milk?

I just had an epiphany this morning. One that may change my life forever.

This past week I've started tracking my food intake and counting up my calories. I've had no trouble at all staying below my 1500 calorie per day goal.

The truth is, I've never been a big eater. Yeah, I know, that's what fat people say until we track our food for a while and realize just how much we really are eating. But I've been studying nutrition/fitness for over twenty years. I have a pretty good grasp on what's in the food I'm eating. And I really am not a big eater.

I watched "Heavy" on TV this week. The guy pulls into Wendy's and orders six Jr. Bacon Cheeseburgers and three orders of chicken nuggets. That's like 3,000 calories in one meal. And I cannot imagine how that much food can fit in one person's stomach.

I eat like a mouse compared to this guy. If I stop at Wendy's, I'll order one double stack (360 calories). If it's McDonald's, I'll get a McDouble (under 400 calories). I almost never order fries or drinks. And I don't eat fast food more than two or three time a month.

Most of the time I eat at home. A typical day (when not trying to lose weight) is a couple bowls of cereal for breakfast, a sandwich and maybe a little bag of chips for lunch, and I rarely eat more than 800 calories for dinner. In total, that's only about 1600 calories a day. Throw in an occasional donut, brownie, Hostess cake, whatever, that's still only about 2,000 calories a day.

My Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) is more than 2,000 calories a day. That means I burn more than 2,000 calories a day even if I do nothing but sit on the couch all day (which is not unusual for me since I am self-employed and work on my couch with a laptop).

So if I burn as many calories sitting on my couch all day as I eat in a day, why am I fat? This morning it hit me like a ton of bricks . . .

It's the milk, stupid!

In a typical day (when not trying to lose weight), it's not uncommon for me to drink 3-4 tall glasses of milk. That's 6-8 cups of milk a day. But I drink fat-free milk so it's ok, right? Well, 8 cups of fat-free milk is about 720 calories!

Of course I've always known that milk has calories. So I never drink milk when I'm on a fat loss kick. But when I'm not focused on losing fat, I don't think much about it. I berate myself for the one or two (small) DQ Blizzard's I may have in a month. I kick myself for the occasional maple bar (maybe once every couple months). I hate myself for the half-dozen chocolate chip cookies I eat when my wife or daughter makes them (maybe once or twice a month). But I think nothing about the 3-4 glasses of milk I drink every single day.

This morning, for the first time ever, it occurred to me that if I were to tally up all of the junk food calories I consume in a year, it would pale in comparison to the 200,000 to 240,000 calories a year I consume in my daily dose of fat-free milk.

The fitness gurus say we lose about one pound for every 3500 calories we cut from our regular diet. So, in theory, just by drinking water instead of milk, I will lose 50-70 pounds this year. That alone gets me almost to my goal of 75 pounds.

What's more, with the money I'll save by not buying all that milk, I'll be able to pay for that cruise I promised the kids.