Franklin Matters: Franklin TV: The Long Game

Sunday, November 24, 2024

Franklin TV: The Long Game

A Necessary Re-Diet Approach.

by Pete Fasciano, Executive Director 11/24/2024

We Americans are not a patient lot. We want our various gratifications served up instantly (and effortlessly). We just don’t plan for, or do the long game very well.

“What do we want? FOOD! When do we want it? NOW!”

Welcome to the Holidays and the ‘Eating Season’. We’re just about done with all the Halloween candy and here comes the big stuffing. T-Day, Christmas, The New Year. It’s the great gluttonous gastronomic gauntlet to get past.

A business (and life) truism: “If you can’t measure it, then you can’t manage it.”

Sooo, Turkey Day looms – filled with family, friends, football and food. Some say football is a game of inches. So is dieting. It’s a long game – of ounces and inches. Measuring is managing.

Sooo, how to measure/manage? You begin with a baseline. Don’t change your eating habits. Audit your weight – now and at the end of the year. Count all the calories from today to Jan 1. Log ‘all the things’ for 39 days. Your total cal-count will be a very big number. Let’s say it’s 94,000-ish calories. (Yikes!) But, fear not, my friend. On Jan 1 you will have knowledge, and knowledge is power.

A pound = 3,600 calories. If you packed on 8 holiday pounds during those 39 days, (21 oz/week) you have a 28,000 calorie gain to lose(gradually). That’s almost 2 more inches of girth. Clothes become tighter. (Ugh!) So, how to practice girth control?

Subtract 28,000 from your 94,000 total intake. That’s 66,000 cals over 39 days; OR – 1,700-ish cals/day to maintain normal weight. This is your personal baseline. USFDA claims 2,000 cals is normal, but not if you’re less active, more sedentary.

Knowing your personal baseline, you can also know how much over/under you are on a daily basis. If 1,700-ish cals is your base number, then 1,300 cals daily intake (a 400 cal deficit) will lose 12,000 cals/mo or almost 4 pounds. That will get you back to your current weight at a safe rate by early March.

Hence, the long game of measuring and managing – and mastering.