Low Cholesterol + Junk Food = Weight Gain

          

          Taking advantage of my lower cholesterol level due to taking generic Lipitor, I went to Vons grocery store to buy ice cream which was on sale. Not merely a sale but the container had exactly ½ gallon instead of the downsized 1 ½ quarts which is the norm nowadays. I don’t remember the last time I bought ice cream, but I know it’s been years. With the ice cream, I became a little bit more adventurous with my diet which meant that I started eating food that I used to eat before my cholesterol level started going up. For three days I ate a couple of hamburgers, ham and cheese sandwiches for two nights at work, and half gallon of ice cream (a coffee flavored concoction with caramel bits, YUM!). That's not even counting halloween candy. Well,  in just those few days of a fare of unhealthy foods, I gained weight. I don't know how all that eating has affected my cholesterol level but I'm supposed to have it checked a week after Thanksgiving.

 That just shows you that even if cholesterol level is normal or low, you still have to be mindful of what you eat because the calories can still make you gain weight. To add to that, it's the type of calories that will do it and in this case, fat calories from the burger, ham, and ice cream. The weight gain is a risk factor in itself so regardless of cholesterol level, I still have to eat healthy foods, especially that I am no longer able to run and can't rely on it to burn off the extra calories.

                So I ate badly for three days and gained about three pounds which I tried to work off with exercise. I had to add extra minutes to my workouts to try to burn off the weight gain but that didn't work out too well. Even an intense one hour session of a spinning workout barely made a dent. In my delusion, I tried to justify the weight gain as muscular weight due to a more consistent routine of weight training in recent weeks. Um, yeah, right!

 Then I did two days of sensible eating and got my weight back in control. It all boils down to portion control, not going overboard with the calorie intake, and choosing good calories instead of junk ones. Mind you, this is just an experiment of one and I'm not trying to be preachy here since all I've said has been researched and advised time and again. The most important thing about losing or maintaining weight is eating sensibly and using exercise as a supplement. A healthy diet counts more in keeping weight down than making it up by exercising excessively just to compensate for eating badly.

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