Yesterday Erin had to measure me for some costuming. It was found that since she last measured (couple years ago for the pirate costume I think) I’ve gained four inches on my waist. The thought is extremely depressing.

Here’s what gets me though. I’ve been… kinda… watching what I eat. When I was in health class back in high school, and afterwards, they’d always said that the normal caloric intake for most folks ranged from 1600-2400, depending on your level of activity. Knowing, six months or so ago, that I was getting fatter, I began cutting back. Soda (aside from Tonic) was entirely cut out. I’d get less, or ‘healthier’, stuff from fast food places. I got down around 1500 a day, and thought I was doing good. It didn’t stem the tide of fat, obviously.

So yesterday after the revelation I went looking online. The USDA’s food pyramid site asked for my height and weight and told me I should be getting 2800 a day to maintain my weight. Which was a shocker, because like I’d said, I’d always learned that the mid-2000s range was for regularly active people, which I definitely am not.

Further study revealed that with my low intake, it was probably low enough to have been keeping me in starvation mode for an extended period. All my efforts to be more careful about it has been making the problem worse.

Bollocks.

I know I don’t exercise enough, but now I need to eat more. Part of the problem is that in general I still stop when I’m not hungry anymore. Yesterday, for instance, I had four BLTs (1400 calories), several glasses of water, and half of a soda (finished Zoe’s… the first non-tonic soda since Thanksgiving). Only around 1500. Then I  got the news about my low intake and… just wasn’t hungry enough to have more. I did get some ice cream, which put me near 2000, and later I got into some potato chips. Kinda felt stuffed.

Granted, I don’t go for the healthiest of foods in my apparently freakishly small intake, but what the hell am I supposed to do? Eat higher caloric stuff? That’d probably mean all fast food all the time. I do need exercise, but then I’ll have to eat even more. It got me wondering if I should go back to my Mountain Dew habit, which I’d prefer not to. I worry about all that sugar and the possibility of diabetes, and all that caffiene… a cup of coffee at work a day is sufficient now to get me jittery. In the old days I could have chugged a Dew before bed and not felt it.

This is kinda freaking me out.