A Pound is a Pound is a Pound...

....or is it??? 


Well, obviously not  = )  But that's what I've been thinking about since last Friday.


We drove up to Texas A & M to watch my nephew graduate. I kept remembering holding him when he was 3 months old and soon I would be watching him walk across the stage in his Corps uniform and receive his BS in aerospace engineering!


But before the graduation...the graduation party! I was SO thankful that I joined Weight Watchers and have been going to a meeting every week. I've learned how to handle these situations.


I planned my "work" and I worked my plan! I knew there would be homemade yummy jambalaya and also hoped for white cake with buttercream frosting. I'd planned on having a small serving of jambalaya (1/2 - 2/3rds cup) and a normal sized piece of cake as long as it had my beloved buttercream. If it doesn't have that, it's not worth it to me to eat it!


I packed a cooler full of healthy fruits, veggies, some canned salmon, nuts and a small container of pretzels. I wanted to fill up on my healthy things first, then have the special things, then eat more healthy things if I was still hungry. 


It worked GREAT! I totally enjoyed my treats but was not tempted to eat more than I'd planned. The buttercream frosting cake from Sam's was just about the best I've ever had  = )   And I didn't feel guilty since I'd planned and portioned my points.


But that's what got me thinking about a pound. I was wondering if the scale would go up any and if it did, when would that be? That night, the next night, 2 nights later?


A pound is 16 oz. of weight. To gain a pound, one must consume 3500 extra calories that one does not burn off. In a day? A week? A month? 


I could drink 16 oz. of water and "gain" a pound...at least temporarily  = )  But at zero calories, it's certainly not a TRUE gain of a pound. What about black beans? If I ate 16 oz. of black beans, the scale would show one pound higher... but 16 oz. of black beans does not equal 3500 calories.


16 oz. of butter might be more than 3500 calories...does that mean I've gained 2 pounds??? hahahahaha


And how does my body treat these things as different substances to be metabolized. Well, I know how my body treats 16 oz. of water  = )


But think about 16 oz. of black beans vs. 16 oz. of buttercream frosting cake. Or a better comparison would be 3500 calories of black beans vs. 3500 calories of buttercream frosting cake...


First of all, it would be much harder and take much longer to eat 3500 calories of beans over cake. But after I've consumed them, how are they different inside my body? Is it harder to burn off the cake compared to the beans? Do the beans get stored more in my muscles and the cake goes mostly to my fat? 


I've already experienced the difference in my hunger level and energy and attitude when eating "junk" calories vs. healthy calories. I KNOW there's a very real difference! And I'm so thankful that God created our bodies to be constantly regenerating so it wasn't very long after changing my diet until my engine was running on premium vs. cheap, dirty, 10% ethanol, pinging-every- time-I-step-on-the-gas gas!


Anyhow, I don't have answers for you...just wanted to share what I've been thinking about. In a related topic, I read Scott Jurek's article in Runner's World today and that got me to thinking about how my body might run on a vegan diet compared to my mostly lacto-ovo-fisho-vegetarian diet.


If I metabolize every food substance differently, what would the results be? For Scott that meant losing more fat, feeling much better and running MUCH faster. Would the same be true for me? The book comes out on June 5th and I will definitely be reading it!


In other news, I was walking the dogs tonight and realized that the tops of my thighs were not brushing each other!!!! Now, they still did a little on my run yesterday morning, so I'm not there yet but I can see (and feel!) a definite improvement!