An Exciting Update... Exciting To Me

First of all, this is my second blog today, so there is a new one below this as well.

Well, I haven't said much recently about my efforts to lose weight, so I'm doing so now.

Backing up a little, I gained a little on my cruise (reading the previous blog, you can see why), then I got sick the week after I got home, and threw up for about 24 hours, losing 5 lbs. After being sick, my apitite wasn't very big, but I soon messed that up, and went back to eating as I usually do. THAT, my friends, is my problem. I LOVE FOOD! I LOVE TO EAT! I do, I won't deny it, I won't. Despite working out, I don't change the way I eat THAT MUCH. I eat better when I'm on track, but I still eat a lot. Heathly or not, too much food is too much food.

I have really tried everything to get a handle on eating. I'm weak though. I've pondered not eating... but i love food... and bulemia is out, I hate throwing up, besides, I want to be healthy and have the weight stay off, and I want it to be someinthg that I can continue for life without having to greatly alter my life, cause then I'll fail, so eating disorderes and weird miracle pills and things were out.

SO, last Monday (June 29th), I decided I really need to get a handle on my food consumption or I was never going to lose weight and get back to 8 (or less). I had recently listened to a CD that was part of my ChaLean Extream workout package, and Chalene said something that stuck. She said that eating just 50 calories too many each day, will cause you to gain 10 lbs in a year. So I started to do some math, that means, 100 calories to many each day, and you'd gain 20 lbs in a year, and 150 calories too many each day, would cause you to gain 30 lbs in a year... 30 lbs, that's 2.5 lbs a month... if my body can't burn as many calories as I consume, I was going to put on weight.

Then I started to think about 150 calories... that's nothing! There are so many dinky little 100 cal snacks out there, and I personally could easily eat 2+ in a sitting. Even on the healthy end, one medium sized banana is 105 calories... and I can easily eat a banana. I started to realize what I'd been doing. I was eating relativly well, but I was not thinking about the quantity, just the quality. "I've had a healthy breakfast, a healthy luch, and 2 healthy snacks, I'm doing goo so far today." Than I'd go crazy with food at night when all my cravings would kick in, because I didn't think I was eating bad things.

So how much was I supposed to eat? I decided I would see what Chalene suggested I eat. She recommended to for a woman between 151-181 lbs (which I am), to eat no more than 1,400 calories a day to lose weight. Okay, I was going to do that. I had always poo-pooed calorie counting, thinking it was silly and a waste of time, but I was starting to FINALLY see the light, and it made sense.

Tuesday June 30th, today I would begin my efforts to eat less. First thing in the morning, use the bathroom, strip down, and weigh myself. 165 lbs :(

I was SO diligent! I made myself proud. I didn't eat more than I should, and I ate healthy. THAT was the ticket. I still had to eat healthy. If I wasted precious calories on nutritionless foods and crap that was high cal and not filling, I was going to suffer all day because I would have run out of calories, and I would still be hungry.

Wednesday July 1st. Wake, potty, strip, weight... 164. Cool! :) I kept this up pretty well all week, slipping up Thursday, I went over a little, but doing pretty good. The scale looked like this:

Tuesday June 30- 165
Wednesday July 1- 164
Thursday July 2- 163
Friday July 3- 162
Saturday July 4- 162
Sunday July 5- 160
Monday July 6- 160
Tuesday July 7- 158

Doing the math for you, that's 7 lbs, in 7 days. :) WAHOO!

And the great thing is, I'm not hungry. I'm not eating till I'm full, I'm eating till I'm satisfied, and if I'm really good and keep a good control on the number of calories I eat, I can reward myself with a little treat now and then (still keeping track of the calories) with out messing it all up. And it's easy! I just keep a running tally in my head, or if you are bad with that, write it down. Read labels, and both the internet and a lovely calorie counter book I got, help me know the calories in things without lables (produce, etc.).

I still get cravings, but I aware of how much I've eaten, so I know when it's okay to give in, and when it's not. Monday night I was sitting in my room. I had had most the calories that I could for the day, but I was having mad cravings. I wasn't hungry, I just had the munchies and wanted to eat things. So I thought about what little calories I had left for the day, and went and found a 60 calorie string cheese to eat, and then drank water to keep my mouth busy to bed time. As I was sitting there though, I thought about how before I made this goal to eat this way, I would have thought to myself, "I've eaten healthy today, I'll just go find something healthy to eat and I'll be fine." But not anymore. It's so great. One other thing too, I'm totally all about working out still, but I only worked out twice last week, and twice so far this week, due to time, but I'm still having success.

Oh, and I try to plan my meals a little bit beofre I eat, so that I don't eat all my calories before dinner and leave myself hungry, or with few options in the low, low range.

The scale read 158 still this morning, but as you see, I'm not worried, that's happened before. I'm going out to dinner tonight with friends from work, and I already know where we are going, so I kept my calories tight today, and I went online to look at the menu for the restaurant to see what was a good, healthy, low cal item I could order, and I was happy to find one I'm excited to order tonight, and only 320 calories (add that to what I've already had today, and I'm still 370 calories under my limit..

I tried an experiement while I was looking at the menu. I moved to the side of the menu with the names of the items, and didn't look at the calories. I went through the menu and looked to see what sounded good and what I would normally have picked. I found the item that I know I would have gone with in the past, and moved acorss the page to the calorie column... 1,340. YIKES!!! That's almost an entire days worth of calories for me, in one meal!

I never realized how much I used to eat, but now that I know, things are going well. I just wanted to update you, and give my recommendation to anyone looking for something that might work for them. Toodles!