Not making sense

Dieting is becoming confusing for me.  As I mentioned in a previous post, I seemed to gain 2 lbs for no reason - I had been staying within my calorie limit.  Last night we went out and I totally pigged out.  Seriously pigged out - potato chips, green chili dip, candy bars, mexican food, donuts, wine.  Today I weigh myself and weigh a pound less than I did the day before.  Really starting to think my scale is broken...

Summer exercise? Meh.

Well, I would like to do some reviews of my many yoga/pilates/tai chi DVDs, but as I mentioned - it is damn hot here and I can't seem to find a cool time in which I feel like exercising.

Oh, I know some out there are saying that I should just force myself whether I feel like it or not, but I have a feeling that is the quickest way to totally make me hate it and I don't want to hate it.

Basically, I feel motivated during the day (right now it is too hot even with AC to exercise).  Once the sun goes down I am only motivated to do things I enjoy doing - like writing, reading, watching movies and so on.  Things that don't take any physical motivation.

Aside from that - how did I gain two pounds over night?  Is my scale broken?  Seriously, I didn't pig out or anything, but when I weighed myself today I weighed 2 lbs more than yesterday.  Am I retaining water?  I totally don't know, but I hope that tomorrow that will have disappeared from the scale.

Pop goes the weekend

Once again, on the weekend I have went over my calorie limit.  Damn weekends!

On Friday we went to see Super 8 and Britton bought popcorn.  Luckily it was small, but we all know the word small doesn't mean what it used to, so it was fairly large.  I knew it would mess up my daily calories, but I couldn't resist.  I just don't have much willpower if something like that is right there.

Then there were the few glasses of wine at dinner and before I knew it I was about 250 calories over.

I have been afraid to add up my calories for Saturday.

We all go to Applebees after our monthly UFO meetings.  That was OK because Applebees has a good low cal selection.  So I did alright there, but then I went to a friend's birthday party at a local pub and had 2 glasses of wine.  Still OK, but then when I came home Britton wanted to go out.  So more food and more wine.  As I said, I am afraid to add it up.  I am also afraid to weigh myself.  I feel bloated today and fatter than a couple days ago.

So I guess I am just going to live with the assumption that on the weekends I am likely to totally blow my diet and try adding some extra exercise during the week and hope that it will all even out.

Week 5

I have finally caught up this blog to now.  I did my weigh in earlier today and had lost the pound I gained back in week 4 and one extra!  Obviously, I was much more careful and stuck to my 1200 calorie per day limit, except for 1 day.

That 1 day over was Britton's (my SO) fault.  We were out shopping and he just had to have lunch at Captain D's.  The "D" in that definitely doesn't stand for diet.  I don't think there is one low cal thing on their menu and that is including salads.  I was starving and ended up getting the chicken dinner (oh yes, I do love fried chicken), baked potato (love those too!) and coleslaw.  However, I did only eat 2 of the 5 chicken strips, about 3/4 of the baked potato, 1 bite of the coleslaw and I couldn't resist the two hushpuppies.  I saved the rest and brought it home.  Just didn't have the willpower to throw it away.  I will have to be careful finishing it over two days because it could easily send me over my limit again.

Week 3 and 4

Week 3 was great!  I lost 3.5 lbs a total of 10 lbs!  When I entered my weigh in into My Fitness Pal it told me that I was losing weight much faster than estimated and asked if I wanted to reevaluate my daily calorie limit.  Even though I clicked "no" that little pop-up stuck in my head.

Because of that little message that was stuck in my head, during week 4 I thought I could eat a bit more and still be OK.  That weekend I probably went 200 calories a day over my allowed 1200 and as you probably could guess - I paid the price for it.

Week 4 I lost zero weight and actually gained back 1 lb. :-(

Week 2

Week two went well.  Although, it was during that week that I dreamt of pizza and McDonalds.  I must have went to bed hungry that night. :-)

I only lost 1.5 lbs that week, even though I did nothing differently, which made me wonder if new weight was easier to lose.  The 5 lbs I lost the previous week was new, only gained a couple weeks prior to starting to count calories.

Still, I was happy with the 1.5 lbs, every little bit adds up!

Week 1

This is what I wrote about that first week, but never got around to posting it:


I lost 5 lbs in the last week! I really didn’t do much extra exercise, mostly just my normal daily dog walk. What I did do was keep track of all my calories and stay within the 1200 My Fitness Pal suggested to lose weight. Well, there were a couple days I went over, but not by more than 100.

There were many dumb things I was doing, but for example, I thought if a package or meal said naturally low in fat it was also low in calories. What a mistake that has been! I have found things can have very little fat and yet tons of calories.

I also stupidly thought that if most of my day was spent eating the “low fat” stuff that I could have one bad meal per day and/or a bad snack or two. I bet most days I was consuming well over 2000 calories. Yeah, and there I was wondering why I never lost any weight and continued to gain.

At first I thought I would probably get tired of calorie counting within that first week, but strangely keeping track of that seems to go along with my obsessive and ritualistic nature. I am not sure that obsessiveness will last, but for right now it is working.

I kind of doubt that I will continue to lose weight at the rate of 5 lbs per week, but it would be nice.