So what has gone on in the last week? Well, since last Wednesday, I've logged food for all days but the weekend, which means I was pretty well-behaved most days. My deficits for Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday last week were 383, 454, and 478 calories. Not as high as I would like, but still a deficit. On Saturday, I blew it. I can't even remember what all I ate, as I ate poorly at every meal. I ate too much breakfast for starters. Then for lunch, we lucked out and had a free meal at the new Italian Oven by our house. We had a thin-crust white pizza, soup, salad, and a half of a panini. Now, we shared all of this, but I still probably ate more than I needed to. We had two teeny, small desserts, too, and shared those. After some shopping, we stopped and got good chocolate at Sarris'. Again, not a lot (two pieces), but still. Then for dinner, which I didn't think I would need after the big lunch, we had leftover pizza and salad from lunch. There was no way I could count those calories, and I find it hard to believe that I ate more than I burned that day (2227 calories), but who knows. Maybe I did.
Sunday wasn't much better. I did, at least, eat well at my meals, but I made brownies with Lila and her friend, Danielle. So I ate some batter, as well as ate a small piece after they were done. Again, did I eat more than I burned that day, which was 2399 calories? It seems hard to believe that I did, but who knows.
Now, when I weighed in on Monday morning, I was up in my weight. Seriously? Do you see why this drives me crazy? I had a deficit going into Saturday. I had a deficit of 2703 calories for the week since my last weigh-in, which is 3/4 of a pound. For me to have gone up a pound in weight from the week before, that means I would have had to have consumed those 2703 calories, PLUS consumed another 3500 (one pound in calories). There is no way that my splurges on Saturday and Sunday were comprised of that many calories.
So what's going on here? Where is my reward for the deficit that I did have earlier in the week? Why am I not seeing the scale budge along with my deficit? Is this whole deficit thing a farce? I don't think it is, but I can't explain what's going on with my body.
Which leads me to my current thinking. I'm frustrated. I have been trying since the end of October to lose some weight. I started at 135 pounds on October 26. Back then, I started tracking my calories in and out using caloriecount.com. After the holidays, I decided to get more serious about it, and I bought the bodybugg so that I really knew for sure how many calories I'm burning. But even that has not helped. I'm down to 132 pounds (well, this is what the scale said today; yesterday it said 131, and last Tuesday it said 130), so at least I did lose 3 pounds, and I'm exercising harder than I had been, doing much more strength training. The good news is that today I put on a pair of pants that I bought two summers ago when I had lost 15 pounds. These pants, when I got up to 135, were a bit snug, and looked kind of tight. But today, even after only a 3 pound loss, they fit fine, if not even a tad bit roomy. So I guess that means that my body shape has changed in some way. This is all good news.
But I'm still frustrated. Seriously, am I that much of a pig that with all the working out that I do, since October 26, I've only been able to lose 3 pounds? It seems so unbelievable, and this is why I'm frustrated. I don't want to fall off of this wagon again, but I feel it coming. I'm grateful to have the bodybugg, as I now think I will always want to be aware of my calorie burn throughout the day. It will hopefully always help inform the way I eat. But I'm tired of tracking and counting my caloric intake, especially when it seems to be making no difference. But can I fall off of that wagon and not lose control? If I'm not a slave to documenting everything I put in my mouth, will I be more likely to put things in my mouth that I shouldn't be putting in there? Now that you've gotten your mind out of the gutter, I wonder if I can be successful at all at losing more weight, or am I stuck at 132 and I need to just accept that? What would it take to lose more weight? Do I really need to eat like a bird, limiting my caloric intake to even less than 1500 calories a day, even if I'm burning 1000 calories more than that daily? But if I'm burning so many calories, and taking in so few, won't I be starving all the time? And how can that be healthy?
There is something liberating in the idea of just accepting yourself the way you are, vowing to eat healthy all the time, limiting sweets but not giving them up completely, and getting on with your life, forgetting about all of this tracking and managing. Wouldn't it be a total success if I could just do those things? The question is... can I do it? Stay tuned to find out.
Personally (and again, I am no expert), I think it is probably good to diet for a certain period of time, but then stop.
ReplyDeleteBack in '00, I followed WW (you gave me some photocopied point list) for about two weeks, maybe a little longer. It was enough for me to drop a few pounds, b/c I probably cut 1000 or more from my daily caloric intake. But then I stopped counting points (still watched what I ate mostly) and just concentrated on working out. And I kept that weight off (plus a little more) for a year and a half, I think. When I started eating bad most of the time and stopped exercising, that is when I gained it back.
Then this year, when I was first out of work, I cut back on eating and dropped about five pounds within a month or so. Eventually I started eating more, yet I have managed to keep that weight off. Running around with a kid and then actually running has helped, no doubt. I am quite sure if I eat bad many days a week for weeks at a time, I will gain the weight back. I always do, eventually.
I think you will have to keep on cutting more and more calories to keep losing weight in this way, and then what? So I say go with your new plan. And love yourself the way you are, most importantly!