|
Losing weight is a strange endeavor.
On the one hand, I’m surprised by how easy it is to overeat. Three thousand calories sounds like it should be a lot to eat in a single day, but spread out over just a couple of high fat/simple carb choices made in a span of several hours, it isn’t hard to achieve that number at all. I was probably routinely eating 3000+ calories a day before I started tracking my food. I ate that much recently without even trying.
On the other hand, I am surprised by how easy it is to eat less, as long as I’m careful to eat fiber rich foods once or twice a day. I’ve been relying on beans to be my go-to staple for satiety, and it has been working out rather nicely. I’m starting to get a little more daring in my food choices – after all, no matter how healthy and filling they are, a person can’t live on beans alone – but so far few other foods have given me as much bang for the buck.
I felt very much like I ambushed myself earlier this month when I suddenly dropped my RDI from 2700 to 2400 calories a day. In considering the apparent trend of my weight graph, it seemed on June 1 that I was continuing on an upward trend from April through May. It was disheartening to think that my diet was so comfortable because it was completely ineffective, but going into June I can now see that I have been trending downward since I started tracking my weight in May. All the tear soaked panic was completely unnecessary. At first I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to stay at or below 2400 calories a day but now that I’m banging my head against that ceiling less often, I’m glad I made the change. At 2700 calories a day, I had a lot of freedom to make questionable choices without much consideration because those foods easily fit within my allotment. At 2400 calories a day, I’ve still had the room to make less than perfect choices, but I’m forced to be a little more deliberate.
My relationship with the scale, however, is still rocky. Having the benefit of my exercise tracker and this food tracker has done a lot to mitigate the emotional swings the scale provokes, but I still allow the success or failure of the week to be defined by the number. On the weeks when I go up, I become insecure about my dieting approach. I start questioning everything I’m doing. I have to actively remind myself that I am on a good path and fluctuations are a normal part of the process. On the weeks when I go down, I’m elated beyond all reason like I achieved some epic accomplishment. It’s fine to be happy about seeing the number on the scale drop, but the scale is the most unreliable tool I’m using and success by that measure is not about me. Increased speed on my exercise tracker is about my physical effort and abilities. Eating at or below my RDI allotment is about my conscious decisions. Dropping weight on the scale is a byproduct of those other activities and should not be assigned the emotional currency it carries.
I have become less concerned for the time being about adjusting my meals to match my macronutrient distribution goals. Right now it seems like I’m slowly losing weight just on the merits of calorie reduction. I am still conscious of the desire to get the fat level below 35% and the carb level above 45% -- for the record, I pretty consistently carry a protein intake level at 20%, which I think is perfect, so I have no concerns there – but I am also aware that I am willfully eating foods that are sabotaging my fat/carb percentages. Since my weight seems to be dropping anyway without too much effort on my part, this seems like a good time to learn about the impacts of take out and fast food and some recipe choices so that when I hit the first plateau, I will be better prepared to make adjustments that will change or eliminate the more damaging of those choices and make the push to the ratios I’m striving for a little easier to achieve. Most people who seem at or near their weight loss goals seem to be eating at the levels I’m trying to achieve, so I figure that pushing to those ratios will be a plateau breaker and a logical step to take before I make any further adjustments to my RDI.
I have only been on FatSecret for a short time, but once again I find myself trying to take the advice I have been handing out so freely in the forum: Sit back and enjoy the ride.
|
2276 kcal
|
Grasa: 123,34g | Prot: 142,33g | Carbh: 160,21g.
Desayuno: All Fruit - Blueberry, 100% Natural Creamy Peanut Butter, bread, coffee, half and half, sugar. Almuerzo: White Bean and Chicken Chili. Cena: Original Fried Chicken. Pasa Bocas / Otros: Peanut Butter Cups (Miniatures), peach. más...
|
|
3185 kcal
|
Ejercicio:
Caminar (Moderado) - 5/kph - 18 minutos, Durmiendo - 8 horas, Descansando - 15 horas y 42 minutos. más...
|
|