DAY TWO
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So far so good! I weighed in this week 2 pounds lighter. I am thinking of this new way of eating as mindful eating. I am realizing that I am scrutinizing everything I eat while also noting the calories. Handy little "Notes" app in my iphone is a blessing. I just click and type it in. Add it up, and consult my other note that has how many calories I am allowed by that point. I love it. I love it. I love it. I'm going to keep going!
DAY ONE
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I swear. I could write a book, illustrating every diet, in great detail, pros and cons fully listed, along with an excuse or reason for why I fell off of it. They work for some. Not for me. I really, REALLY wish they did, but every person is different, and my world is gray without food. I am not even just talking junk here. I mean all of it. Eggplant, broccoli, even brussels sprouts! Lima beans - yes! Creamed corn! Spinach! I love ALL of it! So, for the past 3 days, I have been miserable. That's not counting the other days over the past 10 years that I have tried to stuff myself into a diet plan that I can live with. Recently, I have been doing Jenny Craig, and it was working for me, but we have recently decided that we need to revise our budget, so we opted to change some things. This was one of them. Now, you must know, I have already been on 2 other different diets this year. This is not new for me. I am always onto some new diet, and that isn't what bothers me. It's the notion that I thought I could live with each of them, and tried them, but cannot. So, it started with the herbs. That's usually the go to....Weightless tea kicked it off this time...And then, sipping tea, I just thought about how I eat... What do I think about during the day when I want food? What do I do when I am hungry? What do I reach for? Why I do that? How many calories should I consume to lose weight? I thought about food, and how I just don't want to live without any of it. After all those questions, I realized that I don't want to be a slave to my emotions when I step into the kitchen. When I go there, I want a plan. And thought I have already been though this before, this was time was different, only in the matter of one TEEEESY weensy little detail: I realized I spent my day mentally calculating how many calories I ate, or was about to eat. Round the clock. All day. And I don't know why I didn't realize it until now but here comes the plan that emerged from this brand new insight: Divvy my daily calories round the clock: I broke it down into hours. I start the clock when I start eating and I stop when I get to 1200, which is my target caloric intake to lose weight. So if I follow my schedule of how many calories I should have only consumed by a certain time, I have until 9 PM to eat all my calories. I started with 7 AM, based on when I usually want to start eating, and 9 PM being the very latest I allow myself to eat, though I usually try to stop at 8 PM which I know is also too late, but given little details in my schedule, that's what it is...Anyway! 7 AM - 80 calories 8 AM - 160 calories (so by 8 AM, I should be in the ballpark of having consumed 160 calories.) 9 AM - 240 calories (and if you think of it, if you eat a breakfast, it, if you are trying to lose weight, should be somewhere in this range-at least for me. So my 7 AM meal of 240 calories should carry me to at least 9 AM.) It's that simple. Maybe there are lots of people out there doing this - I have no idea - but this just seems very logical to me... There are other rules too, including when to eat the carbs, how much fat I want to ideally consume, how much sugar I want (or don't want) in my diet...Though the diets and years, I have learned some things...They all apply... So we will see. This first day, it's been awesome. And I think it works for me. I don't like to sit down and eat a lot, then go lots of hours without food. I like eating every three hours. It works well for me. On this page, you will find regular updates to this little self experiment on what I really don't consider a diet, and if it goes well, maybe it will work for others too!! Breaking it down, it's really just calorie counting, with a little help, and a little guidance. We'll see how it goes...
