Good morning!
Whew. What a LONG day it was yesterday. I can really feel it today.
I was at work (two jobs, though) from 8 am to 9 pm. I barely sat down the whole day. It was all good and fun, though. I like my jobs.
I did damn poor on my food choices yesterday, but I did stay within RDI. Well, barely. I went over by 30 calories - but who cares?
The damage came from two things:
- Wife's utterly delish cakes. They were SO good yesterday. She did Key Lime Pie, and instead of the chocolate cake she did something called Caramel Drizzle Pie. It was utterly good and utterly sinful. I did calculate it to the best of my ability, and did hold back on it. It wasn't a BINGE, but it was more than I probably should have had. Especially because it wasn't the only sin yesterday.
- Sunshine induced ice cream. :) The summer is here, and there is ice cream cones EVERYWHERE! I don't really mind. I can have a little, even when I shouldn't. I can usually go for a little, but it was just too good to pass it yesterday so I had a little more than I probably should have had. Again, it was weighed and measured and registered.
I did manage go stay within RDI (well, almost), and I was more active than I normally am on a Thursday, so it's not all bad. I am 100% sure I had a nice, large calorie deficit, as I was supposed to.
The issue is more that "real food" probably only was about 20% of my entire calorie use. This is obviously not the right way to do things, and it annoys me today. Oh, well. I just gotta do better.
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Speaking of calories, exercise and all that jazz...
here are my stats from yesterday.
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I really like posting my stats. I feel that they keep me accountable to my mission. It makes me think every day. It makes me do just a little more here and there, and it's the best feeling ever.
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Today, my legs are sore. Tired. I should be heading out for a walk, then gym, then work, but I'm gonna shift things around a bit.
I'll stay home a little longer, then go to the gym and then work. I've already arranged with Wife that we're walking this afternoon. It's good for her too. This way we both benefit from it, and I get to spread out my workouts a little more throughout the day.
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Wife got her Fitbit One! She likes it, but she's probably not as dedicated to the nerd side of it as I am. That's fine. She's using it and I think it's motivating her to at least see that what she's doing is already pretty good. She's had it for 4 days, forgot it one day, and those other three days she clocked in almost 40,000 steps. Even with a day "off", she's STILL meeting her goals. Impressive!
I did know that she moves a lot at work, and I was pretty sure that she did enough in this department already, but it's always good (especially for her) to see the numbers.
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So, today we don't have a whole lot going on. I have a small employee meeting at the gym, but that's about it. It's just one hour this afternoon. I've promised Wife that we'll go have lunch if she walks with me (that's right, luring her into my workout trap with food! LOL), and we'll go have some reasonable meal after the walk. Then probably just do a little shopping, and lounge at home until my meeting. We have a ton of TV shows to catch up on. It's gonna be a well deserved lazy day. :)
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I wanted to comment a little on a couple of things that I see happening in the community forum of late. There is SO MUCH arguing. So much discussion in a non-friendly manner.
It's no secret that user Spacey47 was causing some trouble there. A lot of people didn't like his tone and style, but he was always telling people how to actually reach their goals, and what they needed in order to accomplish what they were trying to do.
Now he's banned, and it seems that things aren't solved with this. I still see a LOT of fighting, arguing, in unfriendly tones.
There's a lot of hearsay, and a lot of useless misinformation going on there.
I've tried to explain how I see things there, how we are all in the same game here, but the approach is different. The results are the same though, when done right:
We lower our calorie take (yes, those who don't count calories too), and thus lose weight. That's all there is to it.
If you do Atkins, the OVERALL goal (though you don't focus on it) is still to cut calories to have your body burn excess fat instead of newly consumed calories. This is the way we lose weight.
Sometimes we need different approaches in order for it to work for us. Sometimes we have painted ourselves into a corner (plateau, anyone?), and sometimes one way of doing things is easier than another.
However, we are ALL lowering the calorie intake to lose weight, as this is the only way to actually have it happen, like it or not.
There is no way of losing excess fat while still consuming more calories than you burn.
As long as it works for the individual, I couldn't care less. It's all up to you. It's what gets you to reach goal that matters.
Now, that being said, I think there are so many ways that we can make this journey HARDER than it has to be.
There are so much clutter and noise when it comes to sort the facts of weight loss. Do this. Do that. Buy this. Drink that. Don't eat this. Work out that way. You get the point.
If I was told to never have some special kind of food, I'd back out immediately. Regular thin people don't limit themselves like this. Regular thin people don't gain a ton or ruin their diet for weeks by eating a handful of peanuts, two slices of bread, a box of chocolate or anything else. They just have a natural feeling of when to stop, in comparison to their activity level.
This is what we don't have. This is what we need to learn to do. And it's not TOO hard.
One of the best ways to learn is to see how many calories we eat. That's why FatSecret (and every other quality calorie counter) is so brilliant. It helps us focus on this. It helps us by telling us when enough is enough.
By counting the calories we know what we are doing. If you know how many calories you can eat and how many you have already eaten, you'll know what you have left. Use them whichever way you want, but don't go over. THen you'll lose weight.
It's really that simple.
If you choose to NOT want to count calories, to opt for some other solution, then most times you either count something else (Atkins people need to keep an eye on their carb intake - that's also counting), others choose other things. The point is that it's all about restricting something simply because being unrestricted is what got us in trouble in the first place.
What I'm trying to say, I think, is that we're all in the same boat here. We're all doing the VERY SAME THING, but with different approaches. The end result is the same for all of us - lowering our calorie intake to lose weight.
The key is to remove the clutter and the noise. Keep it simple. Once your head is clear, things are SO MUCH EASIER.
This is what I have realized over the last few years, this is what I teach in my classes, and this is what EVERYONE in those classes see results from. Keep it simple, keep it fun. Have that ice cream, but count the calories, and compensate somewhere else.
Now that I think of it, that's what I did yesterday - and I didn't really realize it.
I had a reasonable lunch, a tuna salad. No may. Just tuna and a garden salad.
Then all hell broke loose and I had cake and ice cream. Basically spent my RDI. WAY too many junk calories, but I didn't go over.
When it came to dinner time I had no appetite. I was naturally full, not just refusing to eat. I had zero appetite and opted to just skip dinner.
This basically saved my butt, and I'm more than proud of that today. I had a bad choice day and it all came out okay. No problem. I even lost a few hundred grams and it makes me stay on track for the day.
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Now, I'm still not under 80 kilos, and this is where I'd REALLY like to see myself by tomorrow morning. I'm still one pound short, so I hope I can reach that goal in a day. I think it's possible for me. It's a goal for sure.
Tomorrow there is NO INDULGENCE DAY. No more over-eating. Both Wife and I need a day off from Indulgence Days. I feel that if I'm only supposed to have one Indulgence Day per week then I'm many months ahead! :) It's a matter to reeling it in an taking a little more control of things.
So tomorrow I will just skip breakfast (as always), go to the little buffet and make okay choices, then NOT have candy, and just have a reasonable dinner. Snacks will be fruit. Apples. Can't binge on apples.
The plan is to have my Saturday NOT to nuts and ruin my weigh-ins from Sunday morning. I really want to get further down in weight the next couple of weeks, and it takes that I as a minimum stay within RDI on average.
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It does seem to work for me to go a little higher in my calorie intake. Using the allowed RDI makes it a lot easier, and so far I don't see a slow down in losing the weight I gained through the last week or two. Heck, this week alone I am down 4.8 kilos so far. Try to beat that.
Obviously, it's just fluid. Nothing more. That's fine. I know I didn't gain all those kilos in fat, but I just want the weight gone. It's tying me down and I hate that.
I'm on a mission, I know what to do, and I'm doing it - even with cake and ice cream. Just HOW AWESOME is THAT?!?
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To be honest, I never thought I could lose the weight that I have lost. I never thought I'd be fit. I never wanted to really try because I didn't want to miss out on all the good food out there.
I declined the offer to have gastric bypass surgery done simply because I didn't want to miss out on good foods the rest of my life.
I didn't want to do Atkins because I don't want to miss out on good foods.
However, I see now that it's so easy when you count the calories. It's a walk in the park, once you're used to it. It's a piece of cake. Pun clearly intended.
I can indeed have my cake and eat it too. In moderation.
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Today, I'm thankful for:
- Losing weight after cake day.
- Gym this morning! I love Friday mornings at the gym, and they've been sorely missed.
- Morning coffee to give me energy on a fasting morning.
- Sunshine.
- A walk with Wife after work.
LIFE IS GOOD!