Quote:
Originally Posted by Renton555
Seems like you're just kind of winging it each day. People who struggle life long with weight tend not to be good at improvising so you're really setting yourself up to fail if you don't have a plan. You need to either meal prep or follow a predetermined script. Otherwise you're just relying on pure willpower, which always eventually falters.
You're also likely under reporting calories. Other than pure oil, almonds are the most calorie dense food on the planet, so it's a little hard to believe you only had 100 cals of them (16 grams).
I eat Blue Diamond brand Smokehouse Almonds, which are whole almonds, and weigh ~1g each. It's real easy to count calories for this item. 28 almonds=28g=170 cals, or ~6 cals each. I had 16 almonds, which is 96 cals, and I rounded it up to 100. Kind of hard to miscount almonds
I mentioned it a few weeks back, but I added the almonds because I wasn't getting enough fat in my diet. Otherwise I wouldn't eat them, they are quite tasty, and I'm aware that it's easy to overindulge when eating nuts.
As for 'winging it', definitely not. I have a plan of eating 1500 cals, +- 100. I've got 30 days of food logs. 21 of those days I was in that calorie range. 5 days I was under 1500, 3 of those were in the 1300 cal range, and 2 were under 1000. Those 2 sub 1000 days were intentional, to help compensate for overeating the previous 2 days. I had 4 days over 1600, 2 of those were slightly over but under maintenance levels. I had 2 bad days--one at 2300 cals (which isn't terrible), and 1 fugly day at 4200. Both of those days can be blamed on excessive alcohol intake. Not an excuse, just facts. I shouldn't have any more bad days until Thanksgiving.
To summarize--28 goods days, 1 even day, and 1 really bad day.
Even with the bad days, I averaged 1572 cals/day for these first 30 days. Perhaps you're concentrating on the 2 bad days and ignoring the big picture.
Posting my weight on a weekly basis is possibly going to present uneven results. I lost 7.8,1.0,3.4, and 0.0 for the 4 weekly weigh-ins. If I would have weighed every two weeks, I would have showed an 8.8lb loss, followed by a 3.4 lb loss. The latter looks better, but I prefer weekly weigh-ins, it's more likely to keep me in line. Either way you slice it, it's still 12.2 lbs lost for the first 4 weeks, and I'm fairly satisfied with the results.
As far as exercise goes, I have a plan, and I'm slowly working my way up. I had to cut back on my exercise in the second week because I was getting headaches. Made a few changes to my routine, which I documented in a previous post, and the headaches are gone. I'm up to 4.75 miles in my a.m. walk, and my stationary bike rides are getting longer. I also started lifting a few weights, but nothing to write about or get excited about. Just trying to maintain what muscle I have.
My third week, I didn't get as much exercise in as I would have preferred, but I had yard work to do, plus I had to get on the roof to fix my evaporative cooler, and I also had to replace a pool pump motor. Had to get these tasks done in the mornings while it was still cool. It's October, but we're still hitting 100+ degree temps here in Tucson. It's been a record year for heat--I think we're up to 106 days of 100+ temps. Anyway, when it cools down, I hope to get in a p.m. walk as well as my current a.m. walks.
As far as food prep is concerned, certain foods I cook in bulk and plan meals accordingly. Oatmeal, hard-boiled eggs, chicken breast, rice, green veggies, ground beef, black beans, etc--all these are cooked in bulk for days in advance. But, no, I don't measure out each portion to be exactly the same. Some days I'll eat more meat than others; some days I'll eat more veggies if I'm especially hungry that day. So, I plan--but my plans are flexible. I've cooked every meal I've had for the past 30 days, except for the 4200 cal day.
Calorie counting--my calorie counts are spot on, except, once again, for the 4200 calorie day. The only difficult food to calculate is (bulk) cooked chicken breast. But, I count the total calories for the bulk package and make sure that at the end of the 4-5 days I spend eating chicken, that the calories add up. The individual days may be slightly off, but the totals will add up correctly. For example, I just cooked 5.04 lbs of chicken. At 110 cals/4 ounces, that adds up to 2218 cals. Add 120 cals for Olive oil and estimated 100 for spice rub, total cals is 2438, which I rounded up to 2450. I'll be eating chicken for 4-5 days. You can check my numbers to make sure the chicken adds up to 2450
I use this same process for my other cooked foods. 6 servings of rice equals 900 cals, spread over 2-3 days. As long as I account for the 900 cals, I'm not overly concerned if the 6 portions are a few cals off. I pretty much use the same method for all my cooked bulk foods.
Out of curiosity, besides the almonds, which foods do you think I'm under counting?
Anyway, it's a long-winded post, just wanted to illustrate I do follow a plan.