I'm a bit late with this Thursday's results because I've been so swamped with work that I haven't had time to blog. It's unfortunate because I feel like the blogging helps motivate me to stay on track and remain thoughtful about how I approach my eating and thinking in regards to food.
About a week ago, I decided to alter my calorie counting habits to incorporate a second day of counting, but also decided to increase the number from 1200 to 1400. I'm pleased to have done 1200 for over a month of Thursdays because now that 200 extra calories feels like pure luxury. It makes the added day, which will be Saturdays, seem more doable. I have a sense that this is a bit like the old saying about hitting yourself with a hammer and feeling so good when it stops.
Having had relatively severe restriction for awhile makes a little less restriction feel much easier. It also provides valuable insight into how I feel about the non-counting days. Ideally, I'd like to settle in around 1600 a day every day until I have lost all of the weight I want. The way in which I'm doing this seems to be imprinting the "feel" of how much food is right to eat each day in a way that I'm pleased about. I feel like I'm paving a road toward knowing how much I can eat on a regular basis and stay at a healthy weight in the future. My notions of how much I should be eating are so distorted based on portions being served in restaurants as well as the propensity my mother had for over-feeding her family at every meal.
Thursday's total was 1425, which is quite satisfactory for my new goal. I'm pretty sure that is an inflated number anyway since I always have to guess and try to guess high on the calorie counts. Having a lunch which was little more than a piece of wheat bread with a thin layer of peanut butter (due to having no time to eat) probably made it even easier to squeeze in gnocchi with a bit of cheese for dinner. This sort of eating is really not ideal for me, and I'd prefer to be doing better, but at least all of the food I ate was relatively healthy (whole grains and such). I can't help but feel a bit chagrined that there is so little in the way of vegetables and only one small banana for fruit. This is part of the price I pay when time is tight and I can't prepare proper balanced meals, and I hope to do better on busy days in the future.
