I'm starting to have serious issues with my pants. They're now so baggy and long that they're wrapping around the heels of my shoes. I'm going to have to break out the needle and thread and do some hemming of the baggier ones. Based on various observations, I'd say I've easily lost 30 lbs. by now, probably more. Since I'm not weighing myself, it's always a ballpark estimate, and I'm still okay with that. I think I may actually consider weighing myself when I hit the point where I think the average household scale won't break on me. :-p
I'm going to step up my game on the calorie counting front. I'm adding in a third day (Tuesday) to the rotation and adding another 100 calories to the days when I count. I realize that the higher the calories, the slower I'll lose, but I also know that it'll also make it easier to do this more often and prime me for the future. Even before I started the calorie counting one day a week, I knew that I would be increasing the calorie allowances as I added in more days of strict counting.
The high figure I'll be allowing when all is said and done is 1600 a day, everyday, with a hope of going lower if it can be managed emotionally and physically. The average person who engages in light activity needs about 2000 calories to maintain their weight. At my estimated current weight, I believe that I would need 2500 calories a day to maintain (and that's estimating my weight somewhat low, so it might be more). At 1600, I would lose 2 lbs. a week with diminishing returns as I lose more weight and the amount of calories required to maintain my body mass starts to drop if I was at or under 1600 everyday. I hope to offset the slowdown by exercising more as more weight comes off and I can move more easily. Right now, I have a recumbent bike that I bought to exercise with, but my belly is so big that it's very hard to use as my thighs have to heft the weight of my stomach to move.
I've done some rough calculations and with a goal weight of 150 lbs. (this would be sufficient for me, though probably still considered "too fat" by some people's standards), I would be able to continue to lose weight at 1400 calories per day in the distant future. I figure that, as I approach a lower point, I'll consider reducing the numbers downward. For now though, I'm going up to 3 days at 1500 starting from now.
All of this math and faffing about is the reason that I resist calorie counting and dieting. It's tedious and irritating, but I've found it more bearable because I started so slowly. In fact, I frankly am desiring more structure on the days between Saturday and Thursday as I feel like I'm overdoing it in the gap between the days and need another "reset" point in between.
As for this Thursday, it went pretty well. The total for the day was 1485 and that included sweet potato bread and coffee for breakfast, tuna on pepper crackers and a persimmon for lunch, hot cocoa, rice crackers, a carrot, and a banana smoothie as snacks, and a portion of a pork chop (all fat trimmed), a tiny amount of rice, and steamed pumpkin for dinner. Despite feeling like I ate a lot, I still suffered some hard hunger pangs. My body can't be fooled when it's not getting as many calories as it wants, and I'm going to have to keep fighting that.
