Counting Calories: 7 weeks

I have been counting calories for 7 weeks and I have lost 10 pounds.  As I heard once in a Weight Watchers meeting, if you hold up two 5 pound bags of potatoes you get an idea of how much 10 pounds weigh. If only the weight I lost equaled the mass of those bags of potatoes. Then I could be done with this counting calories thing. 

10 down and only 35 more to go...  Aaack.  Considering how averse I am to actually dieting and how much I LOVE food (and, okay, wine), I figure it might take me a whole year to lose 20 more pounds. That means it may take me up to two years to reach my final goal weight. I am actually good with that scenario. Slow and steady wins the race, right? Of course, the longer I do this the better chance I have of making healthier eating habits become permanent. 

Don't worry! I am not trying to be thin. I never have been thin, and at 65 thinness is not something I aspire to. That ship has sailed! I am 5'2" and if I reach my goal weight I will be at the absolute tippy top of the healthy BMI for my height. Tippy top is good enough for me. I want to be strong, healthy, and energetic so I can keep up with my grandchildren.

I want to be able to jump up and down and act a fool when our granddaughter grows up and wins an academy award. That's a long term goal.

The little guy, N, expects grandma and grandpa to play tag with him for crying out loud. And he runs like the wind. My immediate goal is to be able to catch that little stinker. I want to win the game.

Still, if losing weight starts to make my neck look any worse then all bets are off.

See what I mean?  Like the wind

Staring my self down

I've been counting calories for 24 days. I have been exercising (biking, walking, swimming) and as of a week ago today, I have lost 7 pounds. Of course those were the easy, first 7 pounds. 

I don't know about your body, but once mine realizes the Hunger Games have begun she throws those first 7 pounds off like wool blankets on a summer night. My body gives those pounds up quickly and graciously as if to say, "Here my sweet, you've done enough. Good job. Now give me some food, dammit." When I continue to withhold large quantities of sugar, bread, ICE CREAM and alcohol my body gets mad. She fights back. I withhold food, she withholds weight loss. It becomes a standoff, a game of chicken. Who is going to blink first?

This is a dangerous point in a diet. You really have to want to lose weight more than you want to eat. Just to be clear, I never want to do anything more than I want to eat, so this is a conundrum. I must reframe the dynamic. Let's see, perhaps I want to win more than I want to eat? Yeah, sure. So that's how I try to get through it.

The time period after the initial water weight loss reminds me of the first couple of months with a new baby when you give, give, give and get nothing much in return. Eventually the baby smiles, laughs, and learns to play and all that effort is worthwhile. The baby in this scenario is the scales.

If you can outlast your body during these stubborn plateau periods, she will eventually surrender some more weight. Really, it is simple math when you are counting calories. You just have to think in terms of weeks or months instead of days. Right?  Please tell me I'm right. 

Of course, my body is a stingy, passive aggressive Miss Thing. Sometimes she'll only give up a half a pound. If that. Some weeks I try so hard and she slaps me upside the head with a weight GAIN.  She doesn't play fair. She wants me to give up.  She is a worthy opponent. I'm kinda scared.

S&J's Tree Face looking like I feel right now

Counting Calories, again

In October 2014, I wrote a post called Counting Calories. If you click on the link and read this older post you will get a pretty good idea how brilliantly effective counting calories is for weight loss, healthy eating, and promoting exercise.

Unfortunately, I am a bit obsessive when I go on a diet. I am a competitive soul, and even when I am only competing against my chubby little (5' 2") self, I fight to win. Everyday I was out on that bike trail burning up calories one by one. If T didn't want to go for a ride, I went by myself.

I was losing weight like gangbusters for awhile until I hurt my foot. How did I hurt my foot? One day it rained and rained and rained. It became apparent that I was not going to be able to go for a bike ride. I was horrified, because if you read my older post you will understand that exercise buys you more calories each day. The more you exercise the more you can EAT, and by all that is holy I wanted to eat. So, instead of riding my bike that day, I cranked up the CD player and danced like a fool for at least 20 minutes.

I forgot I am aging and I forgot I was dancing on a tile floor. My dance frenzy resulted in a small foot injury.  Actually, let's not talk about that foot injury any more. Suffice it to say that I stopped exercising for a couple of months while my foot healed. And in my despair I also stopped counting calories. Of course, over time I gained all the weight back. 

Earlier this week, like Jennifer Anniston, I became fed up with everyone thinking I was pregnant.  Naw, just kidding - nobody thinks I'm pregnant...

Now I am on day 4 of a regimen of calorie counting. The difference is that I have not been exercising. I will start exercising, maybe next week. I cannot handle getting serious about exercising right now. My counting calorie self is still too delicate, too unstable. One thing at a time, please. For now, I am just trying to acclimate to a world where I live within my caloric means and pay attention to what I put in my body for fuel.

I am trying very hard to think about freestone peaches instead of salted caramel gelato.

Back on that righteous path

Now I Hate Birthdays

I have lost 10 pounds since I started counting calories, 7 weeks ago.  I downloaded the MyPlate app from livestrong.com.  Why yes, I AM tired of entering all my food and exercise every day, thanks for asking.  But hey – it works so I am forcing myself to continue.  I must confess there have been a couple of days where I overate and refused to go in and finish posting for the day because I did not want to face the music (or in this case, the numbers).   I always started up again the next day, though.  So far, so good. However, today is Thanksgiving and I am terrified.  I think I will take the day off from counting.  There is no way I am going to behave today.  Especially now that my friend JE sent me her sweet potato recipe and I have discovered how much butter is in it.  No wonder it tastes so good.

As long as I exercise I stay motivated.  A couple days this week it rained like crazy, so I could not go for my beloved bike ride.  I was in a panic.  I have exercised every day so far on this diet and not just because I love to ride my bike, even though I do.  I ride to eat!!!  There is no *%#@! way I can stay within their assigned calorie count without earning extra calories by exercising.  Usually when it rains in Florida it is only for part of a day.  It is very rare that you get a whole day of bad weather with steady rain.  The other day it poured all day.  We got so much rain (6 inches) that we had to drain the pool by a couple of inches so it did not overflow.  It was torrential.  It was bleak.  I was very afraid for my diet.  I do not know about you, but when I am stuck in the house for an entire overcast, cold, and rainy day all I think about it food.  I ended up dancing like a crazy woman, alone in the living room, for as long as I could and then did some hand weights. That is how weird I have become.  T shut himself up in his office and did not come out until I turned the music off and he figured it was safe to emerge.  I appreciated the privacy.  It is hard to get privacy when you and your spouse retire at the same time.  Luckily we have 3 bedrooms and we both took rooms for an office.  I am so thankful to whoever invented doors.

I experienced a real blow on my recent birthday.  The damn app automatically reduced my daily calorie total by about 50 calories based on going from age 62 to 63.  Sheesh, as if it wasn’t bad enough aging and dieting, now I am being punished for it.  Cruel and unusual punishment!  I may go in and lie about my age.  Or keep changing the date of my birthday further and further into the future.  Whatever it takes.  It is not that I mind getting older, it is the calories that count.

Counting Calories

Day 3:

I started a diet two days ago.  Today is the day three.  I am counting calories using a calorie counter on my iPhone.  It is a nice app; it converts food to calories and also gives a nutritional breakdown so you know if you are eating healthy each day. When you first sign up you code in your age, height, and weight.  Based on this information the app determines the number of calories you can consume each day and still lose weight.  You can choose to loose ½ pound a week or a pound a week.   Obviously if you want to lose a pound a week your daily calorie count will be lower than if you want to lose ½ pound per week.   I chose ½ pound a week because I am a big weenie.  You then proceed to record everything you eat during the day, every day, possibly for the rest of your miserable life. My brother, Big D, has been counting calories for a while and he has lost over 55 pounds.  

All food has a total number of calories associated with it.  For instance, a McDonalds Quarter Pounded Bacon & Cheese Hamburger has 600 calories.  A large order of French Fries is 510 calories, and a medium Coke will add another 200 calories to your count.  Two scrambled eggs have 202 calories.  Six sweet cherries are 26 calories.  A peanut butter and jelly sandwich is about 360 calories.  You see where I am going with this.  You are kind of forced to eat healthy simply because it is the only way to eat more than once a day.

You also type in the exercise you do, including the kind, duration, and exertion level. Exercise burns calories. The great thing about counting calories is that you can earn food by exercising.  This is brilliant motivation for getting more exercise.

Imagine your goal each day is 1,500 calories.  At 7:00 pm, you find yourself wanting an ice cream bar that has a calorie count of 170 (Weight Watchers Brand– not the good kind, NEVER the good kind).  Unfortunately, you have already met your calorie goal for the day. You cannot just eat more because you will go over your goal and then you will not lose that ½ pound this week.  If you have been struggling all week to keep within the calorie goal to lose that measly ½ pound, you do not want to mess this up.  You really want to lose ½ pound.  In fact, if you do not lose ½ pound you will lose your mind.  Consequently, you jump in the pool and swim laps for 20 minutes because you know you will burn up 170 calories, thus reducing your daily calorie count down to 1330.   THEN you can eat that damn ice cream bar and your calorie count is back up to 1,500, within your daily goal.  Voila!  You have earned an ice cream bar.  Nothing weird about that.  Totally hypothetical example, of course.  Or maybe that is what I did last night?  No matter, it is exactly what I will be doing this evening.

I shared this purely hypothetical example with my youngest sister, who is also counting calories and has been doing so for months.  Her answer to me was "Wait until you see what you will do for a glass of wine!"  I can only imagine.  That sounds like a day 5 kind of challenge to me. 

Today I ate breakfast at 8:00 am.  It is now 10:30 and I am waiting for it to be noon so I can eat again. Eating my next meal is pretty much all I think about now.