Friday, May 29, 2015

30 Days Challenge: Day Four

Day Four, so far so (pretty good). I didn’t have any of the office cake at the latest farewell, and I also successfully avoided the bagels and muffins in the kitchen this morning. I haven’t been at 100% like I’d like - I did have a little candy from the bowl - but overall I’ve faithfully followed my eating plan, packing salads for lunch and avoiding snacking. I know that a piece of candy is far from the end of the world, and far from derailing a diet, but the point of this was to be stricter, knowing that it was just for 30 days, so I’m going to keep working on that part. But the big picture is looking good.

Tonight, of course, starts the weekend, when I’m the worst at eating. Maybe it’s the free time, or lack of structure, or just that there’s bigger chance of there being lots of food around in a way I’m not able to control like I can during the week. I have my plan - to give myself a reasonable calorie allotment for the meal - and if that doesn’t help, I’ll think of a new strategy. However, I do think that just being mindful of what and how much I’m eating can help me stay on track.

I’m going to try to post here more over the next month, because I naval-grazingly want to keep track of how well I do, and these posts will be the only “data” I have to work with. I’m not tracking, so I can’t go back to my food diaries and (over)analyze what and how much I ate.

It’s feels odd not to track my food. For the last year, if I haven't been tracking, then it's because I've been eating like crap. I am weighing and measuring everything that I eat, just not tracking it. Instead, with this new plan, I know that I can have 1/4-1/3 pound of lean ground beef, and then 1/2-1 cup of black beans, etc, and that it all works out to a good calorie deficit for the day. It's like I've pretracked the whole month.

On the one hand, tracking forces me to remember that piece or bite or bit of whatever. On the other hand, I want to get into the mentality that I shouldn’t be having those little things because I can’t track it, because I could easily forget about it and have another bit a few hours later. The only accountability is in my own mind.

Is it weird that I really like doing stuff like this, that I like giving myself little challenges with food plans? Does that make my weight loss more or less sustainable? I have no idea, but I do think it keeps me going.


  1. Nice work! Good luck with tracking - I think it's a great way to hold yourself accountable for everything that goes into your body, but it's also a way to get oddly obsessive and angry with yourself! As long as you maintain your forgiving mindset (which it seems like you are) and know that you can't TOTALLY deprive yourself (or you'll go crazy) you're golden! :)

    1. Thanks! Yes, I've found the biggest thing is to move on from unplanned eating - and that includes forgiving myself for not being perfect.