Counting calories

I've spoken here before about SparkPeople. Counting calories was never manageable for me until I discovered SparkPeople, but now it couldn't be easier.

Here's a truth about me, and maybe about many other people as well: if I eat something sweet or unplanned, I mentally tend to say, "I've screwed up now, I may as well eat anything I want." I feel bad about eating it, and my guilt and feelings of failure push me toward emotional eating as a band-aid for the unplanned eating. It can be vicious.

Here's a truth about calorie counting: when I own up to eating those two lemon cookies (as I did yesterday at lunch, unplanned) and factor them into my calories, it's so much better than my mind made it out to be. An extra 220 calories? This is manageable. It means I have to eat a little less at my following meal, and it means I might go over my daily calories by 100, but it is so much less a catastrophe than my mind tried to convince me it was.

Counting calories and being honest on my food log helped me to avoid going overboard on food yesterday due to guilt. Writing it down, looking at it, and honestly assessing the damage is a great tool. No wonder food journaling has been such an important weight loss tool to so many people for so long!

Back and forth. Up and down.

I'll start by saying this: I'm at peace with me. I bore seven babies, I love food, I move my body, I am what I am.

I have gained and lost 10 pounds quite a few times now. I start, I think I'm on a roll, I level off, I maintain, eventually I gain. I probably have more starting over posts in this sad little blog than I have anything else.

I have a goal, an actual goal. I've never set one of those before, to lose X by date Y. I went to a number of BMR calculators to see how many calories I should (theoretically) eat in a day to accomplish it. But I made my goal reasonable, 1.5 pounds per week, and it's going to be a long haul to get where I'm going. Anything worth doing is worth doing over the long haul; but though it may be simple, that doesn't mean it is easy.

I've removed exercise from the equation. That doesn't mean that I don't do it—on the contrary, I love exercise. It just means that I don't expect it to affect the scale. A good exercise week will not equate to a bigger loss, a specific kind of exercise will not be more magical than other exercise. So I do what I feel like doing every day. I move, I watch the sun inch up over the mountains, I saunter around my neighborhood, I do push ups and lift weights. However much, whenever I want, without the compulsion that this will contribute to a big loss on the scale. As long as it contributes to my feeling of well-being, that's all I want.

And I do feel well. I feel happy, healthy, and balanced.

My new jam

My current weight loss comes courtesy of EET, which is personal online coaching. I'm in frequent contact with "Mr. EET" Jon Pearlstone—he goes over my weekly schedule with me, my forecast of what I'm going to eat/when, and when and what I'll do for exercise. He makes suggestions and tweaks based on what he knows from his own experience and from coaching others. This is new to me; I've never had a coach before. But it has been valuable, because for the first time ever all food is allowed in this weight loss plan.

I've been all over the map with weight loss. I've counted calories. I've counted fat grams and fiber grams. I've done intermittent fasting. I've done food combining, which is basically not combining foods that don't digest well together, like carbs and protein, in the same meal. I've refused to count calories, and instead counted food exchanges or portion sizes. I've gone off sugar. I've limited my sugar. I've denied myself. I've rewarded myself. I've sneaked. I've eaten whatever I wanted, thrown my hands up, and said, "To heck with today, I'll start again tomorrow."

With every previous diet, a treat or a day of big portions would usually throw me into a tailspin of sorts; I'd "punish" myself for my slip and be all the stricter in the days following. Usually, that would end up being the kiss of death for that particular weight loss effort. I have a hard time living with perpetual guilt, and an easy time living with eating chocolate whenever I want. Strict is disheartening, and it is difficult to maintain in the long run. And if I just quit weighing myself, I don't even know what the chocolate is doing to me.

Side note on my psychological make up: if I go all strict on myself, and I stick with it and do perfectly and deny myself, and then don't see a measurable loss by the end of the week, I go a little wee bit nutso. If all that denial and difficulty didn't yield a loss, then my brain gives me no reason to continue. In fact, my brain gives me no reason to not go inhale without mastication all the delicious foods in my kitchen.

The good part about EET is that the treats are built in. Mr. EET insists upon them! Every day I must eat something that I consider a delicious treat. I get to eat my favorite foods all the time, there's nothing that I need to save for special occasions, or that I have to deny myself and think, "Maybe when I've lost the weight I can eat that again." Everything is allowed. Which is the key to sustainability. And treats are the key to fun. It is magical, knowing I don't have to deny myself of anything; I may not be able to eat something that tempts me right then, at that very moment, but I never have to feel desperate because I can easily build whatever I want to eat into my meals sometime within 24 hours, and I can enjoy it just as much as I think I will. :) It takes Herculean self control to say, "I'll never eat my favorite chocolate chocolate doughnut again!" And it leads to failure. But it doesn't take nearly as much will power, almost none in fact, to say, "Mmm, delicious! I'll eat this after lunch tomorrow!" and just wait a few hours, knowing I get the whole yumzers thing.

So that's my new jam: internet coaching, and eating all my favorite foods every day. And so far, it's working out. I lost 10.2 pounds between 7 November and 31 January, and 7 of those were with the help of EET. I'm in a groove again, and really excited about it. :)