Sonnet and Sakana, thanks, I've logged onto FitDay and it is awesome.

I have only entered my data for April 2 so far, but even that day showed me just within my suggested targets. FitDay calculates that I should be eating 2731 cal/day, and on that day (even with the restaurant hamburger and eggs) I consumed 2658.

Will be interesting to see what the following days look like.

whoa, make sure you are eating enough. remember you don't want to starve your body. do that and everything you eat when you finally do eat will be stored as fat since your body has no idea when you will eat again, and it will slow that precious metabolism down immensely. Also, i would recommend eating a little bit more for breakfast, so youa re completely starving by lunch.

Really, I didn't plan it that way. I just got really into what I was doing, and didn't notice that I hadn't eaten until it was dinnertime. I have no plans to consciously starve myself. I really like food.

So, I've acquired a FitDay account and have been entering all my data for the last few days.

FitDay suggests that I consume 2731 cal/day.

Here's what FitDay says I actually consumed:
April 2: 2658
April 3: 1949
April 4: 2171
April 5: 1867
April 6: 1299 (yikes! - too low)

I'm not really making big changes in my actual meals yet, except for (limited so far) portion control. I even ate restaurant food on the 2nd and 3rd.

As far as I can see, I have just cut out the junk food. It looks like my actual meals aren't all that big (and my wife backs me up on this). The difference comes in the between-meal munchies, and the cans of cola.

I may even have to start eating more, as long as that more is the right kind of food, to make up for some of the shortfall. Weird, huh?

...Cue depressing music...

April 7

This was a bad day, full of stress eating because of work and family issues.

Breakfast: 1 slice toast with almond butter, 4oz milk

Lunch (the really bad part): 1 slice pizza, 1/2 large slurpee, plate of fries at the diner, 4oz chocolate milk

Somewhere in there I ate a cup of sugary breakfast cereal (dry).

Supper: 6 oz pan-fried buffalo, 2 scrambled eggs, 2 waffles w/maple syrup.

Do you see any fruit or vegetables in there? Neither do I. Not one piece.
This has been far away my worst day this week.

FitDay agrees, giving me a caloric total for the day of 2858, with 124g of fat and a whopping 345g of carbs.

The upsides were: that, with an entire medium pizza sitting in front of me, I was able to eat only one slice and put the rest away; that I was able to hand my half empty slurpee to my wife so she could pour it down the drain; and the stress made me want to work out.

Exercise: 1 hour 20 min. on the stationary bike.

Tomorrow will be better. Tomorrow will be better. Every day is a new day.

Heh, I ended my post in the "Plumpies" thread with something very similar. It's true and it's important to remember.

You entered it into FitDay, yeah? Only 100 calories over, give or take? Based on your weight and the fact that you've been exercising, I'm assuming that the target calories is after subtracting hundreds of calories from the amount your current body needs to maintain its weight. If so, you are almost certainly still under that number, so you might have not cut as many calories as you would have liked, but you still probably lost some weight. Just not as much as you would staying on target.

It was still a good day. You restrained yourself. You didn't guzzle cola all day. Your habits are still on their way to changing for the better and for good. So, pat yourself on the back and get that chin up.

heya just want to say great job on the changes you are making! if you compare your diet now to the way it was the difference is huge!

as for the push ups and sit ups... don't worry I have a fitness test even few weeks when I first started i could only do 12 push ups and 16 sit ups in a minute 8 weeks on I can do 29 push ups and 40 sits ups.... so you'll be surprised how quickly the number goes up..

I find trying to sent yourself little goals like that and testing yourself on them ever few weeks really helps as you have an incentive to beat yourself everytime!

good luck and keep it up!

April 8

Okay, it was actually a pretty good day, even with a little deliberate indulgence.

Food

Breakfast - 1 square of cornbread with butter, 1 orange

Lunch - 1 slice meat pizza

Afternoon snack 1 - 1 Kit Kat Chunky chocolate bar ( I decided that I wanted it, could afford to eat it, and that it will not in fact kill me. Then I ate it and felt guilty about it afterwards.)

Afternoon snack 2 - 1 apple

Afternoon snack 3 - 1 slice bread with almond butter, 4 oz. milk (just got hungry again)

Supper - 3oz mennonite sausage, 9 homemade perogies w/margarine, a big-ass salad (lettuce/tomato/carrot/celery/dried cranberries/sunflower seeds/splash of lime juice for dressing), 6 oz. cranberry cocktail

Midnight shift fuel - 2 slices pizza (I have decided to count the pizza into today's log, even though I'm not eating it until later tonight. If I don't eat during the night shift I get sleepy.)

Total calories - with the midnight pizza it comes out to 2769, which is just a smidge over my daily target. I'm deciding to be okay with that today.

Exercise

Morning - 20 minutes out with my daughter, helping her learn to ride her bike (lots of me walking along with her as she rode).
Afternoon - 30 minutes at the playground with my daughter (pushing her on the swing, running around after her)
Evening - 45 minutes nordic walking

Going to have my first weigh-in tomorrow - feeling a mix of anticipation and trepidation.

FitDay tells me that my diet this week has been 15% protein. That sounds a bit low to me. What do you all think?

FitDay also tells me that my average caloric intake this week has been around 2200, which is 500 less than my suggested target (said target being an intake designed to lose 2.16 lbs/week). Interesting. I haven't been feeling like I am starving myself at all.

That made me laugh so hard. I think it's a reaction that everyone can relate to. Imo a small treat is important now and then but boy you always feel guilty after it heh.

Good going on the work been lurking in your journal for a while so thought it was about time to say hi.

Hi, Feenix!

Thanks for following along!

I think the guilty feeling is a reaction we've learned to have from being big. It's almost a part of eating. When we eat a salad, we think "that was healthy". When we eat candy, we think "oh, you shouldn't have eaten that, fatty." Now that we're taking conscious control, that latter reaction is not relevant. If we plan for it and count the calories from it, why should we feel bad about it?

Okay, had my first weigh-in today.

Drumroll........

Anticipation rises........

The crowd holds its breath..........

Are you ready?..........

The scale says........

Ding!

308 lbs

We're 3 lbs down! Yes!

Feels great to get a positive result.

good job on the 3 lbs! i'm gonna ramble, but not that much i promise. When it comes to eating, look at it like this. if you weighed your goal weight, would you feel guilty about it? If not then don't sweat it. i never feel guilty when i eat bad, we are human. i know we want the weight to come of NOW, but the reality of things is that isn't..well not all at once. It would be silly to deprive yourself of the things you absolutely love. its torture! i still go to starbucks and get me a low fat venti mocha frappachino once a week. because i absolutely love them, and its my treat for managing so well. i also have a not so great meal once a week as a treat as well. Fast food is something i have given up completely and don't miss it. i've had kfc once and it was so heavy on my stomach. I mean don't listen to me completely, you have your own way of doing things as well. after all i go off instinct. I didn't want to be attached to something like counting calories or logging because i felt i would be tied to it. lucky for me what i do works. but i also took 2 years to get it right, but hey i'm here now! In all, i say never feel bad about treating yourself respctively. there are times when i want a brownie, but then i see its almost 800 calories for one and i just leave it be. but i do say you know what. i'll hit the gym an extra 10 min a day to burn it off or something hhahahaah. ok ramble over. sorry. i just love readin about people's success and tossing out what worked for me. i mean we all started around the same place, (i was at 330) so i feel more inclined to help my fellow 300 peeps. seeing that 2XX will bring a tear to your eye. and i can't wait until you guys get there!

Thanks!

I also don't want to be a slave to the calorie counter or food log, but I am trying it out now and finding it useful as a tool for understanding what I'm eating and what it all means nutritionally. Once that knowledge turns into new eating habits it will be less useful, I think.

My instinct is just to go with my gut, and eyeball things, but that is precisely why I am using a more structured approach right now, to shake things up.

So, I have decided to reduce my base activity level on FitDay from 'mostly seated' to 'seated all day', which is probably a more accurate description of my default state.
This gives me, accounting for my desired rate of weight loss, a caloric budget/target of 2245 per day.
That works for me because my average intake has actually been right around there.

So, here is April 9:

Early early morning snacking (working midnight shift so was up all night) - 2 girl guide cookies, 2 cups of dry mixed breakfast cereals.

Breakfast (after waking up early the next afternoon) - 1 orange

Lunch - wrap (whole grain tortilla, 3 slices of deli roast beef, light cream cheese), 10 oz. vegetable juice

Supper - 1tsp sugar in my tea, 2 scrambled eggs, brown rice, stir-fried veggies (carrot/celery/asparagus/broccoli/kale)

Late night snack - 1 orange

Total calories: 1568

Exercise: in between working the midnight shift (where I am pretty much tied to my operating position all night) and the fact that my wife is painting our daughter's room (meaning I'm taking care of the house and our daughter while she paints), I failed to make time to get a real workout in.
What I did do was some basic calisthenic-type stuff done while working the night shift. It wasn't much, but it helps me not feel like a slug during the night. I'm going to find more things I can do at work.
I did 3 sets, each about 1/2 hour apart.

Set 1: pushups (2x10)
squats (20)
crunches (20)

Set 2: pushups (2x10)
crunches (20)
squats (20)

Set 3: pushups (20)
crunches (20)
squats (20)

It's better than nothing.