The way I see it, there's absolutely no reason to get upset about a day where your caloric intake is less than or equal to what you burn in a day. I know that our goals tend to be 500-1000 fewer than that magic number in order to lose weight, but as long as we don't completely overdo it, and as long as we exercise, at least we're not gaining weight, right?

Who cares if we "lose a day of progress". We didn't get fat overnight, and what's one more day in the grand scheme of things? This is life change, not crash dieting. Getting hung up on one day is something a crash dieter does. Not us, right?

Damn straight.

Catching up on yesterday, and squeezing today in ahead of time.

April 14

A decent day foodwise, although I didn't get much exercise.

Breakfast - 2 corn muffins w/margarine, 4oz milk

Lunch - 2 wraps (ww tortilla, lt cream cheese, lettuce. tomato, hemp seeds)

Snack - 1 orange

Supper - buffalo burger (on a white bun, alas), lettuce, tomato, celery, a little leftover mashed potatoes (about 1 cup)

Indulgence - 2 small handfuls of M&M's

Exercise - 1 hour of brisk walking

Total kcal: 2104

April 15

Breakfast - 2 corn muffins w/margarine

Lunch - 2 piece salmon fish and chips (1000 calories right there, but planned for)

After walk - 1/2 a DQ large chocolate shake (an unplanned 565 calories)

Supper - fruit/veg plate (carrot, cucumber, kiwi fruit, pineapple, apple), 4 graham crackers w/light cream cheese and hemp seeds, glass of vegetable cocktail.

This shows how you can plan ahead for suboptimal food choices, and still screw up.
We had a day trip planned, and I knew we were going to be eating out. I knew that I didn't want to have to deny myself at the restaurant, and figured I would be fine as long as I ate a light supper that night. All would have gone fine except that my wife had a milkshake craving after our walk. So we split a DQ chocolate shake.
What a mistake. I never really thought about just how nasty those things are until I looked it up. One large shake has 1130 calories!!! That really blew me for the day, sadly.

Daily total kcal: 2590
It would have been only 2000 without that accursed shake. Clearly my willpower is taking a beating right now.

Exercise was a 1 hour walk with the family, and later 50 min. nordic walking.

I know I still probably burned around 1000 more calories than I took in, but it still smarts to see how easy it is to succumb to temptation.

I weigh myself in the morning.

I find its really easy to 'accidentally' over eat, I have asked my boyfriend who I live with to now keep any crap in his office and if he wants a take-away he cannot mention it to me... and if he wants one he can get it and eat it in the car after work....

it doesn't ALWAYS work but it does help!

Went to the doctor's this morning for my weekly weigh-in (I use the balance scale there).

Survey says...

...Ding!

303 lbs, down 5 from last week.

OH YEAH!

Nice going indeed. Soon you'll be out of the big 300's. Are you feeling any different since you started at all?

Yes, actually. It's not the weight loss per se that is making me feel different, it's the stuff I am doing in order to lose the weight.

Exercising is improving my endurance and energy levels. Cutting out most of the crappy food (and especially the soda), and getting better overall nutrition, is cleaning my system out and making me feel sharper and happier.

Maybe my body is just in shock right now. But it's a good kind of shock.

Congrats on a great week! I'm having some issues with indulgence, too, but I'm just going to go to the gym and bust my ass. Hopefully that'll fix it.

Keep it up!

April 16

Not too terribly bad today, although it could have been better. I had a soft drink slip today - 160 totally empty calories.

Breakfast - 2 slices bread with almond butter and hemp seeds

Lunch - bottle of lemon iced tea (bad!), 1/2 a Save-On rotisserie chicken pie
(love those pies!)

Afternoon snacks - 1 slice bread with paper-thin light cream cheese, 1 oz all-beef beer sausage, 1 orange

Supper - bowl of lentil stew, 2 baking powder biscuits

Dessert - 1.5 cups ice cream

Yeah, the iced tea was a mistake - I was just so thirsty and hot after tennis that I had to have something - should have bought a bottle of water, or better yet should have brought water form home, but I didn't.
The ice cream was an error of overindulgence - I really should have just had 1/3 of that, but the scoop just kept going back in. Even worse is the fact that that much ice cream at once now makes me feel kinda ill.

Exercise - 1/2 hour walk followed by one hour of tennis. OMG tennis makes you work up a sweat! What a great way to exercise! I hope to squeeze in some tennis once a week if possible.

Total kcal consumed today was 2450, which is 200 over my target, but the tennis helped me stay on track and left me with a deficit of over 1400 kcal for the day. Not too shabby.

I definitely have to watch the treats, though - they are starting to sneak back in on a daily basis.

sounds like your doing well i'd die after 1 hour of tennis!

great job keep it up.. whens the next weigh in?

I weigh myself every Thursday, so not for a while.

April 17

Kind of a strange day yesterday - I effectively took it off. No workout (my body seemed to want to rest), and although I ate lightly, I didn't worry too much about food.

Haven't punched it all into FitDay yet, but I will.

Breakfast - 1/2 cup (before cooking) steel-cut oats w/1 tbs agave nectar, 1/2 cup milk

Lunch - 1 whole grain torilla, 1 oz beef sausage, 1 banana, 1/4 cup cranberry cocktail

Afternoon snack - 1 apple, 2 pieces ryvita w/lt cream cheese

Supper - we made pizzas, I tried to control the amount of cheese but it is difficult. I also neglected to measure the amount of cheese I used. I ate 4 slices. Not as bad as it sounds because pizza you make yourself has so much less added fat and sugar than commercial pizza. Also had a little cucumber, honeydew and pineapple.

As I said before, no exercise today. I did a lot of running around doing errands (taking garbage to the dump, shopping, hanging curtains, etc) but nothing that would qualify as actual activity.

I'm at peace with it. I think it is okay to take a day off exercising once in a while.

Before going to bed last night I felt really bad about the day I had had, but this morning it is looking not nearly as awful as it seemed yesterday. Things were going quite well until supper. Anyway, here it is:

April 18

Breakfast - 1 cup fat-free yoghurt (tasted awful becasue they replaced the sugar with splenda - I have since found an organic fat-free yoghurt that uses a little sugar) with 4 tbs hemp seeds

Mid-morning snack - 1 cup dry cereal

Lunch - 2 whole-grain tortillas with roast beef and light cream cheese

Afternoon snack - a big salad with a dash of lime juice instead of dressing, 1 orange

Supper - my wife wanted to go out for dinner, so we went to Boston Pizza. I made a conscious decision to eat what I wanted rather than what was leanest, so I had the small size rib meal, with spaghetti and a piece of garlic toast. Yeah, probably a lot of calories and fat, but the stuff I normally eat (like the mama meata penne) probably has a lot more. Just had water to drink - am remaining pretty strong on the cola front, and it gets easier when you really think about that fact that those empty calories add three bucks to the final bill.
Interestingly, I didn't feel nearly as overfull or ill as I often do after eating that big platter of penne and sausage.

Nighttime snack was 4 girl guide cookies.

Exercise - 45 min. nordic walking in the morning, and 1 hour on the stationary bike before bed (felt guilty about the ribs).

On the positive side for the day, the carnival was in town so we took our daughter there. She had fun, and I managed to resist the lure of the carnival food (mmm, those little fried doughnuts). Easier to do when you see that a dozen of those tiny doughnuts is 4 bucks, as is a single corn dog. Cheapness wins over temptation!
This time, anyway.

heh, i was gonna ask you how things were goin but i read your diary and I think you lost a lb more than I did.

kickin ass and taking names. keep up the good work dude, maybe Ill get ya next week!

First, an update for the 17th. Total kcal was 1958. Still haven't calculated the 18th yet.

April 19

Yesterday I felt like I just ate, and ate, and kept of eating. I always seemed hungry.

B-fast - 1 cup fat-free yoghurt, 4 tbs hemp seeds
Morning snacks - 2 girl guide cookies, 1 banana
Lunch - 3 slices homemade pizza
Afternoon snacks - 1 orange, 1 apple, 3 pieces ryvita crispbread w/lt cream cheese
Supper - big salad with some croutons, some lt caesar dressing, and 3 chicken strips
Bedtime snack - 1 slice bread w/margarine, 4oz milk.

It may not look like much, but I really felt like I was always eating.

Exercise - 1st set was the 10lb dumbbells:
3x10 curls
3x10 arnold presses
3x10 lateral raises
3x10 tricep extensions
3x10 lunges
3x10 curls
3x10 tricep kickbacks
3x10 overhead presses
3x10 hammer curls
3x10 front raises

2nd set (an hour later) was calisthenics:
2x15 pushups (just couldn't get past 15 today without stopping)
30 squats
50 crunches
50 back raises
2x15 bench dips (these just kill me)
15 min fast office walking to cool down

I've fallen a couple of days behind on my FitDay entries; will try to catch up.