Eye-opening!

A lot of fitness bloggers have links to online logs and diaries so I was looking around for one. I've tried a few and never stuck with them, but I found one called FitDay that has a fairly easy to use food journal, and a not-great but not too bad fitness one. It's simple, you can add custom foods, (but not custom workouts and they don't have Pilates or spinning) -- all in all I think I'm going to use it for a while, and here's why.

It is 5pm and I have eaten 1400 calories today. (1409, to be exact.) Based on what I have learned I should be eating around 2000 a day to lose a pound a week.) I have NO idea how many calories I eat in a typical day - that's the kind of day where I'm pretty good til I get home, then I eat everything in sight while reading the paper, talking to the kids, making dinner, and generally not focusing on what I am doing. (I eat a TON while doing other things - like now, while I type I'm eating a half-serving of cereal. I REALLY need to work on this but more about that anon.)

I think tracking my food this way for a few days will be even better than the notebook (I'm doing that again too, to track mood, energy, etc.)

So now I know what I need to do when I get home - limit my dinner to 600 cals. That includes the 1-2 glasses of wine I usually drink, plus the porkchops, the chocolate I filch from the kids' leftover goody bags, and anything else.

Now I might give myself a little more today because I did 45 minutes of HARD spinning and a 30 minute run, or maybe I should just eat the way I usually do, enter that in FitDay, and get a real idea of what it comes out to be. Either way it's pretty interesting. And today was a pretty good day, so far. We took a coworker out to lunch for her birthday but I had sushi, nothing high-fat, (though I did have ice cream at work and a small corn muffin at staff meeting.)

Anyway the point is, to learn more about how much I'm really eating and where the calories are coming from.

Then to focus on not reading/talking/doing housework/working WHILE I eat, but just EAT while I eat. I.e pay attention to the food.

My friend Monique, who has struggled with food as I have, has recently lost 22 pounds (on her way to her college reunion.) She looked at me today and said, pleadingly, Don't Backslide!! I know my progress has inspired her. I already have backslid, a LOT, but I am DETERMINED!! I will turn this ship around.