I will say this, tracking my food intake is both enlightening and kind of scary. Though, honestly, it is explaining to me a lot about why and how I've gained weight over the years. It's one thing to suspect or even assume there are a lot of calories in donuts. It's another thing to see the reality of how quickly they can wreck your allotted numbers. Dammit.
Despite the scary, I'm enjoying the awareness. I should honestly start trying to be THIS aware of everything I do. Keep in mind, this is the total antithesis of how I usually function. I'm the person who hasn't kept a checking account in over ten years because I couldn't make myself write down how much money I was spending and stayed constantly overdrawn. It was one of those situations where I realized it was just better to stop.
Now though, I'm thinking if I ever have enough money to actually spend it on more than just basic bills/rent/food, it would be a good idea to actually chart where all of it goes. That way I would have not only a better understanding of my spending habits, but also be less shocked when I had nothing left five days before my next payday. If I decided to make changes, I would have a larger amount of data to consider.
This is basically what I plan on doing with the food diary. When I begin to make the next round of changes, I will be able to do so with more than just 'oh yeah I should eat less of ______' because that rarely works for me. With the diary, I'll be able to see what days I eat more, how work outs affect my food consumption, or even which meals need the most work. I'll have more answers so I can ask more questions. I'm really excited about this.
I'm a firm believer in creative problem-solving. I think the big mistake most of us (myself included) make when we're trying to solve our problems is that we keep trying the same thing over and over again. We get mad when it doesn't work. We blame aspects of the problem for not changing to our solution. Somehow the fact that this is illogical escapes us.
Look, if you keep doing the same thing and the situation doesn't change, then you need to change what you are doing. Don't keep frustrating yourself by assuming if you do it that way (and yell louder) one more time that's going to change. If your solution isn't working, it just isn't working. Stop it, reevaluate, and alter your plan. You're a creative person. You can do that.
The amount of weight I need to lose at this point can overwhelm me. Sometimes I get really freaked out about the length of this process, most because I worry that I won't stick to it. Then I remind myself that one of the reasons I started this journey was because I realized that if I'd kept with a 'lose the weight' plan that I started ten years ago, I'd have been at a healthy weight for a few years by now. The time is going to pass no matter what I do. I can either spend that time trying to work on this problem, or I can just sit back and let the problem get bigger . . . literally.
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