At the most practical level, a weight control lifestyle is lived one meal at a time. However, it is convenient to set a daily calorie limit rather than limit that by the meal. And the standard for losing a pound of weight from your body is to be in deficit 3500 calories per week. I am also a proponent of weighing yourself once per week. So the individual meal, day, and week are all important. One way to keep all of that straight is with a food journal. Mine is a spreadsheet, with columns for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snack. I also have a comment column where I keep track of exercise and illness and related matters, and finally a weight column where I enter my weekly body weight every Saturday. It takes work, but I know exactly how many calories I am eating and I have learned a lot about myself and what my body and subconscious mind need to cooperate! But there is always more to learn.
My food intake and calorie count
Breakfast – Perdue chicken strips (100)
- 100 calories
Lunch – Daycvare annual thanksgiving meal: turkey, ham, mac and cheese, sausage stuffing, mashed potatoes, green beans. Estimate: 500 calories
- 500 calories
Dinner – chili and bread (350); ham (100); cookies (150); chocolate almonds (160); ice cream (210); Costco pepperoni pizza half slice (355);
- 1200 calories
Snacking – tea with half and half (160); ddd (00)
- 80 calories
Total for the day: 1960 calories (limit 1800)
Primal urge
My theory right now is that the cold weather we are having in early November is pressing some kind of behavior button in my subconscious. I am just feeling a need to eat at odd times, and I am eating large amounts! I am not in control of my eating, though I am making a food effort to keep records of everything I do eat. I hope this freakout ends soon, I don’t know what to make of it. It is strange to feel full now, after months and months of living close to the deficit. I used to live like this all the time, and now it feels strange.
When I started my weight control plan in January, I did notice in the first few months that if I got particularly chilled or cold, I would have a bad diet day. But I didn’t pay much attention to addressing that problem as it was getting warmer all the time. So I have no real plan now and have to figure this out in the next week. I am sure that my next weighing on Saturday won’t be good, just because my food journal says I am not in control. Normally this kind of thing means I am being stubborn and punishing towards myself, resulting in a bad day or days, and I write the week off and try to do better next time. But what do I do when faced with an internal insurrection like this?
I could try staying warm – lots of socks and sweaters.
I could try a change in meal scheduling, eating meals earlier or combining meals into a mega lunch or a large breakfast and dinner while skipping lunch. My behavior during the cold weather is definitely towards eating a large amount in one sitting. Today, I had lunch at noon, a healthy lunch of 500 calories, and then found myself eating an enormous meal of 1200 calories at 3PM.
Luckily the really cold weather ends tonight and tomorrow and next week it is more seasonal. That may make the problem easier for now. I will continue to think about it.
Pay attention to your needs and use self knowledge to figure out the best way to keep your aim high.
-The Doctor