47 Meals In 47 Days

i just realized that i have spent the last 17 days trying to get BACK DOWN to where I was on day 5 of this diet. :(

sooooo... it’s been a while since i posted. i haven’t kept up w/ the blogging like i wanted to, because frankly it’s been a rough couple of weeks. but that’s another series of posts on another blog.

this morning i weighed in at 224.2 - which means i officially survived the weekend without gaining weight! WOOO! 

that was somewhat of a miracle, being father’s day weekend, cramming myself full of bbq and cheating on my diet once on friday (i ate two meals). but that was the stress getting to me, from weeks of awful things.

in the mean time, i’ve started taking cold showers. it’s not fun, at first. in fact, “at first” means the first 30 seconds of every shower. trepidation. fear. knowing how awful it will be. but once you jump in and then jump around in the shower to warm yourself up, you get used to it.

why?

i’ve seen a number of blog posts recently that talked about the benefits. i can’t say i believe all the hype... but i thought it would be interesting to try for a while. plus, it will save on electricity from not using the hot water and i’ll get done faster cause i don’t want to stand there and soak in the water, like i used to. so bonus on saving $.

over-all i’m doing well w/ this 30 day diet of 1 meal a day. i don’t really feel the super hunger cravings anymore (sometimes, when i don’t get enough sleep) and i know how to fix them when i do (drink hot tea). i don’t feel the cravings for diet soda anymore, in the mornings. i can’t go until lunch time before having caffeine. 

but i do have social anxiety over meals and soft drinks, still. it’s incredible how much of our society is structured around meals and social expectations with them. i *miss* drinking diet dr pepper more than i crave it. years of habit and all that. i miss going to every meal with family and friends, eating with them. i still go with my family, but it’s hard to sit there, sometimes. 

it’s the mental game that makes all of this really hard, after you get the courage to just try it. 

i’m also sad that i won’t hit 220lbs before this 30 day period ends. it would be a miracle if i did. i only have 8 days left. i’ve lost 7.6lbs in these 22 days, though - which is nice to finally see a significant number...

but i really wanted to drop below 220 by the end of this 30 days.

haven’t posted in a while. been too busy and stressed. 

weighed 224.2 this morning.

i am hoping this means i am back on track to start losing weight again. it’s been weeks since i’ve been below 225, in spite of sticking with 1 meal a day. that has made it really difficult to keep going, but i’ve managed to stick with it so far. 

I was 224 last Friday. I’ve kept to my 1 meal a day, but I have gained weight, instead of losing weight. 

this is incredibly frustrating. in the 2 weeks that i’ve been doing this, i’m pretty much right where i started.

I held out until dinner, as planned... then i ate a giant bacon cheeseburger with twice as many fries as usual. and followed that up with chips & dip at home. ugh. made myself feel sick last night, with heartburn and wanting to throw up. went to bed around 9:15, feeling terrible.

this morning, i was 225.6 - gain of 1.6 from yesterday :(

Weighed in at 224 this morning. This is still a drop from yesterday, but is more of a stabilization than a big drop. 

I don’t think i’ll be dropping quickly after today... back to the stable, but slow drop most likely.

also realized yesterday, that i have been gluten free this week. didn’t do it on purpose... just happened to be the things i wanted to eat at lunches, this week.

today is a little rough, so far. and i think it’s going to be difficult. yesterday at lunch, i was trying to stuff myself full of food, i ended up feeling sick. i didn’t eat as much as i usually do at this restaurant (bbq ribs) so i’m probably low on calories from that meal. 

224.6 this morning

finally shedding the extra weight from all those weekends of eating too much.

unfortunately, i didn’t get enough to eat yesterday... or at least, not enough good food. it’s only 8am and i’m already starving today. 

so far, the worst part of about re-starting 1 meal a day has been dropping the diet dr pepper from home and the office. i’m drinking black tea instead, with some good choices for that, but i am noticing a difference in how i feel in the morning, without a diet dr pepper to get me going.

228.2 this morning

this is down pretty far from eating too much over the weekend, which is good. at least i have that going for me... probably be 227 or 226 tomorrow

yesterday was fine in terms of food and energy level. had chipotle for lunch, and skipped dinner. didn’t have any snacks last night, which was difficult but worth it for the weight drop from the weekend.

I sort of started ramping up for this 30 days over the weekend, by cutting the caffeine that i drank. i pretty much only had diet coke or diet doctor pepper when we were not at home, and that was only a couple of meals this weekend. 

but i also had way more food than i should have, this weekend... which is going to make starting over today rather difficult.

i weighed in at 231.8 this morning... which i know is because i ate too much and didn’t get enough sleep this weekend. a lot of this will come off over the next few days and i will probably be back closer to 227 or 226 by the end of the week. 

the real test for re-starting this 1 meal a day thing, is going to be this coming weekend. the weekends are always the hardest for me. but i have to get through these weekends if i’m ever going to lose weight again.

I’ve really slacked on this thing recently - especially w/ a long weekend and my parents being in town. There was always an excuse to eat more, and not worry about it. And i’m back over 230lbs again, because of it.

Sure, some of this will come off fast... but I should be down below 220 by now, and I’m not. 

So I’m starting over. I’m doing this again. From June 1st through June 30th, 2015, I’m only going to eat 1 meal a day.

I’m going to follow the same rules as last time (Lent 2015), with the exception of being able to eat lunch or dinner. There will be no more extra weekend meals, a very limited allowance on snacking at night, and to top this off I’m going to add one more new rule: no diet soda at home / at the client office.

I drink way too much diet dr pepper and diet coke. I need to cut back, again, to help reduce a number of the problems I have (including constant hunger - this stuff makes you hungry). I’ll allow it when I go to a restaurant, but I won’t stock it at home or in the client office anymore. Instead, I’ll drink tea to get my caffeine - and not sweet tea. that stuff is disgusting. I’ll do loose leaf or bag tea, brewed for each cup I drink.

lot of things happened. stress was high. i ate a large pizza... which, oddly, only had about 1,200 calories in it total. 

all things sad and done, i’m 227.4 this morning. cause i hate weekends, and this was one bad... hate weekends in terms of how much i eat, that is.

...

on a more interesting note, i’ve noticed that eating at restaurants is a lot easier when i only eat 1 meal a day. 

i see people talking about how horrible it is to get 1,000 to 1,500 calories in a single meal at restaurants... even “healthier” options like Chipotle are going to rack up 1,200 calories for a fully loaded burrito.

and i look at these numbers and think to myself, “sounds great! sign me up for (restaurant name) for today!”

cause that 1,500 calories - which would normally be a terribly bad meal for a “normal” person that eats 3 meals a day - is exactly what I need in my one meal. 

so, that 1,200 calorie pizza? yeah, i tried to eat it all at once and made myself sick. but that 1,400 calories of Chipotle? I’m good with that. 

it’s not that 1,400 calories in a single meal is bad. if 1,500 calories is your daily goal, that’s just fine. but 1,400 calories in a single meal, when you are also eating 2 other meals of similar calories in the same day, is terrible. 

from last week to this week... 223.6 to 225.6 ... not the direction that i want to move.

it’s been a hard week on a number of different fronts, and the amount of food i was eating was more than i should have. 

this whole week has been terrible.

227.2 this morning

well, i was hoping to hit 224.something this morning... and i came in at 223.6! I’ve hit 22lbs dropped since i started this 1 meal a day thing!

so, that was a nice way to start the day.

over the last few weeks, things have been ... difficult in the motivation department. i’ve been sticking with my 1 meal a day pretty well, but it hasn’t been easy - especially seeing my weight jumping up and down due to not handling the weekends very well. 

but i’m looking at my weight history on the fitbit site where i track it... and i’ve realized that i’m actually losing about 1lb per week! that’s a pretty good rate of loss, at this point... it’s not dramatic, it’s not unhealthy, it’s not... fast. but it’s steady. it’s just about a constant rate of drop right now.

today, i weighed in at 225.6 which is the same as I weighed last week at my lowest. i’m hoping tomorrow, i will be in the 224 range.

the week prior to last, i was 226. prior to that, 227... 228... 229... it’s a pretty steady rate of decline at about 1lbs per week.

in spite of that not being as fast as i want, i’m ok with this. at least i am continuing to drop.

at the current rate of 1lb per week, it will be January or February of 2016 before I hit my target goal of 190lbs. 

according to the fitbit site, if i hit a strict limit of 1500 calories per day... consistently... i could be at that weight by September. 

i’m not sure i want to hit the 1500 limit every day. i need a little reprieve now and then, even if that reprieve comes in a single meal that day. 

today is thursday. today also marks the 4th day in a row, this week, that i’ve only eaten one meal: lunch.

that meal, though? 1,200 to 1,400 calories of burrito bowl and tacos from either Chipotle or Freebirds. and let me tell you ... eating that many calories when you skip the flour tortillas, sour cream and other high fat / sugary / low nutrition ingredients is difficult.

so, what does it take to get that many calories in a single meal?

Chipotle:

burrito bowl with half brown rice, black beans, double veggies, double chicken, double corn salsa, cheese. PLUS 3 soft tacos on corn tortillas with chicken, veggies and cheese.

total: ~1,400 calories

Freebirds:

burrito bowl with cilantro rice, black beans, mixed cheese, dark chicken, bacon, roasted veggies, corn salsa, roasted garlic, lime juice. PLUS 3 soft tacos on corn tortilla with dark chicken, roasted veggies, mix cheese, garlic and lime juice.

total: ~1,200 calories

the amount of food that you have to eat, when you eat real food and avoid most of the garbage around, is insane. and i ate this way 4 days in a row, this week. i also lost 2lbs this week, because the calorie count was low enough and the food was nutritious enough. it didn’t “stick” with me, because i avoided the worst carbs and gluten. 

Weighed in at 225.6 this morning!

that’s 20lbs down from where I started on Feb 18th!

I’m basically still doing the 1 meal a day thing... though, not every day. i’ve done pretty well this week, though, mostly eating lunch instead of dinner. i’m finding this works out well some times. i’ll be doing dinner probably tonight and tomorrow, though. it’s a little more difficult to get through those days, but it’s still working well.