One of the biggest challenges I have is staving off hunger while keeping track of the calories I eat.
Both My Fitness Pal and Lose It! give you a baseline (although it’s slightly different on each one) that you shouldn’t go over. They assign calories to virtually everything that goes into my mouth. Normally, this would be a good thing.
Yet, I found that to really make the scale move, I have to go way under the calories threshhold and, as a result, spend some or all of the day in a state of hunger.
I know it’s not the “starving children in Africa” type of hunger. It’s the gnawing hunger that causes me to be a little on the irritable side. It’s also they type of hunger that, when I do sit down in front of some food, I never want to stop…almost.
A Quick Anecdote
Yesterday, I had a fairly light breakfast and just a snack for lunch. Then I had to go and sit in an Open House for four hours. Just hanging out. No food, nothing.
It wouldn’t have been so bad except that it wasn’t very busy. I started to feel a little “peckish” around 3:00 but I still had to run out the clock on the Open House. To make a long story, short, by the time I got home I was famished. I could have eaten the entire pantry, refrigerator and more. Or so it seemed.
Anyway, I cooked dinner – nothing fancy – and enjoyed it and was done eating about 5:30pm. I drank some water during the evening and … wham! … this morning I got up and lost some pounds. Not ounces. Pounds.
Now, I know a lot of it was probably water weight. It seemed for every quart I took in about a ½ gallon went out. Part of it was probably eating early, too. I truly think (no studies or stats to back this up) that eating much after 6:00 just adds weight.
I was really glad to see the scale dip but I was hungry most of the day before and I wasn’t in a very pleasant mood. Today, I was back to my “normal” (in quotes) eating habits of meal…snack…snack…meal…etc. Last time I checked I was about 111 calories over limit. I am drinking water and it’ll be interesting to see if the scale goes up and, if so, how much.
Obviously, I know that day-to-day weight fluctuations are like the stock market (and what’s up with that, lately??). I just wish I could start on the steady downward trend, again. That, I’m afraid may mean some feelings of hunger.
Bah. Humbug.
Day 3 of my personal 30 day challenge to myself.
