Moment of realisation....

teegan84

Just had a bit of a light bulb moment! Have hit a plateau this month and knew I was eating slightly more than usual and was starting to feel a bit annoyed that my losses had tapered off. Just went through the spreadsheet and looked at the calories I have been logging each day and discovered that out of the 26 days so far I have only had 5 days where I have eaten at or below my calorie goal! There is the reason right there why I have not had a decent loss this month! I feel annoyed that I "wasted" a month but glad I looked into the reason why before I threw myself into a bucket of ice-cream and gave up yet again haha A big thanks to @VeryKatie for designing the spreadsheet and keeping it going every month...if it wasn't there for me to go back and review then I would not have made this discovery!!

puffbrat

That's a great realization. I hope this realization helps you get back on track

I love the column this month with average calories. While my loss is still on track with what I planned for this month, it has been up and down more than usual. When I get frustrated with that, I look at the spreadsheet with what I have logged for calories each day and the average over the month so far to realize that I am consistently eating way over.

@teegan84 After seeing your post, I looked at my calorie days and I only have 9 days at or below my calorie goal. The one week I consistently stayed around my goal, I had a large loss. That's good motivation for me to get back on track. Especially since just this morning I was getting frustrated by the day-to-day scale variation I have been seeing. Typically my weight is more consistent through the week.

Thank you @VeryKatie for a wonderful spreadsheet!

VeryKatie

Thank so much ladies for the notes of appreciation! I was feeling like I've been distant this month. I need to come back full swing (as my weight slowly climbs back up and I find myself "wasting" a month too). I haven't been logging or anything, though I have been making sure to keep exercising. Time to get back to it.

That being said, I think I'm struggling in that I don't want to actually weigh or necessarily measure my food - I want to eyeball it. I know that sounds weird, but I want to learn how to approximate my food and control my weight that way. It's the only way I can see myself doing this forever. I don't think I'll be weighing food when I'm 50. And it doesn't have to be exact, as long as it's under control... it's just very against the grain to do it that way.

Not to worry though, there WILL be a month of May sheet! And I will post the results from last week too. Is there anything else you'd find useful? It's nice to hear people like the average column that I added on a whim lol.

WifiresGettingFit

I've been having the same issue with wasting a month, only it's actually been 2 1/2 months for me where I've not been making the best effort and just saying f it as far as my diet goes.

I've went back to basics the other day after realizing that I was trying to outrun my overeating for a while and was basically burning myself out with exercise so now I will only do what is sustainable in the long term.

@VeryKatie It doesn't sound weird at all. I feel like that a lot of the time but right now, it really isn't an option for me because I can't eyeball worth crap. haha What about using something like this to judge portion sizes? (You may have seen it already but just in case.) http://www.healthyeating.org/Portals/0/Documents/Schools/Parent Ed/Portion_Sizes_Serving_Chart.pdf
I also want to echo what @Teegan84 & @puffbrat said: I really do appreciate you making the challenge and setting up the spreadsheets. I also liked the addition of the average column!