A little bit of motivation
captainlindarg
Posts: 229 Member
I'm posting this for myself, and for anyone else who can take something from it. And I hope that you do.
I've been struggling with stagnation and even weight gain lately. I was feeling pretty sick for a while, then I felt better but shortly after got some sort of stomach bug. I've realized how difficult it is to even think about calories when there are hardly any foods that won't make your stomach go crazy. But I'm not writing this to make excuses, I'm writing this to say that all of that doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if I gain/stay the same this week. What matters is that I keep going. I know that, regardless of days/weeks that I slip up, if I keep eating right and exercising I WILL get results. I've gone up and down, but the general trend has been down and I'm happy with that. I don't care that it's taking a little longer than expected. Change is happening and that's good.
I know others in this group have been struggling with the same thing, so I hope that you don't give up. Every day, try to keep in mind your goals and what is truly going to make you happy in the long run (and I assure you it's not that cupcake.) But if you do give in to that cupcake, don't beat yourself up and absolutely DON'T let it lead to a slippery slope of "I've already screwed up, I might as well just eat whatever I want." That's like saying, "I just dropped my phone on the floor. I might as well throw it down on the ground repeatedly until it breaks." I read that somewhere and I constantly think about it when I start to get on that slippery slope and it helps.
Lastly, I've been keeping a personal Google spreadsheet of my weekly calories, and it's actually helped me to stay more positive. No matter how bad I do, I put my calories in every single day. I've actually realized that even when I think I did terrible, I still wind up with a small deficit so long as I don't keep on that track. That motivates me to do better the next day.
I'm embarrassed to post this because of how much I slipped up, but here is mine:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Agud-eqvbuvsdE5FX2pQR2h6OVZFcURTNVdkUmtlRGc
The way it works is that I input calories every day for an entire week, and keep a running total for that week. By the end of the week, you have a total number of calories that can be divided by the number of calories you burn each day x 7. To figure this out, I went to a few different websites and figured how many calories I should eat to maintain my weight. Based on the figures I got, I averaged this number to about 2000 calories per day. That means I can eat about 2000 calories per day and not gain weight, theoretically (obviously there is more to it than that, but it's a good baseline.) So, an entire week's worth of calories is 14000. I've been trying to work on eating >1400 calories every day, with a spike day on Saturday where I try to eat around 2000. This = 10400 calories. So 14000 - 10400 = 3600 calories = a little over 1 lb each week. But as you can see, I slipped up quite a bit. But I STILL wound up with a slight deficit, and that makes me feel like maybe everything is not lost.
I hope this helps someone. I wanted to share so that maybe you could take inspiration from it.
I've been struggling with stagnation and even weight gain lately. I was feeling pretty sick for a while, then I felt better but shortly after got some sort of stomach bug. I've realized how difficult it is to even think about calories when there are hardly any foods that won't make your stomach go crazy. But I'm not writing this to make excuses, I'm writing this to say that all of that doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if I gain/stay the same this week. What matters is that I keep going. I know that, regardless of days/weeks that I slip up, if I keep eating right and exercising I WILL get results. I've gone up and down, but the general trend has been down and I'm happy with that. I don't care that it's taking a little longer than expected. Change is happening and that's good.
I know others in this group have been struggling with the same thing, so I hope that you don't give up. Every day, try to keep in mind your goals and what is truly going to make you happy in the long run (and I assure you it's not that cupcake.) But if you do give in to that cupcake, don't beat yourself up and absolutely DON'T let it lead to a slippery slope of "I've already screwed up, I might as well just eat whatever I want." That's like saying, "I just dropped my phone on the floor. I might as well throw it down on the ground repeatedly until it breaks." I read that somewhere and I constantly think about it when I start to get on that slippery slope and it helps.
Lastly, I've been keeping a personal Google spreadsheet of my weekly calories, and it's actually helped me to stay more positive. No matter how bad I do, I put my calories in every single day. I've actually realized that even when I think I did terrible, I still wind up with a small deficit so long as I don't keep on that track. That motivates me to do better the next day.
I'm embarrassed to post this because of how much I slipped up, but here is mine:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Agud-eqvbuvsdE5FX2pQR2h6OVZFcURTNVdkUmtlRGc
The way it works is that I input calories every day for an entire week, and keep a running total for that week. By the end of the week, you have a total number of calories that can be divided by the number of calories you burn each day x 7. To figure this out, I went to a few different websites and figured how many calories I should eat to maintain my weight. Based on the figures I got, I averaged this number to about 2000 calories per day. That means I can eat about 2000 calories per day and not gain weight, theoretically (obviously there is more to it than that, but it's a good baseline.) So, an entire week's worth of calories is 14000. I've been trying to work on eating >1400 calories every day, with a spike day on Saturday where I try to eat around 2000. This = 10400 calories. So 14000 - 10400 = 3600 calories = a little over 1 lb each week. But as you can see, I slipped up quite a bit. But I STILL wound up with a slight deficit, and that makes me feel like maybe everything is not lost.
I hope this helps someone. I wanted to share so that maybe you could take inspiration from it.
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Replies
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This is a really good idea. I like that.
I think I will try to do the same. A way to keep track of my intake.
I will also add my protein intake in the chart...
Really nice. Thank you.0
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