eye opener!

20carrots

It's 12:40 and I'm OVER my calories for the day! Had my normal bfast then some pizza and cookies at a work function. Pre-MFP I would have waaaay underestimated the cals and thought I had a bunch left for dinner. Now I know how long I'll have to be in the gym tonight (Happy Friday to me)!:flowerforyou:

Lisa0711

Yeah, when I first started counting my calories I couldn't believe that I had ate almost 3000 and I hadn't even had dinner yet. No wonder I gained so much weight! But the important thing is to do what you're doing - realize the mistake and work to make it better.

Cassaaaaandra

At least you LOOKED at what you ate and realized your mistake without any denial. It is impossible to tell yourself you will never over eat again for as long as you live. Just make a plan for a bad day once every two weeks or so. This will allow you some wiggle room on Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. BUT - you might notice feeling guilty afterward even if you planned on it and feeling even worse getting on the scale the next morning to assess the damage:embarassed:

You may learn to control this "planned over eating" on your own just based on how you feel about it after the fact.

silvertears

I had a craving for Captain D's earlier, so I looked it up to see what the damage would be. I lost my appetite for fried fish REALLY quickly.

igmom

MFP has been an eye opener for me too. The important thing is that we are actually learning and making changes. Keep up the good work!

CasperO

I had a craving for Captain D's earlier, so I looked it up to see what the damage would be. I lost my appetite for fried fish REALLY quickly.

'tis true, but the grilled stuff if pretty good. I like D's, but I sure order differently than I used to.

Try the shrimp skewers! :drinker:

iplayoutside19

This is exactly how I felt when I started this process. I spent two weeks researching the food I was currently eating. I estimate that my previous self consumed 4500 calories daily. It is a frusrating process. I would see how bad some of the stuff was and eliminate it. Except what I replaced it with wasn't exactly better. What you mean that glob of ranch dressing on my salad is 400 calories! What do you mean the chicken sandwich I had at Quizno's is 1500 calories! Food research must be continuous. Because once you find something you enjoy, and It's healthy...you'll eat it so much you'll get bored with it and thats when I started back on the old ways.

Now I'm in good enough shape that some of the things I'm trying to accomplish physicly require different foods, so the research continues, and it will always continue. It's not a diet, it's a process that leads to a healthier life style.

liz72

Yeah, if I know I'm going to eat out somewhere I try to look it up in the database just to play with some options and figure out what I'm going to order. One night the plan got changed, and we ended up at Chili's. I ordered something I believed fit into my calories left and substituted rice with a veggie. When I got home and checked, I found out that it was 1300 calories, even with the veggie substitute. Couldn't believe it.