Self Loathing

Calorie counting is as rigid as you make it!

Self-loathing is very unproductive, dump that emotion just learn from your experience and adapt. Do you know why you ate too many snacks? Maybe you have set a weight loss rate that is too aggressive? Are you just limiting calories, or have you also restricted what you eat in a different way (excluding certains foods or food types)? Being too restrictive (low calorie goal or eliminating foods you like) often backfires because it isn't sustainable.

It's also useful to keep in mind that even if you exceed your calorie goal, you could still be in deficit. For example, if you've chosen a weight loss rate of 1lb per week, that is equivalent to a deficit of 500 calories a day. So even if you go over your calorie goal by 250 calories, you're still in a 250 calorie deficit (equivalent to losing 0.5lbs a week).
Or if you look at it over several days: if you go over your goal one day, but were on your goal the other days, you could still be in a deficit over all, looking at the entire week. One day of being over your goal does not destroy your progress!

Too rigid for what? The thing about calorie counting is it’s just information. It tells you what is happening with your body and why, it doesn’t make you do anything. There’s no way to make the facts less rigid, that would be like saying “the thermometer is too rigid, it says 75 degrees outside but I want it to be more like 70.” Well... it’s not. The facts are the facts whether you know them or not, so you might as well know them!

The facts in the case of calorie counting are 1) how many calories your body uses daily to stay the same weight at 2) a given activity level. If you eat fewer, you will lose weight, if you eat more you will gain weight. You can also change your activity level so you use more calories. That is how all weight loss works. There is no other way to lose weight. All weight loss involves taking in fewer calories than you use. Diets which don’t use calorie counting use some other method to get you to eat fewer calories, such as eating only low calorie foods, or only bad tasting foods, or only foods in a small window of time. Speaking for myself I find it simpler to just figure out how many calories I should be aiming for instead of using some other trick to try to hit the right number by accident.

Habits are hard to break! You didn’t get overweight by eating naturally only the right amount of food. The habits you have now led you to become overweight. So it’s not surprising there are a few bumps in the road. But you can learn from them. You were within your calories until you ate too many snacks at night. Now you know that, you can either plan ahead to have some calories left over for your snacks, or plan activities which will be incompatible with eating snacks. One thing is for certain, if you don’t change anything nothing will change. How about taking a walk at night instead of doing whatever you usually do while snacking?

Calorie counting works. But there’s a significant calorie counting learning curve that doesn’t get much discussion.

And it does involve a bunch of fussing and bother a first. It’s no surprise that people not involved in it don’t understand.

But none of this is a reason to attack yourself. The self loathing attached to being overweight and failed weight loss attempts seems to me to be kicking ourselves because we have to learn the process.

Weight loss is a skill set. We have to learn it. It’s mostly a matter problem solving. You know that thing about how experience is the best teacher? I think the person who first said that was trying to lose weight. Experience is the only way to learn weight loss.

Don’t kick yourself for trying. Even if you just seem to be stumbling around in the dark. Only kick yourself for quitting. Then never quit. So no kicking.

You can do this. I can tell you for a fact you can do this because I’ve done it. You can do 10 kids. I’d last about half an hour with 10 kids. You can do this.