Tracking opened your eyes to……???

BuellerFerrisBueller wrote: »

SuzySunshine99 wrote: »

I realized that there are no "free" foods. I never did Weight Watchers, but I still thought that I could eat as much as I wanted of "healthy" foods. Amazing how many calories "healthy" foods can have.

So what are you supposed to do when you get the munchies? Starve yourself? Go to bed hungry?

I don't normally get the munchies at this time of year, because summer heat is the best appetite suppressant. On the other hand, cold weather gives me a large appetite, and bitterly cold weather gives me a gargantuan appetite. I rely on winters to try out new recipes and try out new healthy foods that I'm not sure about. Now that I'm avoiding all junk foods (due to the pandemic), my winter diet is healthier than my summer diet. I use my Big Fat Winter Appetite to eat a larger quantity and variety of vegetables than I consume in summer.

I eat whatever I want, but I make sure it fits in my calories for the day. I have never starved myself or went to bed hungry. The point was that you have to account for ALL your foods, whether they are "healthy" or something you consider "junk food".

Once upon a time I'd stop at the Burger King drive-thru every morning on the way to work to pick up a "snack" of French toast sticks, miniature cinnamon rolls, and an OJ. Figured it was so small and not-filling that it wasn't a problem, and blamed my weight gain on other things. Years after I'd broken this habit I learned through logging that I was putting away 1500 calories in this "snack," let alone the full day's worth of food on top of it. Yep, that weight-gain makes sense now...

I learned that a short walk (or even a longer one) around the neighborhood didn’t “erase” that family pack of DoubleStuff, bag of Geneva cookies, half a key lime pie, or sack of Cadbury’s Crispy Eggs (or all of the above, as was often the case).

Logging helped me realize the correlation between what went in my mouth and what stayed on my hips.

I learned that counting calories was a lot like creating and sticking to a family budget. That, I could do, and thinking of it that way made it easier.

I learned that spending calories here was more satisfying and satiating than blowing them in there.

I learned that not logging something doesn’t simply make it “not count” or go away.

I learned that a lot of what I eat is simply through boredom, and that if I logged it before I ate it, I’d think twice about eating it and step away from the snack food. That led to prelogging my entire day, often my entire week, which I learned what’s a great strategy for staying within my goals.