Friday, August 13, 2010

Thoughts On My First Day of Dieting

I made some mistakes today but nothing I can't learn from. I weighed my cereal to SEE what a portion looked like, again. I measured my soy milk. I didn't guess. And I wrote it all down in my food diary with the calorie count to the right side of the page. Every single thing. Even a teaspoon of sugar. I remembered how important it was to be honest.

What I did wrong was not count the calories of my dinner before I ate. If I had removed just one item from my plate, I would have had 1200 calories, my limit. That's what I would do for that whole year I dieted. Count, add, remove if necessary and sometimes, to add more (what a happy thing that was) and then eat. I forgot. Tomorrow I will remember.

But each day is a chance to RESTART. To choose failure or success.

I choose success today and it feels good. Tomorrow I have another chance.

Here are a few simple rules for those readers who are coming along on this journey.

1200 calories a day. No food is off limits. But you can't go over 1200.

No food after 8 pm. Ever. Coffee or something to drink is fine, but save enough calories from the day for any sugar and cream.

Reading uses more calories than watching television. Only two hours a day of sitting in front of a screen of any kind. Even reading this!! LOL

Measure everything. Use a measuring cup for a cup of plain rice or mashed potatoes. Other wise you will cheat yourself. Yes, you'll take less. We have no idea what a cup of food looks like. And no one knows what 2 Tablespoons of salad dressing looks like unless you fill a Tablespoon, twice. And then think about how much you normally use.

Write everything down in a book or notebook. Each day. I am also writing at the bottom what I learned that day and how I felt about the diet. I think it will be more of a help to me to be able to read about how I struggled. It will help me stay the course more days than I fail.

Failure is okay. You can try again tomorrow. You have the rest of your life to get this diet thing right. And we learn from our mistakes.

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