Friday, October 29, 2010

Face the Truth Fridays: A new "decade" and maybe the Zone is worth considering?

674 days and 89.8 lbs to go

I had a good long sleep (as opposed to a few days of shorter zzzzzing). As past experience confirms, when I sleep well and a lot, I lose a bit more. Always.

Scale: 249.8

I'm 4/5ths of a pound from a 50 pound loss.

I stayed at the Double Dog Dare challenge calorie limit--or under--from Mon through Wed. I went 9 calories over yesterday, which was more than made up for my the 300 or so calories I was under the previous days combined.

Loss since last week's weigh-in: 1.2 lbs. 

I met (and exceeded) goal for weekly loss (1 lb) and am still on track for my two-year loss goal (98 lbs).

I had figured that my loss at 1800 (pre-dare daily calorie goal) would be about goal (1 lb). This week, due to the challenge, I've eaten under 1800 enough to exceed  goal. So, yes, eat less, lose more. :) I haven't moved MORE this week than any other (well, okay, a very small walk Monday that made my plantar fasciitis act up).

Truth I'm Facing: I'm nowhere near being "on automatic" about food choices. Even to eat at my "maintenance at goal weight" level of 1760, I had to plan, calculate calories before eating to make sure I didn't go over, log food so I wouldn't forget what I ate, and had to force down water.

I have a long way to go to being in fully habituated "lower calorie controlled eating" mode. A long way. But these 4 days have shown me a couple things by examining my food log:

~I will stay satiated longer the lower carb the meal is.
~I get hungrier on exercise days
~It is possible for me to drink MORE than 10 glasses of water a day and not puke
~I lost the most this week the day after my nutrient breakdown was 40-31-29 and I had multiple snacks.

That made me look hard at that chart. That breakdown was suspiciously close to the 40-30-30 of The Zone (a book I never read, btw). I had bought a groupon to a local diet delivery service that follows The Zone guidelines, and after noting this on my SparkPeople.com nutrition feedback--they show graphs and colorful pies, which are not just cool, but so informational and eye-opening-- it certainly makes me wonder if this will be a consistent result. In other words, if I do more days in that range with multiple snacks (not just one snack), will I lose more than on days when I do fewer meals that are out of the 40-30-30?

Anyway, that would jive with my suspicion that I'm a "mixed" eater type, and it will be interesting to see if the DNA testing that I'll do in November--see previous post on it this week--will let me know that, too.

I have to note another truth: I was peckish last night. Very snackish. And if I were not reined in by the challenge, I bet I'd have noshed up to 2000 cals. Accountability is a huge help here.

Anyone out there done The Zone? Didja like it?

Okay, so that's my progress (goals met), truths faced, and things for me to look into.

Have a Fit Friday and here's to your weekend being a beautiful one!

2 comments:

Kimberly said...

I read a little about The Zone and it sounds pretty close to what I am doing already. The satisfaction that I feel every day, including lack of hunger, all began when I cut out the heavy white carbs. It might be worth checking out.

Congrats on being so stinking close to such a major milestone. I bet you crack that tomorrow.

Beth said...

I haven't read the Zone but the things that you list are all true for me too. I definitely feel better and am satiated longer on more protein.

Gonna have a look at the zone...