Day 8 Double Dog Dare You Challenge: Thoughts on previous week and Today's Calories/Meals/Water

Morning! It's a new "dare" week, a week of eating at the caloric level that would maintain my goal weight of 160.

Last Monday, my challenge WI was 252.4

Today's WI:  250.0

What was last week like? I ate At or UNDER the caloric limit on five days. On Thursday and Saturday, I went over by 9 and 371 cals respectively. Fortunately, I went under on the other days by a total of 550 cals. My under days made up for my over days.

I will note that MAKING up for the excesses of particular days meant I had to consciously cut back on subsequent meals or days. That's just how it is--for this challenge and for successful maintainers.

One of my very slender acquaintances, a gal with a to-die-for figure, if she knows she's going to a special dinner or banquet or fair or other food-intense event, she cuts back for several days prior to the event and, as needed, on the days after. And she never lets her weight go over 3 lbs of her ideal. If the scale says it's up a couple pounds, she cuts back again. Successful maintainers of 30+ pounds of weight loss according to the NWCR stay on top of small regains and attack the problem before it becomes a huge or total regain.

It's like your budget. If you only get 3000 bucks a month to spend, you better spend that much or (ideally) less (savings) or you get into serious debt and financial trouble. It's better to notice you went over budget within a short time (say a week), than only notice after you've accumulated thousands in unpayable debt.

Unlike money, you don't win the skinny lotto (get 1 million extra calories to eat) or get government assistance or a relative hands you a nice check to fix things. If you eat too many calories and do not budget accordingly to make up for it--whether through caloric restriction or increased activity--you gain weight. Period.

So, this past week, because I've had to think like a maintainer, I had to immediately address overeating at particular meals by restricting the next meal to balance it out. And for days with overages, I had to work on restricting eating the NEXT day. This has shown me it's good to have some days UNDER to balance the inevitable happening of day's OVER. If your under days can balance you over days, your week should be one of maintenance, not gain.

Anyway, I ended last week with a net UNDER.

I drank more than the required water each day. I think this helped a lot with bloat.

I normally gain 3+ pounds of Chinese food bloat. I only gained 1. Of course, I ate half the amount I normally would have at a restaurant, and no rice, but the water definitely kept some rein on the sodium bloat.

The rest of this entry will be for logging the day's Challenge eating and water:

BREAKFAST:
2 WS hot cakes with sugar free syrup
papaya, fresh
coffee
water--4 glasses

Breakfast calories total: 237

SNACK: (post-Pilates)
Starbucks sugar-free iced vanilla latte--tall, 2% milk
3/4 serving of CLICK espresso protein drink
4 glasses water
Multivitamin, fiber, and magnesium supplements

calories for snack:  225

LUNCH: made a spinach salad--needed to add some fats (healthy and otherwise) as I'd been way too low in fat so far today....wanna have satiety...also, needed freggies!

2 organic eggs, boiled
2 cups raw organic spinach
1/4 organic FL avocado
1 medium organic heirloom tomato
1/2 cup cucumber
2 tbsp Blue Cheese Dressing
2 glasses of water

calories for lunch: 441

Calories for day so far: 903

SNACK: nap, more like it

DINNER:

Can of Campbell's chicken and sausage gumbo
added 3 oz of leftover roast chicken breast
WS vanilla protein shake
1 cup papaya
4 glasses water
assorted supplements (C, magnesium, RLA...)

dinner calories:  543

Total Day's Calories: 1446
Total Day's Water: 14 glasss

Under calorie limit by 324 calories (into the week's calorie savings account!)