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Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Achievements!

I've had two decent days in a row. Accomplishments? Well, tonight we had pancakes. I had one serving of three pancakes and that's it, rather than having two servings of three. It's a step in the right direction. I didn't snack when I came home from work before I got the kids. I didn't snack too much last night, although I had a little more than I intended (a popsicle, when I had already gone over my calories for the day).

I have a website that I use to count calories. I'm sure I've mentioned it before, but I'm a fan. It's free, which is nice. I've been using this website off and on since 2007. They have discussion boards, etc, that you can use for support in losing weight. There was one that I was a member of for a while, called the 200 club. It was for those of us who were, unfortunately, over 200 pounds. For a while, it was a really great group of ladies who were all very supportive and active in posting, giving diet tips and stuff. I ran out of time to visit it every day, though, and there were enough active posters on there that that was the only way I stayed up to date with it. I wonder if any of those ladies met their goal weight. There was one lady, Ellen, who was in her late 50s, early 60s, and was losing 80+ pounds for the second time. She was inspiring, because she just made it look so easy! In the time that I was on there, she lost 45 pounds. In the time that I was on there, I think I sat at about 15 or 20 lost. So, yeah, inspiring, but also frustrating. What was she doing that I wasn't?

Anyways, this website has started something new called Calorie Camp. You log your food for the day and set yourself goals (mine are currently to log my food every day, to get at least 30 min of physical activity at least 4 times a week, and to drink at least 64 oz of water a day. Sound familiar?). You can also get other achievements. One that I saw was to walk/run at least 30 miles in a month. Apparently, as you hit all these goals and achievements and everything, you rack up points. Then, when you hit certain levels, you can cash in those points for real things, like a $25 gift certificate to a certain shoe store (that's the only one I can remember off the top of my head). That's pretty cool, but it's also pretty cool - and addicting - to see the points rack up. This is how I got sucked in to Zoo World on FB for a little bit last year - the addiction of accumulating stuff!

So, I don't know, maybe this will help. It certainly can't hurt. It's rough trying to log my calories completely every day, but only when I'm at home; what can I say, I'm lazy. Plus, sometimes it's just time-consuming. Like today, I had a spinach salad with chicken, cherry tomatoes, avocado, and a hard boiled egg with Fat Free Asian Toasted Sesame dressing from Kraft (yummy, yummy!). I had to log each thing, with estimated amounts. Sometimes, it gives the amounts in ounces or grams or "recommended serving". This is not always the most helpful. I try to estimate as I go, but I'm probably off. I take the ending calorie count with a grain of salt each day. Like today, my goal is 1600 per day, and I'm coming in at 1649. That's awesome for me. Makes me think that I'm doing something wrong, as in, forgot to log something.

Who knows, maybe I've just had two good days. And that's where it all starts, right? Having more good days than bad days.

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