There's Definitely A Problem...

Back on 5.7.12 i started a diet with a pre-determined meal plan in addition to the lifestyle change goals i had in place. The first week went great! Our grocery bill went down, i enjoyed knowing exactly what do fix and what to snack on and the food was good but not overly complicated which was the complaint i had with the Eating Well meal plan. Those recipes all had like 20 ingredients, required every dish in the kitchen be used, and i found myself googling some cooking terms more than once. Anyways, back to point at hand... new plan, nice and simple, going great. The first week i lost 4 pounds! (up to 5 pounds weight lost on the first week of a diet is normal because you lose a lot of water weight). Needless to say i was very excited to weigh in today at the end of week 2. I felt like i had done pretty well with my diet all week and just knew i had lost close to the full 2 pounds.

When i stepped on the scale, i just stared at the flashing number. I was devastated. I hadn't lost even an ounce! My weight was exactly the same as last week, even the .2. I was angry and discouraged. I immediately thought " I've been starving (little dramatic) myself all week and I've been so good and NOTHING! There must be something wrong! I need a Doctor!!" Turns out there is something wrong alright, ME.

Since the beginning of this diet i have been keeping a food journal. Everyday I list:

• Meal plan for that day
• What I actually ate and time
• Exercise and/or activity
• Notes and/or reflection

I'm writing it in a smaller size Moleskine notebook so i can easily carry it around with me. Whenever i eat something i immediately log it so i don't find myself trying to remember what i ate the day before or worse, earlier in the week.

After i had some time to "cool off" after my weigh in this morning but luckily before i called every weight specialist in Knoxville, i started looking back over my logs for the past week. I highlighted any time that i ate something that wasn't on the meal plan for that day and noted when i didn't do any exercise. Turns out i cheated every single flippin' day and only exercised twice! Honestly, I'm just lucky i didn't gain any weight!

It doesn't take a genius to know what my answer is here, i need to stick to the meal plan and exercise 5 days per week. No excuses!

One legitimate issue i have with this meal plan is that some days i am really hungry between meals, even with the 3 snacks. If i continue to be "starving" (again, dramatic) between snacks and meals then I plan to incorporate an extra 100 calorie snack but there will be restrictions. The extra snack is only allowed on days i exercise, it can be no more than 100 calories, and no adding on to portions, it has to be a totally separate snack.

Now, with all the above being said i have a disclaimer - I am going to a cabin this weekend with a group of friends. I do promise to try to pick healthy options to the best of my ability and maintain reasonable portion sizes but I can't really stick to the meal plan until Monday. At least we should have lots of hiking and walking to counter the extra calories. i hope... I really don't want to hulk smash my weight scale.

//Stacy//