So yesterday I told the tale of my naughty seduction by the left over cake from earlier in the day. Well, I want to say I won and in a way I did as I didn’t eat any cake, but I didn’t go without any sweets last night. I will say, I didn’t actually give in because despite what I did eat yesterday I still hadn’t met my “total daily energy expenditure” (TDEE) so I ended up eating a pack of mini-chocolate donuts to add to my lacking calorie intake.
This is what I knew my problem would be when I started and I’m trying to address it, but it is starting to aggrivate me. The exersize part is easy. I break out my handwraps and my boxing gloves and I pound on the bag. I break out my boxing workout book and do that day’s work out routine. I practice Krav Maga with my husband in the living room or I load a workout video on netflix. That is all a no brainer.
Since starting to monitor what I eat I was curious about the calorie count behind each carrot or piece of fruit. I know what’s good for me and what I’m supposed to eat, but I’m coming to find out that what I like to eat combined with what is good for me is slim and may not contain the calories I need to sustain myself through the day. I added up my calorie intake yesterday and before the donuts I had barely crossed over 1000 calories so far for that day. I couldn’t believe it with all I felt I had eaten for that day.
I wanted to get a better idea of what I should be eating just to get my body up to proper function and so I went to various websites that had neat little calculators to input all of your information to figure out what your TDEE caloric requirements are based on age, weight, and height. I found another website that even gave me a formula to find my Basal Metabolic Rate from that equation and what my ideal caloric intake should be to lose weight, but still properly function.
For a 30 year old female who weighs 200 pounds and is 5 ft 8 inches with light exercise (to be on the safe side) I should be eating around 2000 to 2100 calories to lose weight. Other calculators say even closer to 2500, but with this particular calculator it gave me the equation to do myself and not rely on someone else’s calculations so I’ll stick with that. I figure that on the days I am “resting” between workouts I only need between 1700 and 1800 calories for the day. Who would have thought that would actually be a hard task to accomplish? Let me illustrate why.
Today’s food intake thus far:
Crunchy Raisin Bran Cereal – 90
Milk – 122
Pink Lady Apple – 130
Half a salmon fillet – 367
Wheat Hot Dog Bun – 110
5 baby carrots – 150
Cup of raw mushrooms – 15
(6 mini chocolate donuts – 380)
TOTAL THUS FAR: 984 (1364)
I will admit that I ate the 6 mini chocolate donuts because I had already added up my calorie intake with the food I brought with me and it was on the low side. Regardless, at this point I still have a can of soup, 15 ritz crackers and another apple to eat.
Add in:
Soup 250
Crackers 80
Apple 130
TOTAL: 1824
So my goal is between 1700 and 1800 a day on days I haven’t exercised. Right now I still have another meal to eat and I don’t want to. I feel like I have been eating all day long. And I am supposed to eat more than this on my exercise days?Call this my little rant, but I don’t know how people do it. Regardless, I am about to force myself to eat an entire can of soup, crackers and apple because I need the calories. Talk about wanting to pull out my hair. The fat girl is forcing herself to eat! How backwards can this whole weight loss thing be?
Obviously it is completely psychological, but eating to lose weight just seems wrong to me. I am just going to have to force myself to eat because I need the calories, but I would just love to sit here right now and stare at this screen and not have to worry about it. I know I have to do this and so I will, but I’ll be damned if it doesn’t make me feel worse about the whole thing. I just need to get past the stigma of eating. I guess that is something that society has ingrained in my head.