Disappointed But Not (Very) Discouraged

I gained 3 pounds this week for a total loss of 18.8 pounds. Phooey. I've said phooey a lot recently.

My leader asked if my three-pound gain was worth it. No, it wasn't. I didn't stick exclusively to Core and I ate too much.

I had an interior dialogue with myself about what's going on. I haven't solved it but I do have some insight. Despite my best intentions to track, I just can't stay with it. Some of my resistance is to the measuring that's involved, some of it is to the detail that's required, and some of it is probably depression.

Still, after continuing my dialogue, I fired up SparkPeople and estimated what I'd had for breakfast. I was horrified to discover that I'd had close to 600 calories for breakfast.

Prevention magazine has been promoting a book a couple of its editors wrote, called The Flat Belly Diet. In the February 2009 issue they interview people who've lost weight and inches on the diet. The pitch is that the diet enables you to lose weight from your belly, which is bad for your heart. Looking closer at the diet, I realized that people lost weight primarily because they were limited to 1600 calories a day. If they are healthier it's because they lost weight and because the diet encourages healthy eating.

The diet requires four meals of 400 calories per day. That's what got me to thinking about calories. I might be able to follow that kind of eating plan. I've tried to eat a snack mid-morning and another snack mid-afternoon, but I rarely eat the mid-morning snack. I'm busy at work or full from breakfast.

I first went to Nutrition Data, which is a helpful site but required to much effort to get a quick read on my calorie intake. SparkPeople has a nice display that makes it easy to see calories, carbohydrates, fat, and protein. I suspect that I don't eat enough protein, so this is a good way to find out.

Nutrition Data and SparkPeople, by the way, are both free.

Weight Watchers' Points Tracker works well for tracking but it doesn't provide any nutritional analysis. And my experience at SparkPeople made me realize that Points don't have meaning for me the way calories do.

I hope this insight is meaningful and translates into controlled eating on my part. I'm going to plan my meals for the work week and count calories. At some point (no pun intended), I'll translate those meals to Points.

The weekly Weight Watchers meeting is essential for me. I'm struggling mightily right now and if I weren't going to the meetings I'd have said to hell with it and given up on losing weight. I wouldn't have given this much thought to why I'm struggling so.