7 pounds Junked in July :-)

AdrianHi

tara747 wrote: »

AdrianHi - I might start calorie counting, does it take long to look them up and record them? And do you weigh everything?

I did it for 2 weeks and I occasionally do it again for the odd day to check up on myself (like yesterday). 2 weeks was long enough to know the calories for the meals I usually eat and told me how much I needed to reduce pasta, potatoe, rice amount by in each dish.
I stopped doing the log because it took about 20-30 minutes out of each day to do it and I could do it well enough in my head by then. The food log at http://caloriecount.about.com is brilliant but (speaking as a business web appliacation designer) could be made easier and quicker to use. It has a big database of foods. Sometimes I had to weigh things and of course many cans and packets have calories shown on them. Then a little bit of estimating comes in. A slice of wholemeal bread is 100 calories when I record it, for some loafs it's really 105 and others it's 95 and then you sometimes eat the thicker end slice.... I'll just stick to recording 100 every time.
The weight watchers point system is probably a bit easier to manage but food packets have calories printed on them not weight watchers points.
One thing you can do with the food log is save your own items with a calorie count, so if the is a particular meal you eat regularily you can add it to your own tagged items list and add it to your log in one go instead of adding every ingredient every time... which gets tiresome.

I found it very effective. For a while I could look at my food log, see the calories across the whole week and before weighing myself think "that will be 2lbs off this week" and sure enough it would be. I weigh myself at the same time of day each time, just before the eveing meal.
I could also look at the food log, see the a "bad weekend" of 2500 calories per day and then only see a 1lb or no loss that week
I found this kind of feedback very motivational, gave me the strength of mind to not eat that mid-afternoon chocolate bar etc.

tara747

AdrianHi - thanks very much for your post. It's interesting to see that calorie counting is helping you to be disciplined - I could do with some of that.

I used to use the foodfocus website (IIRC) and it was pretty good, calculating my calories for food and exercise. I have started a food diary properly today - 236 cals consumed for breakfast (low fat Greek yog, strawbs and cherries) and am feeling pretty full.

AdrianHi

tara747 wrote: »

236 cals consumed for breakfast (low fat Greek yog, strawbs and cherries) and am feeling pretty full.

OK, lets see how my day turns out too and what I know is coming. Tough one as I have a club meeting at a pub tonight which is a 245 cals pint of beer.

Plan for Today, target 1400 cals (still balancing last weekend, normally 1550 calories) including the beer that's to come:
Mug of tea plus semi-milk 20 cals
2 weetabix plus semi skimmed milk 170 cals
Coffee plus semi milk and 1/2 tsp sugar 30 cals
Mug of tea plus semi-milk 20 cals <- may be black tea instead?

Lunch at 12.45pm
Soup 121 cals <- todays lower calorie soup will help a bit
2 slices bread no marg/butter 210 cals
Glass water
Coffee plus semi milk and 1/2 tsp sugar 30 cals (give up the coffe, no chance!)
Mug of tea plus semi-milk 20 cals <- have it black?

Pint of weak squash 20 cals <- water instead?
Evening meal? <- wife is cooking tonight so no idea
Pint of beer 245

So we're both on about 240 calories after breakfast including my moring tea and coffee.:cool:

The_Dragon

teaspoon1 wrote: »

I don't suppose I could be so bold as to ask for them? I suffer terribly from 'portion distortion'...

No problem teaspoon! I have pm'd you

The_Dragon

Crap_with_money.com wrote: »

Hi guys,

Can I join again purlees? Although I'll be on hols from the 3rd - 18th, so won't be around that much 'til then!

I'll try not too go to mad on hols - spec since I have my bridesmaid dress to squeeze into midway through the hols!!

Good luck to everyone - here's to seeing 7lbs less of you all!! :beer:

xx

I think July and August will be tricky for a lot of us with it being the holiday season and everything! But if we keep doing the best we can we will get there (Dragon saunters off to add CWM.com to the list)

AdrianHi

tara747 wrote: »

I used to use the foodfocus website

Just had a quick look and logged todays breakfast. Perhaps marginally easier to use than caloriecount.about.com. It's suggesting a daily calorie in take of 1350 for me compared to 1550 for caloriecount.about.com. This seems a bit low, would be difficult for me to keep up and and lower than neccessary to shift the target 2lbs a week I put in
May be it reflects the fact that my starting weight is nearer my target than what I originally put into caloriecount.about.com.

Edit: hang on, if I use same lifstyle "sedentry" on both sites I get a recommendation of 1030 calories a day (not sustainable IMO) on foodfocus, 1500 a day at caloriecount.about.com which they say is the minimum recommended for a man.
Mmmm, make of that what you will.

taffy1969

Hi Dragon, please add me for this month. Starting weight 12st 4lb.

The_Dragon

taffy1969 wrote: »

Hi Dragon, please add me for this month. Starting weight 12st 4lb.

Hi Taffy and welcome to the group again , do you want your starting weight on the opening post or just your name?

lightisfading

Hi All

Bit of an odd day today. Wasn't hungry at all til 11.40 when I had a pot of fruit salad, and just peckish for lunch rather than starving but still fancied quiche (small piece) and new potatoes (4) from the canteen.. so thats what I had We also went on an icecream run cus the office is like a sauna so having a 'family/snacksize' cornetto for afters! I'll try and work the points out though and think I should be okay for today, judging by last night when I didn't really want to eat anything.

The_Dragon

lightisfading wrote: »

Hi All

Bit of an odd day today. Wasn't hungry at all til 11.40 when I had a pot of fruit salad, and just peckish for lunch rather than starving but still fancied quiche (small piece) and new potatoes (4) from the canteen.. so thats what I had We also went on an icecream run cus the office is like a sauna so having a 'family/snacksize' cornetto for afters! I'll try and work the points out though and think I should be okay for today, judging by last night when I didn't really want to eat anything.

Dr Dragon made me a huge bowl of salad for lunch to get some food down me, I think with this heat none of us want to eat much! (which can be be good) - off to pour some more green tea as it is nice and refreshing!