Tuesday 15 February 2011

Calorie-counted - First Update

I've never felt the need to go on a diet.  I'm average height of an average build - not especially thin but not overweight.  Just average.  Until almost 4 years ago when I gave birth to my first child (I say first, so far he is my only child).  During pregnancy I felt I had a licence to eat much more food, unfortunately this increased appetite never faded and I continued to eat more than I had before.  I wouldn't say now that I'm fat, but I am noticeably heavier.  It wasn't until I happened to weight myself last autumn that I noticed I was approaching 10 stone.  This signalled alarm bells - not immediately but I thought to myself I don't want to tip 10 stone.

So its now February and I thought I would try watching what I eat.  Well this has to be one of the most difficult self inflicted challenges I've ever undertaken.  I have literally become obsessed with what I eat.  I downloaded an app for my phone which decided, based on the information I put in, that I should restrict my calorie intake to just 1200 per day, equating to shedding 1 lb per week.  Its only day 5! I've had very little in the way of unhealthy snacks and I'm certainly eating more fruit and vegetables.  But going from eating whatever I liked whenever I liked regardless of how good it was, to just 1200 calories per day is hard work.

This is a chart of my current progress after 5 days with calories on the side and days along the bottom   In terms of how I feel:
  • I seem to have developed backache 
  • I feel generally irritable (this maybe because I've opted to cut out coffee)
  • Hungry!
So far I don't appear to have shed any weight particularly.  I can see why most people don't stick to diets - bodies are slow to react to change!  But I thought I would record my progress on blogger as a personal record of my progress.

Wish me luck - any tips, encouragement or advice would be welcome.

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