Felt myself getting obsessive

Today was a good day overall, but I was visiting crazytown a little bit this evening.  My food has been going good now that I'm fully off of the Optifast product and on regular old food.  I can't recall if I've shared my full-food plan on here, so here's what it is:

1200 calories per day consisting of:

• 6 protein servings no more than 55 calories each
• 7 veggie servings (first cup of salad is considered a "free" food) no more than 30 calories each
• 2 grain servings no more than 90 calories each
• 2 fruit servings no more than 60 calories each
• 1 serving of beans/legumes no more than 90 calories  each
• 1 dairy serving no more than 90 calories each
• up to 4 servings of healthy oils no more than 45 calories each
• at least 8 oz. of water

I was given a list of sample foods to help me when I'm buying, but it's hard to stay within the calorie count per serving all the time, although I have no problem staying within the calorie count for the day.  I don't want to get to crazy about making it perfect because I think that's defeating the purpose.  For example, I have yogurt for my dairy.  It's plain, non-fat yogurt but it's 100 calories instead of 90.  I'm not stressing over those 10 calories because I haven't gone over my total allotment, especially when I have exercised in the day.  I've been tracking all of my food in MyFitnessPal, which is awesome by the way.  That's where I track my weight on my blog as well.  If you're interested in using it, they also have an app you can download to your phone.  It makes tracking things so much easier.

Anyway, I've been doing well with my food, but I have been feeling not quite satiated.  I seem to do fine until it comes time for dinner.  Typically what I do is have breakfast, a mid-morning snack, lunch, a mid-afternoon snack, then dinner.  So I'm eating something every 3-4 hours, which is great because then my blood sugar is not spiking.  But I am noticing that I feel hungry pretty soon after having eaten something.  I've always had this issue in the past and it required me getting a little more protein in, like an ounce more per meal.  I'm not sure if I should just do that and add an ounce here or there.  There's danger in doing that because it can really start piling up.  However, there's danger in not doing that, like what happened today.

I had my breakfast, did great.  I then had a mid-morning snack before meeting Sara to do our walk around the lake.  That was great.  We walked three miles in the crisp morning air.  Then I came home and had lunch, which was fantastic.  I had an incredibly healthy meal and was proud of myself for really planning good food.  Then later in the day, I felt ravenous.  That led me to having about 4 ounces more of chicken breast, then I had a peach, then I had a couple handfuls of unsalted cashews.  It felt very bingey, even though I would hardly constitute any of that as a binge like I've had before.  Yet, the behavior is what felt negative to me.  I felt bad for what I had done and decided that I wasn't going to have my afternoon snack and took a nap instead.

I woke up after three hours (good Lord, I must have needed that!) and the first thing I did was go check my blood sugar.  I had a dryness in my mouth and throat that led me to believe that my blood sugar was through the roof.  It clocked in at 87.  Man, that was something I didn't expect at all.  Why is it that I drew the conclusion that my blood sugar was high?  I'm sure it was because I felt guilt for having carbs. Then just a while ago, I laced up my shoes and started doing one of those Leslie Sansone "Walking Away the Pounds" DVD's.  It was for three miles.  I was about a mile in and then caught myself.  I said to myself, "Exactly what do you think you're doing, Kathy?  Don't you think you're being just a wee bit obsessive?  You already got exercise in for the day ... stop this!"  I recognized that I had already crossed the line, took off my shoes, turned off the TV and came over to my laptop to write this post.  It's perfectly fine to exercise a lot in a day, and doing 4 miles total is certainly not obsessive, but it is when I think about what led me to the second run at exercise.  I was feeling guilty about the extra food I had.  And, frankly, that is nowhere near the binge I could have easily had.  I mean - chicken, a peach and cashews?  Seriously??

I just was disappointed in myself for picking up the extra food, not following my plan exactly and frustrated at the hungry feeling I have been experiencing.  Who knows why that is happening.  Maybe I do need to add that little bit extra protein.  Maybe I need to drink more water.  The other thing is that I am well aware that my weigh-in is tomorrow night and I'm nervous about that.  Since I'm no longer on Optifast product, gone are the days where I will be able to lose double-digits in a week.  My weight loss is going to be slower than what I averaged while I was on product alone.  Frankly, this how people normally lose weight .... diet and exercise.  I think the average healthy loss is 1-2 pounds a week when done in this way, so I have to remind myself of that fact.  I may lose more on occasion, but not like 10 pounds in a week.  I'm just being super critical of myself and I need to remind myself that I'm no longer in the place I used to be in.  I got a visual reminder of that in the car today.  Something made me pull the seat belt away from my body when I was sitting at a stop light.  I got a pang of tears in my eyes when I saw just how far out my seat belt went.  I remember a time when I needed a seat belt extension because the regular seat belt in my car was so tight around my body that I had a hard time breathing.  These are the little reminders that I can't ever forget.

I'm committing to all of you that I'm going to let my poor choices with the food stay in the day and I'm going to continue walking forward.  I will do no more exercise for the night and I will look at potentially adding in some additional protein tomorrow.  I'll make that decision when I wake up and begin my day.