Weight Loss - Part 2 - January 2022

If you've read my previous post, you know that I've struggled over two decades with my weight, since I was about 10 years old. In that time, I tried a few different things, but always refused to go on a "diet" since I want a more permanent solution.

In all that time, the thing that always worked best was calorie counting. But, I've had issues in the past where calorie counting became an easy excuse to eat pre-packaged/processed foods, because they are easier to account for calories. While I have no problem eating those foods (some of them are really yummy, and I do consider them a better option than takeout), I am also cognizant of the fact that I want to eat less processed foods, and more fresh produce whenever possible. I also don't want to set a specific caloric number and confine myself to only eating that many calories per day. Some days I will naturally be hungrier than others, and I accept that. So, my plan for 2022 is this:

1. Log calories consumed daily, to increase awareness of what types of food I am consuming as well as portion sizes (I am using myfitnesspal to log all my food/drinks)

2. Weigh myself daily and log in my Samsung health app to be aware of fluctuations (did my weight go up? maybe something I ate yesterday reacts in my body to cause bloating and I should avoid it) and what foods my body agrees/disagrees with

3. Log my weight weekly as my "official weigh-ins" for a clear picture of my progress without factoring in daily fluctuations

4. Summarize each month into a blog post to keep myself accountable (as you can tell, this may not be posted right when the month ends, but will help me break the year up into 12 increments that are easier to stick with)

So, on that note, here is my January summary:

Calories:

Day	Breakfast	Lunch	Dinner	Snacks	Total
January 1st	190	480	620	135	1425
January 2nd	285	960	310	108	1663
January 3rd	190	480	310	135	1115
January 4th	270	450	480	334	1534
January 5th	270	860	300	229	1659
January 6th	190	430	603	280	1503
January 7th	440	430	603	179	1652
January 8th	370	392	880	280	1922
January 9th	90	722	440	320	1572
January 10th	370	312	655	210	1547
January 11th	170	312	900	295	1677
January 12th	120	312	900	110	1442
January 13th	110	330	450	369	1259
January 14th	120	302	450	482	1354
January 15th	130	302	880	110	1422

January 16th	0	457	900	30	1387
January 17th	120	302	760	397	1579
January 18th	313	302	451	490	1556
January 19th	113	302	900	470	1785
January 20th	113	302	910	30	1355
January 21st	53	302	920	415	1690
January 22nd	0	480	840	415	1735
January 23rd	0	298	950	85	1333
January 24th	53	286	880	415	1634
January 25th	253	275	920	30	1478
January 26th	53	373	800	475	1701
January 27th	258	309	275	515	1357
January 28th	53	390	889	223	1555
January 29th	0	315	940	85	1340
January 30th	287	315	275	642	1519
January 31st	493	309	440	717	1959

From this, you can see that my calories not only fluctuate day to day, but meal to meal. The days where I didn't have anything for breakfast were weekends where I slept late. Otherwise, I still aimed to eat 3 meals a day plus snacks. This month, I really focused on listening to my body's hunger cues and finding ways to make meals lower calorie without being any less filling. For example, the majority of my lunches were wraps. By eliminating 1/4 cup of cheese from the wraps, I was able to still have a filling lunch for 110 less calories than if I kept the cheese in. I also chose to use mustard as my primary condiment, since it has 0 calories.

Through this, I was also still able to enjoy donuts when a friend brought some over, and have quite a few (read: a lot of) pizza nights by choosing frozen pizzas over delivery.

My weight comparing January 1st vs my weight January 31st has dropped 6.3lbs.

I've still got a long way to go... and 11 months left, but January was a great start!