goron59

It's been two weeks since I stopped calorie counting, as an experiment in being able to be sensible without relying in MFP.

First of all, I'm weighing in approx 1kg up over the 14 days (2.2 pounds). Or about 1.5 pounds in just the last week.

I knew this was happening. Belt was getting a little tighter (but still on the smallest hole), feeling a little wobblier, etc. So I knew to cut back a little bit, but the problem is, I didn't.

Partly because of a couple of an increase in social eating at work, especially with Chinese New Year, and weekend food indulgences, but partly because I haven't done any swimming or other non-walk cardio.

So a week to go with the experiement - lets see if I can stop the rot and maybe even get the weight down a bit.

It's been a week now since I stopped calorie counting, at least not being a slave to the numbers.

I really don't know what my net calories have been, but I do feel that I've been eating well, if not healthily.

The last couple of days in particular have been heavy-ish, but I feel it and know to adjust.

Weight-wise, I'm half a pound up over the seven days.

I'm happy with that, but will continue for another week or three to see if I can get it down a little bit.

If I'm honest, I do miss the proper counting. I don't know if anyone's been looking at my daily diary food notes, but it's actually harder to write stuff in words than it is to scan stuff in the numbers section.

Anyways, here's to another week :-) 

Went to visit awesome Wilna the physio again this morning after a two week break. Last time I was in a bit of a mess physically with lots of very stiff muscles and she tut tutted and got the needles out.

This time, no needles! I was generally in good shape, quite loose and flexible.

Also she said that my dumbass mistake of wearing my orthotics the wrong way around showed that I'm actually doing quite well - if I was in really bad shape, it would have hurt and lot more and knocked me back quite a bit.

Also, my back, which has been a bit stiff and sore the last few weeks is ok again.

Finally, she said I can ramp up my walking time/distance and specifically, I can do 5k in one go. This is a big boost for me because 5k will get me back on my short run route, up the Regents canal to Victoria park and back. I've really missed that little jaunt and even though I won't be running, it's still fab.

Oh and when I see her in three weeks, I've got to bring in my running stuff so she can check out my running style on the treadmill.

Within a month, I think I'll be running again :-)

... for a while, anyway.

Calorie counting is good. I lost my first 30 or so pounds with net calorie counting alone, but it's not calorie counting now that's keeping my weight where it is.

An important thing I gained from calorie counting was an awareness of the nutritional composition of food. Two years ago, could I tell you how many calories in a pint of 5% ABV ale? No. Did I know that the same sandwich from Pret had twice the calories and fat of one from Boots? No.

So I ended up knowing what sort of things to eat (or not eat) where to get the food from, favour quality of quanatity and all was well.

But the numbers were getting in the way. There were days when I ended up 200 kcals under and thought, hey, I can have another glass of wine and still be under. Or, oh bugger, I'm over, so might as well have another donut anyway.

So now, I'm going to not explicitly record anything I eat in MFP - I'll write it down in the notes section, so I can go back and see the history, but I won't get hung up on the numbers.

After 555 days, I should have a pretty good idea of what I need to eat each day, and how much.

In the two meal times since making this decision, I've already found myself eating less - basically, eating what I want instead of a prescribed amount of calories, so strongly suspect I'll end up dropping weight below my current maintenance range.

We'll see. I'm 95kg now and would like to have hit 90 by late March.