My Fitness Pal

So I broke down on Monday and started using My Fitness Pal again to track calories.

I am still not fully committing to the plan until next Tuesday, January 12.  For the record.  But some healthy eating and committed exercising leading into a weekend of debauchery can never go amiss.  Plus one of my co-workers is on, so you know, strength in numbers and all that.

My Fitness Pal is VASTLY improved since my last usage (4 years ago).  I've got it set to count my calories for steps, but to counteract that, I set it for losing a pound a week, instead of the more reasonable half-pound.  I am always leery of calculating exercise calories and would prefer to err on the side of not counting anything at all so I can be sure I'm hitting my food targets, BUT if I exercise a lot I do recognize that I need to refuel.  Hopefully this will be the best of both worlds, but I'll turn it off if I have to.

I'm also not 100% sure how it is going to interact with my glitchy brain, because I think my plan is to allow myself 3 "treat" meals per week, plus 3 "treat" desserts.  The desserts I'll just count maybe as if I ate only one small serving, but really I'll eat a bigger serving.  Truly, this is mostly to accommodate my love of Blue Bell ice cream and my belief that a half-cup is not sufficient.  The 3 meals are to accommodate Tuesday evenings at my mom's, the lunch-happy culture at work, and eating out once a week.  I can still try to make good choices for some or all of these meals - at my mom's, that means limiting portion sizes, and for the eating out, that may mean what I order, or I may let it go, and if I do, that is ok.  What I'm not sure about, yet, is how to count these off meals.  I'll have to play with it.  Yesterday evening was an off meal at my mom's, but it had a bunch of things that were fairly easy to count, so I counted and guesstimated and was ok with that.  And it didn't make me go over my daily target (as long as the steps were counted) and so I didn't fry a circuit with a feeling of failure.  I have a feeling I'll need a little more data to figure out what method is going to work best for me.

Monday stats:
Calorie goal: 1490
Ate: 1528
Exercise: 300 from P90X3 Accelerator + 387 from 12,686 steps.
I'm not counting the steps calories, so Net: 1228

I would like to be netting 1200-1500 in these first few weeks, so I am very very pleased with that.  And also hungry.  But pleased.

Tuesday stats:
Calorie goal: 1490
Ate: 1948  (BUT the evening meal was a "treat" meal, which I fully counted!)
Exercise: 200 from P90X3: Triometrics + 371 from 11,754 steps
Net: 1748 without the steps

I am pleased with this net on a "treat meal" day!

One more note: A calorie goal of 1490 seems pretty generous to me.  I used to aim right around 1500 for MAINTENANCE.  But, I'll see how it goes for a week or two and make adjustments if nothing is happening.  It would be nice if I could leave it there because it is high enough to make me feel like I actually have a little flexibility and can actually succeed.