Weight Loss Update -- One Week on SparkPeople.com

When I started trying to lose weight a few weeks ago, my only real intent was to lose as much as I could for the sorority convention, but I want more than that. The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to NOT repeat my past dieting habits because they've ultimately led me to over 250 pounds. If I can lose ten pounds or twenty pounds, there's no reason I can't lose all of my excess weight, daunting a number as that may be.

So about a week ago I finally took the advice of a good friend who has lost over a hundred pounds. She should know how to do this, right? So I joined SparkPeople.com. I was slightly skeptical, and certainly not convinced I needed to get addicted to a new website, but it was a good way to get a NIN fan weight loss team going, and the more I poked around the better it looked.

My diet strategy immediately changed. It's amazing what a little food-tracking can do for your diet outlook. I've sort of tracked my intake before, but this is better. Counting points or carbs or whatnot is easy, but it also makes it easy to work around the system. You can't argue with straight up calorie and nutrient counts, and the only way to make it look better than it is in reality is to flat out lie.

I've learned quickly that it's pretty easy to blow through the allowance for the day, and that my instincts on what's going to be a good balance often aren't so great. Like last Friday, when I went WAY over on fat and under on carbs, even though I thought I'd done really good with my lunch salad and egg-and-toast dinner. But I totally blew my fat and calories by putting too much butter on the toast and the dinner roll that came with the salad, and by drinking full-fat chocolate milk at breakfast instead of skim. Three little changes, and I'd have been able to have a healthy, carb-rich snack after dinner and been in the right range on everything. Oops.

And I've learned not to let myself consume calories while distracted. Wednesday morning I mixed up a bottle full (3 cups) of cranberry juice from concentrate, but before I could pour out just one serving into a cup the phone rang, and while I was caught up in conversation with a friend I hadn't talked to in FOREVER I ended up sipping twice that much straight out of the bottle. My carb allowance was gone far too fast, and my snacks at the convenience store that night had to consist of 2 oz of beef jerky, 2 boiled eggs, and a protein drink just to bring everything else up into balance. 2 oz of beef jerky is a hell of a lot of beef jerky. Gah.

I've also realized that this myth I've believed about myself -- that the reason I don't lose weight is partly because I don't eat enough -- isn't true. At all. I've been consuming far too many calories for far too long. It's amazing how many calories are in most of the things I'm in the habit of eating.

Anyway, I guess the best part of SparkPeople.com is that if you actually use the resources there, it forces some honesty about exactly what you're doing to your body. And I'd say for most of us the honest truth isn't pretty.