I get a little carried away with NUMBERS!

Things are continuing to go really well. I did go a little overboard on Tuesday, but I counted (or estimated) all my calories on the day. It's funny though. I didn't go overboard at dinner. I actually went overboard NOT eating lunch! My breakfast wasn't big enough to hold me over for dinner so I was just going to have a snack for lunch. Well, once I started eating I was finding it difficult to stop so I think I ended up having like 700 calories for my non-lunch! Sigh. But, I ended the day around 2800 calories and burned over 3200 so I still had a calorie deficit so I'm happy!

Yesterday was a little tough to get completely back on track, but I did it. I have been eating more this week, but I've also been burning more. Here's what the last few days have looked like:

• Monday = Burned 3098. Ate 1592
• Tuesday = Burned 3259. Ate 2863
• Wednesday = Burned 3532. Ate 2011
• Thursday (total burned is estimated based on what I've burned so far) = Burned 3351. Ate 2277.
• Total calorie deficit on 4 days = 4497. If a pound = 3500 calories I "should" be down just about 1.3 calories tomorrow from what the scale said Monday morning. 

Ok. So I know that you're probably thinking that I'm getting too neurotic and it's going to backfire. Maybe I am. BUT, I actually only figured this out out of curiosity. I did weigh myself Monday morning to see what kind of "damage" I did over the weekend by not tracking and such. I was only up .4lbs from my Friday weigh in so I was happy about that. If I see that the scale is pretty close to where it "should" be based on my numbers than I'm going to know that a) my Garmin Vivosmart is pretty accurate in telling me how much I burn in a day and b) I must be doing a pretty good job of tracking my food as well. Right now I'm allowing myself to not track on the weekends and be more relaxed. However, I can FEEL that I'm on the fence currently with wanting to move to just tracking 7 days a week. I think that if I see that I lose what I "should" lose perhaps I will be more motivated to continue tracking so I can at least continue to do the math and make choices based on that. If I know that making sure I have a big calorie deficit will help me to lose more weight and I still want whatever (food/wine/etc) it is that I want then go ahead and indulge because if I don't I'll end up REALLY over-doing it later.

Yup. I'm neurotic, but I would never say otherwise! The thing is right now I'm using that for good. I am actually working to figure out a way to motivate myself to continue tracking through the weekend. I'm working to figure out a way to train my brain to want to eat less. I am NOT looking for an excuse to say I can actually eat more than I realize (which has been something I've done in the past). I am also getting to the point where I LOVE seeing the 3000+ calories burned a day. That's going to motivate me to move more on the weekends so I can still have that - even if I'm not tracking my calories eaten. But it's a snowball effect. If I'm working to have my calorie burn be at 3000 calories chances are I'm going to want to track what I eat to see if I'm still having a calorie deficit even if I'm allowing myself more food. It's all a process. Eventually I will decide to track over the weekend - but just track what I'm eating and not worry about staying under any calorie amount. Then, eventually I'll decide that I want to try to keep a calorie deficit on the weekends as well. 

I have always been an all or nothing person and I'm actually REALLY proud of myself so far for not being that way. I am being an in between person this month and I'm loving it! I'm still going to be down at least 4 pounds this month and that's 4 pounds less that I have to worry about losing! In the past I would be mad that it was "only" 4 pounds when I should be losing more weight at the beginning. But, I'm not mad. I'm very happy. I feel like I am finding a healthy balance with losing weight and not going crazy. When I feel like I'm starting to go a little crazy about it I back off without the guilt. 

We'll see what the scale says tomorrow. I'm pretty confident it will be lower than it was last Friday. It truly doesn't matter how much...less than last Friday is the right direction to be moving :)