I think it was around April '11 when my sister told me about this app that would count your calories and tell you how many to eat(or not) to meet your weight loss goals. I downloaded it and had yet another minor epiphany about this whole being-healthy-and-losing-weight thing. It's called myfitnesspal and you should download it/go to myfitnesspal.com if you have ever thought about keeping a food diary.
First of all, I really appreciated that it kept track of my progress, short term and long term goals. Also, when I worked out, I could put in how many minutes I did what and it would tell me (approximately) how many calories I burned. But what spurred the epiphany was actually keeping track of what I was eating and being aware of where my calories were coming from. Also, when I would put in my work outs, I would see how much foods "cost" me in comparison. For example, one donut is about 12 minutes on the elliptical. Now, if I'm only planning on being on the elliptical for 20 minutes, it would take OVER HALF of that to burn off one measly donut.
This was insane to me! I mean, theoretically I knew how much work it took to burn calories, we all did that lab in high school where we had to burn food to heat up water or whatever it was. So, becoming more conscious of what I ate was mostly a matter of still being a bit lazy. You know? "I'm not gonna eat those potato chips because I will have to run an extra 10 minutes just to burn that off". Or maybe just my experience in weighing options of what to spend money on, now I was deciding how many calories I had to spend and where I wanted to spend them.
The real key to this is to know yourself, and be honest about what your limits are. If you're only setting yourself up for failure, then you will be discouraged and, well, fail. I know that I like to eat, and I like sweet things. So, I found ways to prevent failure. My 2 main things were chocolate soy milk and apples. "Man, I really want chocolate" Oh here's a 90 calorie glass of chocolate that also happens to have calcium and lots of good-for-you stuff in it. "I really want something sweet" Eat an apple. There's something strangely satisfying about crunching into an apple.
Lets be real: if you are a fat kid, you like to eat. So putting yourself on a 1,200 calorie restriction and doing meal replacement right out of the gate is PROBABLY not going to work, unless you just have insane will power. And if you did, then you probably wouldn't be a fat kid to start with. But letting yourself eat a huge piece of grilled chicken and lots of broccoli and feel FULL, and then realize you only ate about 250 calories...now THAT could be successful. Because lets be honest, eating a lot is probably one of the reasons you're where you're at to start with. Eventually eating less is going to be the goal, but you have to learn/realize what to eat first.This is how I taught myself how to eat. I still eat out, but I usually work out on days that I do, and I feel like I've earned it. And calorie-wise I have.
Another great thing about that app is that when you're done for the day and hit "complete", it will tell you what you would weigh in 5 weeks "if every day were like today". It's just an approximation based on your calorie intake, but it's just another level of motivation to see that mathematically(which is the most convincing way, right? lol) if you did as well every day as you did today, you'd be 10 lbs lighter in a month. Then you click "progress" and log your losses and you get to see that graph keep dipping down as time goes on, now THAT is totally worth eating an apple instead of a "normal" dessert.
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