Weigh-In

342 on the dot. Bleh. Down four pounds from last week's water surge, but two pounds above my previous low weight of 339.8. Hopefully, I'll be back to 339 next Friday.

I've been reading a lot about TDEE calculators on MFP. MFP tells me to eat 1840 calories per day to lose two pounds per week. TDEE tells me to eat more like 2300 calories. I have no idea which system to believe, and there are multiple heated arguments about it on MFP. Rawr. I'm so confused.

Back in 2008, I lost about 30 pounds over the summer, and all I did was switch to diet soda, stop binging, and walk for an hour almost every night. I wish I had a record of how many calories I ate, because whatever it was seemed to be my magic number. I don't remember cutting my portions by a lot, and I still ate out every so often. I know I used FitDay for a while, so I'll see if I can dig up my old diary. Once I stopped walking, I maintained my weight for a few months, but then it started piling on when I went back to drinking regular soda and binging. Again, whatever that calorie intake was seemed to be the magic number.

It's all so confusing, and I feel like I don't have time to experiment. I want the weight gone NOW, and that means losing 1-2 pounds per week. If I spend a few weeks eating the wrong calories and don't see a loss, I'll feel like I wasted a month. A month isn't that big of a deal in the big picture, but it is to me because the sooner this weight is gone (safely), the better.

Maybe I should stop worrying about numbers and just go back to my laissez-faire attitude from 2008. I wasn't even trying to lose weight back then. I'd switched to diet soda because I was totally addicted to Diet Squirt and Diet Mountain Dew, I wasn't binging because I was broke and couldn't afford extra food, and I walked every night because I was going through a nervous breakdown and being home, alone, made me very scared and twitchy. It was simply coincidence (in a sense) that I dropped two pants sizes.

I don't want to have another nervous breakdown, but maybe it would help me to just chill the eff out and live a healthy lifestyle that doesn't involve so much algebra.

Edit: I just checked FitDay. I wasn't very good at record-keeping back then (most of my foods were entered during work hours, so dinner wasn't accounted for). From some of the full days, though, I see I was eating anywhere from 1900 - 2300 calories, right in line with MFP's recommendations and TDEE. I guess it isn't such a huge mystery after all. I'll just keep on eating like I'm used to and make sure to exercise for an hour every day.