NOTE: Metrics are for the prior day except for weight. Weight is for the day taken.

So when weighing in this morning, I weighed 117 lbs. 4 lbs. lighter than the day before. The weigh in was at approximately the same time of the morning as well so the only sense I can make of it is that I think I had had a late night meal before bed the day before starting my journey. I could take this as an early win but I don’t want to let myself off that easy (though I might regret this decision). As such, I am going to set my target weight as 197 lbs. I think trying to shed 20 lbs using 117 as my starting point is a more accurate goal, adjusting for any strangeness that may have been included in my initial weight in. There is no way I lost 4 lbs of fat in 1 day.

More Water

One “trick” that I started doing on day one was drinking a full glass of water before sitting down to eat. My goal in doing this was to make me full faster to discourage me from over eating e.g. going back for seconds and such. This worked but perhaps too well. I had a bowl of soup and a tofurkey sandwhich for lunch and that pre meal glass of water made it so that I was stuffed after the sandwhich and half a bowl of soup. The good news is I probably saved myself the calories included in the second half of the bowl of soup. The bad news is I did not eat to 80% fullness. By drinking that full glass of water pre-meal, I could have just ate the sandwhich and been good. This lead me to another insight…

Accept Throwing Out Food

I need to accept throwing away food. I grew up being trained to eat everything on my plate because apparently there were starving kids who would be thrilled to have the meal that I had. While starvation is most certainly a real thing, whether I finish my bowl of soup or not does not impact them or make me a good or bad person and I need to accept this. In addition to accepting this, I need to learn from it and realize that I need to start with smaller portions to begin with. If the sandwhich was not enough, I could heat up a bowl of soup in 2 minutes. No need to start with so much. This probably applies across the board with my portions. I should start with smaller portions for every meal and see where that leaves me. Perhaps I would be 80% full with the smaller portion and not need to waste any food?

Tracking

As you may or may not have noticed, I have started tracking various metrics at the top of my posts. By keeping track of these data points I hope to be able to track my progress and also to be able to reflect on what occurred the previous day to prevent me from adherring to a particular objective. Perhaps by doing this I will be able to learn from it and adjust my behavior to set myself up for success in the future.

Lessons of The Day

So the lessons of the day:

• Keep up the pre-meal water
• Adjust meal size to compensate for pre-meal water
• Accept not cleaning my plate
• Start with smaller portions

Successes

• Went to bed early
• Learned a new trick, e.g. pre-meal water
• Got my exercise in