Ugh my first bad eating day.
I am just under 2 months out I’ve been cleared for everything except a small handful of things like steak.
ive tolerated things fine, everything is good.
my uncle made some salsa and i had a couple chips and salsa and i was a gonner i couldnt get enough!

I could only eat like 3 chips with salsa at a time. But throughout the day i kept going back for 3 more.
it was so good.
i didn’t actually eat any real food today.
i had my two protein drinks

i feel guilty and im still thinking about that salsa.
i wish id gotten some protein chips instead ?

im not here for any real reason but to vent.
ive got to get some structure to my eating. I have a terrible habit of living off bites and not meals with nothing measured or weighed.
anyways i just thought maybe some others may have began their journey in chaos and could share their stories of getting everything under control.

1 hour ago, kmac1 said:

Cucumber is a great dipping. We buy the 3 packs of the seedless cucumbers at costco and they work great.

Oh really. I was thinking it could work If the salsa doesn’t just run right off. Guess you may sorta have to balance it a bit. Then again I guess you kinda do with tortillas too. Maybe put just a bit of salt on the cucumber if you miss that salty taste?? Idk sounds kinda good to me.

19 hours ago, Brittneykdelacruz said:

Hi do you log every day? I dont log! Im supposed to but i dont end up doing it. I have not logged a full day since surgery

i feel like maybe this is one of the important changes i must make

I am over a year out and in maintenance. I still choose to have a shake for breakfast daily 160, one of a handful of lunches that I know are around 300 calories, a choice of dinners under 500 and a couple of snack options right around 100 calories each. I have never eaten a ton of variety because I am pretty picky so this works for me. Someone with a lot of variety this totally wouldn’t work for.

I can keep a pretty rough idea in my head. I basically just know if I ate to plan yes or no for my meals and how many snacks I have had and then I know if I’m on track for the day or not. (I know how many I can have after working it out actually logging for quite a while though). Some days my dinner may be less calories but other days I am super hungry and I have an extra snack so it balances out. Basically I semi log my food at this point but I do it in my head counting by 100’s. But I agree it is very good to do it in the beginning and do it for a good while because we first need to figure out where our calories need to be to lose and to maintain but also because there are foods that we just really don’t know how many calories are hidden in them.

For me a big one was baby back ribs. Odd I know. I guess I just assumed it’s a meat. It’s innocent. It’s not a desert or a dreaded carb, right? And I knew the sauce was bad but the meat itself doesn’t have sugar so when I found a descent sugar free BBQ sauce I thought I had this meal all figured out. Well, did you know a HALF rack of baby back ribs has 668 calories WITHOUT sauce and 45 grams of fat!! That’s only about 4 oz of meat so a comparable chicken breast is only 190 calories sans the sauce. I am in my 40’s and I just learned this about ribs. I had never logged them because I don’t eat them often enough but I had a couple ribs on Father’s Day and I’ve been craving them ever since so I researched them a little. Guess I may just have to wait till next time i can have a couple off someone else’s plate, lol

Anyways, my point is logging foods helps you to learn what is in most foods so you know if they are totally safe (green light), sorta pushing it (yellow light) or a total splurge (red light that you can run on occasion if you are in maintenance and have budgeted for it). Logging also helps you to learn little tricks you can live with for your favorite meals like the sugar free sauce, veggie substitutions, lower carb bread options, etc to make them a little better for you. Once you learn these things about most foods you will encounter day to day, a more “intuitive version of eating” seems more doable in my opinion.

For me the ribs are a definite non runnable red light as I have gained 3 pounds above my happy weight I am not allowing myself ANY red light or yellow light foods until I drop these three pounds (I have also cut back on my snacks for the time being to make it go a bit faster). At almost 16 months out now this is the first time I have gained past my happy weight so I am making this up as I go but so far I have lost a pound and a half with this plan so it seems to be working for me.

A lot of people like to use apps like my fitness pal for logging. Like anything else It takes a while to get it set up but once you do they say it’s goes pretty quick. I did it the old fashioned way which allowed me to keep a page of frequent meals so I could quickly add those. It’s just whatever works for you. Some people on here say they take a day off each week from logging or they only log on weekdays, etc. just commit to what you can because anything is better than not logging at all.

Ugh my first bad eating day.
I am just under 2 months out I’ve been cleared for everything except a small handful of things like steak.
ive tolerated things fine, everything is good.
my uncle made some salsa and i had a couple chips and salsa and i was a gonner i couldnt get enough!
I could only eat like 3 chips with salsa at a time. But throughout the day i kept going back for 3 more.
it was so good.
i didn’t actually eat any real food today.
i had my two Protein Drinks
i feel guilty and im still thinking about that salsa.
i wish id gotten some Protein chips instead [emoji53]
im not here for any real reason but to vent.
ive got to get some structure to my eating. I have a terrible habit of living off bites and not meals with nothing measured or weighed.
anyways i just thought maybe some others may have began their journey in chaos and could share their stories of getting everything under control.

Hey....it's ONE day. Let it go, and move on. [emoji171]

Also, get the Baritastic App and start logging your foods. It helps to see what you're really putting in.

That sounds very yummy!
do you have any suggestions to get the crunch in? I love a salty crunch! I was thinking a taco salad with meat, beans, corn and salsa but i havent tried lettuce yet for some reason ive got weird fear of lettuce making me sick.
i dont know why but i just worry it wont digest easily.

Choose lettuces with actually health benefits. Not iceberg which is pointless. My favorite is butter lettuce and kale.

Today is a new day. Move on, you got this! It could have been way worse.

This! Exactly this! [emoji171][emoji171][emoji171][emoji171]

If you're in to low carb eating...like Keto...you can make some cheese chips.

On 6/29/2022 at 12:12 AM, Brittneykdelacruz said:

i just thought maybe some others may have began their journey in chaos and could share their stories of getting everything under control. 

It may not be for everyone (or u) but tracking everything i ate in REAL TIME I honestly believe helped me stick to plan.

Seeing the number of calories i’ve racked up in black and white has, on multiple occasions, stopped me from eating more…also contributed to making food choices to go in line with my macro goals for any given day.

I still track today (3.5+ years out), and it still helps to keep me from porking out (most times, at least…as i allow myself a good pork out on occasion now lol)