Eat of my grapefruit and be sated

Since this is, optimistically, a weight loss blog and I'm trying to be all pro-calorie range at the moment why not discuss it in some length? So, the deal according to Spark is that I'm supposed to consume between 1200 and 1550 calories a day. It's based on my current weight and 5 hours a week of exercise, at a minimum. Safe to say I haven't had that much exercise in the last few weeks so I'm trying to stick to the lower end. Yesterday came in just under 1600 and the day before was about 1400 although I might be over-estimating those two licks of chocolate mousse. I have input all of the proposed choices for today and have come to only 730 calories. Which has me thinking "Ooooh, what can I eat?".

It's probably good for me to mull it over here since I sort of hate it. Part of me feels like I haven't given it enough time to know if I really hate it. It might turn out that I hate it but find it works really well in the end, in which case I'll have to suck it up. The other part of me is hoping I hate it and it doesn't work because then I could be fat and justified in my anger. I've only had two half-assed weeks of logging food and counting calories and it burns.

I've been trying to be positive about it, looking ahead and all. In reality most of the time I look to the next damn meal which is not healthy. I find I think a lot about what I should eat, and what I could eat instead and in the instance of today what can I eat to fill up my calories. I'm not loving it. I miss the old way I used to eat, when I would have a day like today and end at 730 calories and be completely satisfied because I didn't know any better. It brings up a lot of questions.

I worry about how many days I ate less than 1000 calories and exercised for an hour. Even though I didn't get super skinny, could I have been damaging my health and not know it? On the other hand, under the old regime, I never went around feeling hungry. If I was hungry I ate something and didn't have long philosophical calorie conversations with myself over it. I just ate something and went on with my life and didn't have to think about it for hours and hours.

HappyBlogChick linked me up an article on flexible restraint, and while I was reading it I was like Hello! this is what you used to do that you really loved. Really loved and had very slow success with. Early December I decided that I needed more exercise, that I had reached an exercise plateau and that's when I added kickboxing. I love Pilates and how strong it makes me feel but kickboxing makes me sweat like in a health club commercial. Then the holidays came and then I got sick and somewhere along the way I decided to do this Spark thing. I don't know that I gave the increased exercise much of a chance to do it's thing, not in the optimal conditions anyway.

I have to admit that this test period has been sort of crappy too. I haven't been doing anything to par if I'm really honest, not since before my birthday. I don't know how long I need to keep it up before I can tell myself it's ok to quit and go back to what I used to do. In the end I have no one to answer to except myself so why am I dithering? If I want to eat oatmeal for breakfast and instant breakfast for lunch, a cookie out of the oven when I'm baking and pizza for dinner every few weeks why shouldn't I? I should definitely add a salad and some fruit but I don't need spark to tell me I should have half a banana and one cup of melon balls.

I don't know if it's good for me or not to be talking myself out of this. I always feel like I need more structure and then when I undertake it I'm always compelled to rebel. I don't know what that says about my capacity for lifelong success.