Weight Creep

Since the end of triathlon season, my weight has crept up.  It was already creeping, but the scale is not happy with me.  More importantly, my clothes are not happy with me.  My problem is that I gain weight around my waist.  I’m not happy with how much weight I’ve put on over the past few years.  Sure, some of it is muscle, but muscle doesn’t make the waistband of your pants tight.

I just need to buckle down and get back to proper eating.  I would love to be one of those people who can just do mindful eating.  “Eat this, don’t eat that, lose weight.”  It doesn’t work for me.  I need the numbers.  I need hard and fast rules.  I struggle with diets that say I can never have something.   Things like “occasionally” or “rarely” work for me, but if you tell me I can’t have any added sugars ever, all I’m going to do is crave it.  If I know I can have a piece of chocolate on occasion, then I’m okay.

Lately, a big part of the problem has been that I’ve been traveling a lot.  I eat okay while I travel, but I luck out in that a lot of my trips recently have been fitness related.  The added exercise has helped burn off the extra calories.  The problem is that I let my fridge and freezer get empty before I travel, so I’m just eating whatever I can find for lunch and dinner.  I can’t let that be an option anymore.  If nothing else, I need to keep a stash of canned soup for emergency meals.

I need to get back to regular cooking.  I hate cooking.  It’s just not something I enjoy.  I like eating what I cooked, but the act of cooking is not my thing.  One thing that has worked for me in the past is to cook something that I can then freeze in individual portions.  I’m also not against eating the same thing for dinner a few nights in a row, so I should just start making sure that I have leftovers.

I need to start faithfully using My Fitness Pal.  And I need to make sure that I’m saving enough calories for dinner.  I know the rules say that you should eat your biggest meal mid-day, but that doesn’t work for me.  It’s fine on the days that I workout in the morning, but if I’m running in the evening, I can’t do a tiny meal afterwards.  I end up throwing the calorie limits out the window and eating way too much.  I need to plan better.

Ideally, I would be meal planning, but baby steps do work the best. If I try to make a huge change all at once, it will all fall apart way too easily.

I also need to get back to getting on the scale everyday.  Ignoring my weight isn’t working.  A daily weigh-in will force me to see that hey, yesterday’s calorie and sodium bomb did have an effect and I need to straighten up.  Clearly, a daily weigh-in will show ups and downs, but it will help me track whether or not I’m actually seeing a downward trend.

So for now, here’s the plan:

1. Track calories
2. Cook meals
3. Weigh in daily

Let’s go.