I joined MFP on August 2, 2012. As I mentioned before, all kinds of issues came up shortly after that. 5 weeks ago I decided I would start exercising, but not really watch what I ate. A few days, maybe more after that I remembered how I felt when I was in Tae Kwon Do (TKD). Yes at some point my childhood dream of being "A Kung Fu Fighter" was channeled into a local TKD Do Jang. I would go to that place 3 times a week for months. It was fun, I worked out like a beast but I didn't lose any weight through the entire time. Not a single pound. That fear of working out and not losing weight gave me a wake up call this time around so I decided I wouldn't restrict my diet but I would just keep track to see what the deal was.
I found I would net under 1000 calories a day. I'm 5'6" and need at least 1500 to keep my body functioning and I was netting under 1000 every single day. I diving into the MFP forums and started looking for posts about this and looked online for some advise. The conclusion I've come to is that I need to at least net above 1200 a day to make this work. So I added a little bit of calories at a few strategic places and now I'm netting anywhere from 1500 to 1700 a day. Some days I only net 1200, but not on purpose it's that I'm just to damn full to eat any more. I think this is working out better for me. Since I wasn't keep track of what I ate while doing TKD, I think a good hypothesis would be that I was just not eating enough to lose weight. I full hour of TKD can make your burn over a 1000 calories!! And our instructor had us doing all kinds of drills and endurance trainings. I would love to go back now, now that I have MFP.
I've added a pre and post workout snack involving mixed nuts, my super hero bananas and a protein shake. My food diary is public on MFP. I don't keep much track on weekends. I do log in and try to keep track but I think my weekends are going to be a little more relaxed. I have to let myself be more flexible and enjoy the things I like. This past weekend was full of parties and I ate pizza twice, ribs and chips. I don't know how much I ate of what. I know I didn't go completely over board and that is ok.
In the past I had been very strict with myself when I would get on my weight loss kicks. That always ended badly. There was always an off day, usually on a weekend where I would go over board or freak out because I had birthday cake somewhere. That would make me get all upset at myself and I would just quit right after. This time around has to be different.
