Number Crunching

Logged into LiveStrong for the first time in months to see how many calories I'd consumed so far today. It's not looking good. Breakfast alone is 600 calories, though I'm not as concerned about front-loading since (a) I have more conscious hours to burn it off and (b) if I don't have a big breakfast I spend my morning hours miserably hungry. And considering I load up with protein first thing and then have some appetite-suppressing (and awake-making) caffeine, I'm usually more or less okay until lunch. (Usually, I say, because I honestly could eat nonstop between my alarm going off and lunchtime, and it is pure willpower that keeps me from doing so. And then there are some days when I am just a bottomless pit for no apparent reason.)

Today I was surprised to find myself famished at 10am, so I had a single packet of plain oatmeal sweetened with two packets of honey. That's nearly 200 calories alone. Which I guess isn't the most horrible of snacks, but I guess I just didn't expect it to be quite that much. And I refuse to use artificial sweeteners in my oatmeal. Not only would it taste grody, I ingest more than my fair share of chemicals with my soda addiction, thank you very much.

(I was pleased to discover that my coffee, which is actually just a vaguely coffee-flavored confection, is only 70 calories.)

My standard lunch is just under 400 calories, leaving me well over 700 calories (of 2000) for dinner, provided I don't snack this afternoon, which I usually don't (but might since I'm going to the gym after work). So I guess it's not all bad.

See, this is the reason I don't do food diaries. I don't like obsessing over every little thing I put in my mouth. I know that's part of the reason I'm fat, but counting calories doesn't make me feel powerful or in control or anything like that. It makes me feel annoyed. Eventually I get so frustrated with the tedium that I ignore the diary completely and eat whatever I want - or even more than I want. And that's no good.

I know I've been posting to this blog a lot over the last couple days, but that's what it's for: this is a place for me to obsess over diet and exercise without clogging up my regular blog. Nobody has to read it.