State of Confusion

~ The Kinks ~

Apologies for the late post. After spending most of my time yesterday Googling how much protein, carbs & fat certain food items have, in order to add to my food diary (see below), eating for a "active" day that turned into a "rest" day, incorporating carbs and figuring out MyFitnessPal, I had a bit of a meh & crashed at 21:00.

I might have previously mentioned that I'm not a morning person, so I get up at 7am, do the obligatory work thing, go Crossfit or teach PeeWee's, go home, make supper, pack food for the next day, shower, blog, play Battlefield/read, sleep at around 23:00.  That still gives me a good 8 hours sleep. 

Last night I just couldn't be bothered. We attempted gym, and normally I know that exercise will make me feel good - yesterday I just sat on a step bench while BF did squats & then we went home after 20 minutes. I had to force myself to eat & could have quite happily fallen asleep in the shower. And I was thiiiis close to crying....I don't know what caused it: work wasn't more taxing then normal, I can't see the little bit of carbs (rice) making such a big change in my chemical processes & there was no drama otherwise.

Like I said, most of yesterday was used trying to set up MyFitnessPal (a free mobile & desktop app).  It's quite easy to use and it monitors both your diet & exercise habits in one place. You can create a customized profile, and then use the presets (weight loss, weight gain, maintain, etc) that they recommend or, if you have a recommendation from your Nutritionist you can add these in (i.e. % protein, carbs & fat).

What isn't cool is that you only get one preset. That's it. So I had to set my base settings on my "rest" day values & then eat that & the difference on my "work" days.  It took a bit of playing around but I got it in the end.

With over two million food entries in the database it's easy to find food items.  Not necessary the right brand, but it's easy enough to add an item if you have the values. For home-cooked meals there's also an option to create & save a recipe by entering in the individual ingredients. 

I’m still learning how to navigate everything on the app. Since I eat the same thing for lunch or supper several times throughout the week, it's nice that you can just copy your meal from another day. It's a little bit of a pain to look everything up (like when you have a salad with 6 different ingredients), but once you add something to your log you can just click through your list and find it. All of this make it easy to see where you are overdoing it.  You'd be surprised how much of your fats (good ones) come from chicken....

When you come down to it - who here hasn't counted points or blocks. But it's easy to leave off little additions like a sprinkle of cheese or the butter in the pan or the cream in you coffee. The little things make a big difference in your progress & can make or break you.  

The site defaults Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner and Snack categories. Which I used the first time. Then I added a 2nd Snack. Then I added a 3rd Snack. Then I changed the 3rd Snack to PWO. Then I arranged the order.  Yeah...my OCD kicked in a bit there. 

I'm not bothering with entering my fitness event - I know I work hard & I don't want to eat any calories "back".  When you enter in the amount of calories you burned for the day the number of calories you can eat gets bumped up.    

Overall, I find that using the app makes me more aware of my diet & holds me accountable for the goals I've set.  But here's the thing...this, like any other diet or eating plan will only work if you’re honest. So with this app & taking a photo of everything I eat – I am holding myself accountable. 

Food wise I felt it went dismally (everything felt dismal last night), but looking back on it, it wasn't that bad. I might have been slightly over on the carbs & fats (because up to around 17:00 I was eating for an "active" day), but at least it was healthy food.

Now lets go start from scratch again today :)  Have a good one!