Good morning. It’s been a very interesting week for me.

You all know I signed up with CalorieKing.com on Monday, so I’m 5 days into it. The program they have me on is a daily calorie target of 1690 calories a day, plus however many calories I burn in exercise. I’m supposed to exercise 150 minutes a week. They suggest 5, 30 minutes sessions. Once a week I record my weight and measurements.

There’s a place to record exercise, water, and food. They break it down into different nutritional elements. One day, although I was well within my recommended percentage of fat, a little tag popped up telling me that I’d had too much saturated fat. I was surprised and looked at what I’d eaten, and the breakdown they do as to what’s in it. It was the dairy. I’d had butter on bread a couple times for a snack, and a cup of 1% milk, and cheese. The butter was the main culprit, but all the saturated fat in the dairy added up.

It’s been fascinating to see how foods add up during the day, and what meals have what calories, and that I seem to eat higher calorie lunches and smaller dinners.

What’s been really weird is to see that I have to work at eating enough. I’ve heard of overweight people that hardly ate a thing, but I didn’t think I was one of them, probably because of the days when I eat a ton. But that’s not my norm. My metabolism must be totally screwed up. I know now that on a normal day, I don’t get enough calories, and then periodically, I’ll go nuts and eat a ton, mainly when desserts or snacks are available. So I’m guessing that my body hangs on to all of it.

The first two days I ate a lot of carbs. I noticed at the end of Monday that I was way shy of my recommended calories and carbs, so I made a huge bowl of pasta and still fell short by 331 calories. (The website of course didn’t believe that I hadn’t eaten enough, so it’s automatically generated comment the next day was to make sure I remembered to record all of my meals).

I was extremely tired in the afternoons on Monday and Tuesday, I assume from the jump in carbs and blood sugar levels, but since then, I’ve felt great. Another thing I’ve noticed is that I’m feeling hunger more. Considering I’m eating more, this wouldn’t make much sense except that I’ve already experienced something similar with water.

I used to live extremely dehydrated without even knowing it, years ago. (I haven’t been very good to my body, apparently). Once I realized, and started drinking water, I was suddenly thirsty ALL THE TIME. The more I drank, the more thirsty I felt. 16 glasses of water a day, and I’d go to bed thirsty. After awhile, it died down but I’d still feel thirsty a lot. If I ignore the thirst and don’t drink, after a little bit, the thirst goes away, too.

I’m experiencing the same thing with hunger this week, in that I feel it a lot more. I feel hungry when I wake up in the morning (this never, ever happens). I’m hungry halfway between breakfast and lunch, so I eat a little snack. I’m hungry at lunch. I’m hungry between lunch and dinner. Hungry at dinner, then I’m good for the night.

So I’m eating. More than I normally do. And I’m content. I’m not craving anything. I’m snacking on good things, watching my percentages on the website, recording everything….

It’s very labor intensive, and the first half of Monday, it was a total pain in the butt. But then it became fascinating, and now I feel like I’m learning a lot about my body and how to take care of it.

It feels weird being on a diet and eating pretty much whatever I want. The best part is that I’m not afraid of food. I don’t have to feel guilty for eating. As long as I keep track of it, I know where I am in my daily allotment. In the afternoon, I can look at my percentages and see what I should focus on for dinner (ie more carbs or more protein). It’s completely awesome.

So, I’ve lost 2.8 pounds since Monday.

And I’m eating more.

I had two soft bean burritos from Taco Time for lunch on Tuesday. How is this possible?