Let’s Be Honest – Food Tracking
Hi friends!!
Happy valentine’s day to you all!! <3
Even thought the BF and I have been together for 7 Valentine’s Days, we don’t really celebrate anymore (mostly because of our financial situation). This year, we decided to have a low key night at home. We made Emily’s Chicken Parmesan Casserole and watched copious amounts of Duck Dynasty. Perfect evening, no?
This recipe was a huge hit with us!! Let’s be honest, add cheese and a side of garlic bread to anything, and we’d be happy campers haha. While I really loved this dinner, there was a major draw back. No veggies. Lots of calories. The casserole is basically chicken, cheese, and crushed croutons. I served plain spaghetti with marinara on the side. This did not look great on my food diary.
1500+ calories for one meal?!? Definitely not ideal (yes, I drank an entire bottle of wine). But you know what? It’s one meal. It won’t be the death of me. It would if I ate like this every single day, but I don’t.
It isn’t pretty or neat when you go over your calorie budget. And it can make you feel pretty shitty. What would happen if you didn’t track all those calories? Without fully and honestly tracking all your food, you’ll sckew your relationship with food and calories.
Don’t lie to yourself!!!
For a very long time I only tracked the good stuff, the stuff I was proud to show everyone. Or I would track all day up until I got off work, usually when I would start to binge and lose control. No one wants to face the ugly truth of how many calories they are actually eating, but it is a necessary evil. Full disclosure, people. Let it all hang out there. The good, the bad, and the cheese packed.
This photo above is a snapshot of my eating from today. Should I have had buffalo wings for breakfast? Probably not. Did I? Yes, so I tracked it. It’s been hard, but I keep doing it. Now I know I’ll have an ACCURATE list if I need to go back and look.
Wouldn’t have been so bad if you had skipped the “red table wine”!! But what fun would that be??
Exactly! Maybe one day I’ll be the person who says, “Eh no wine for me”. But that day is not today!! Lol
i don’t have an issue being honest. not being honest doesn’t help AT ALL so may a well put it out there. I also think that we are more likely to do damage control if we are logging everything. now, do I log every single day good or “bad”? No, but I’m working on that.
For a long time I couldn’t be honest with myself. I would sort of block out portions when I would eat too much or something I considered ‘off limits’. It does nothing but hurt.
I also have no problem believing you are brutally honest. That’s why I love you so much!!
For a while, I did that too. If I ate an extra helping of something, I wouldn’t count it. Makes no sense really because it’s not what you’re counting that matters, it’s what you’re actually eating.
You are so right!! I think after we track for a while, we get this idea that whatever is in my diary is what I ate. Then we look back and can’t figure out why the hell we aren’t losing weight. We have to be constantly aware.
I used to also only track the good stuff. I figured one cookie didn’t matter that much, why show it. Or if I had a really bad dinner I’d “forget” to track. It’s so important to be honest with ourselves so that we can look back to see how things are affecting us. Like after I started tracking honestly, I realized that a bad meal while dining out will effect me two days later almost on the dot on the scale. A bad week doesn’t always show up for me right away, sometimes a bad week takes two weeks for everything to balance out and show up on the scale. That’s not true for everyone, so I’m glad I saw that. I Would get so mad to have like three awesome days, and see crap on the scale unti I realized that the days before that weren’t so awesome…
I never considered a bad day or week could take some time to show up on the scale. That is an awesome observation!!