relief

So I haven't written in a while. I stepped on the scale Sunday fully expecting to have lost some weight since I really thought I looked skinnier. I stepped on and it said 135.8. WHAT??? I cut out sweets and fried foods and soda, and I exercised and did cardio longer and NOTHING??? I was really upset and discouraged. I drove to church not realizing how upset I was until I started crying. I thought I could hold it together, but when people ask how I am and I'm about to cry, i lose it which is what happened with one of the youth pastors, Phil. I remembered him talking about his struggles with weight and how that was an emotional thing for him and so when he asked if I wanted to talk I said yeah. He brought the other youth pastor, Kyle and I felt really stupid crying over not losing weight, but I felt like I was never going to get out of the situation I was in. In psychology this is called learned helplessness and it is a sucky feeling. They talked to me about having a godly image of myself and not a worldy one, and how they have been struggling with weight loss too. Its not that I feel all my self worth is in what I look like, but I do feel like I've lost a large part of who I am because I can't dress like myself or feel as pretty as I used to. That image gave me power, and then I felt powerless. Anyway, I went online and found what my nutritionist refused to give me: how many calories I need to eat to be healthy and lose weight.

Essentially you lose one pound of fat for every 3500 calories burned or not eaten. That's 500 per day to lose one pound a week. I knew my BMR (the amount of calories I burn a day just by living) was a little over 1400, but I wanted to fuel my body. I found out that I need to eat almost 1900 calories per day to maintain my current weight. If I cut 250 from that and burn 250 a day to = 500 per day, that puts me around 1650 calories a day. Thank you, that's the number I needed to know so I can ballpark it. I have been eating 1800-2000 a day. No wonder I wasn't losing in the past few weeks! If anyone wants to calculate your own caloric needs this is the website: http://nutrition.about.com/od/changeyourdiet/a/calguide.htm

Anyway, I stepped on the scale again this morning (and by morning I mean 4 PM as I worked overnight last night) and I was 133.8! Did I really lose 2 pounds? I'm gonna say I did.