A Word About Weight Loss

I am tracking my calories on my Fitness Pal  app on my phone.  It automatically adds up my calories for the whole week.  According to my app, eating 1,800 calories a day, I will lose .1 pounds a week. Talk about a slow weight loss...that is only 5.2 pounds in a year.  Hmmm...I know weight loss is not the goal of this challenge, but I was hoping to lose maybe 15 to 20 pounds this year.  ugh.  I don't like this discovery, but I am afraid to lower my calorie intake because I don't want to fail the challenge. 1,800 calories is maintenance calories for the weight I think I should be at....(which is about 20 pounds less then where I am right now)

I usually do the yo-yo thing.  I go on a 1,200 calories a day "diet" and then I lose weight quickly and then I put it all back on and then I do it again. Repeat, repeat... every year for the last 10 years.  So maybe 5 pounds a year for the next 4 years means I will keep off the 20 pounds for the remainder of my life?

But alas, this challenge is not suppose to be about weight loss.  There I go, making stuff about me (again) sigh. 

Comments

[Anonymous]

It is true, an immense percent of our population suffers from malnutrition. Everything you said about malnutrition is on point, however, I want to question your thought process on why you’ve opted to maintain 1800 calories a day or 12,600/week.

To me, this sounds like a diet. People who suffer from malnutrition don’t have the option to say “I’m going to limit myself to 1800 calories a day” and they certainly don’t have a health application on their phone to keep them accountable. The reality is that malnutrition often comes from eating the same garbage all the time. Inexpensive foods are usually not healthy. Free foods are usually not healthy.

There is a book I would recommend you read, called “Bread and Wine: Readings for Lent and Easter”. The book is directed towards Lent and how you can opt to truly put yourself in someone else's shoe and really challenge yourself (it is NOT easy). When it came for my week of food, I solely ate rice, beans, bread and peanut butter. I’m sure I met my caloric needs but I was starving. When I am miserable, upset that I have to stick to this diet for a week, feeling resentful – I can’t help but think and pray for all the people who have no choice but to eat the same foods every day of their life.

In your diet, you can opt to eat anything. You can change it up if you are going out to dinner, you can eat healthy meals every single day.

I do believe your intent is to think about malnutrition, but your solution to it is to put yourself on a diet. I think it is true what you said, this will be difficult for you because you love food. Anyone on a diet has to deny themselves food, stick to a caloric intake, weigh themselves, even figure out how much weight that they plan on losing monthly. Dieting is hard.

My intent isn't to critique you, rather, to make you really think about why you are doing this.