A year of counting Calories

Jul 19, 2017

A year ago, I started counting calories with the goal of losing weight. Having just hit my 409th consecutive day, I’ve kept it up far longer than I expected.

It’s been a useful experience, if not a runaway success. I initially got my weight down from 176 lbs. to 163 lbs. (by combining diet with a lot of Triple Peaks runs), but have since regressed to 171 lbs., leaving me a little lighter than when I started, but not a lot.

The habit of entering food is easy to pick up because it lends itself so well to the moments in a day that would otherwise be wasted, like sitting in an elevator or waiting for someone. Unfortunately it’s only half the battle, with the other half being successfully controlling diet. During my first couple of weeks I was able to run pretty frequent caloric deficits, but at some point surpluses became more common, and eventually, normal. On an indulgent day, I found it disturbingly easy to consume 2,000 more kcal more than I expected to.

These days I’m trying to get that back under control by staying close to target, but it still remains to be seen whether my original goal is ever really successful. It’s some gain for only a little effort though, so I have no plans to stop.

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