desperado

Well, today was another good day. I didn’t watch any T.V. considering that I spent the whole day helping my mom and sister take down the Christmas decorations and I even managed to squeeze in a workout. Now that I’m back in my dorm room (as of 8:30pm today) I feel a lot more confident and less stressed. I am also not the only one of my friends who gained weight over winter break so I don’t feel quite as bad about my junk food splurges. I bought a diet book yesterday and am excited to start following its advice. The book is less about losing weight quickly (which I know I could do, but at the risk of gaining it back) and instead focuses on changing my lifestyle so that I am less tempted to over-eat when I am stressed or not even hungry. I have already read the whole thing once and I am sure that I will read it many, many times. I will try to post tips from the book so that others may benefit from it as well.

And now, for the “what I ate today” section:

Breakfast/Lunch: 1/2 cup Kashi Go Lean Cruch (100), 1 “Harvest Whole Grain Apple Cinnamon” Power Bar (240), and 1 Yoplait “Light” Fat-Free “Apricot Mango” Yogurt (100)

Dinner: Went out to dinner with my dad and sister. I had a large salad with cucumbers, onions, scallions, and chilled shrimp (400) with lemon vinaigrette dressing on the side (200) and for desert a sugar-free root beer float (500).

Snack: Gum

Exercise: Ellipse for 34 minutes (-200).
Total Caloric Intake: 1,340

Room For Improvement: Next time, eat half, not the WHOLE desert.

DIET TIP: I wasn’t aware of this before but most ellipticals overestimate the amount of calories you burn by 31%. So I worked out until “400″ calories were burned (after I entered my weight) and then decided to go on the safe side and say that I really burned only 200 calories. Better to underestimate than overestimate in this case!