No wonder I've gained 23 pounds this year

I started this blog around this time last year, and at that time I was concerned that I had let my weight creep back up to 164. Now I wish I was 164. I'm about 187 now, so I've gained 23 pounds in 2011. I finally started tracking again today. I tried tracking my calories a few times in the past year, but it would never last more than a day. So here is how I did today...

So as you can see, I didn't do very well. Right now I have the "Lose It" program set to lose 1/2 per week. So maintain weight calories would be around 2,371 and I even was over that by 643 calories.  If I had an eating day this poor every day, I'd gain 67 pounds in one year! (643 x 365 days divided by 3,500 because each pound=3,500 calories.) So I can't afford to have too many days like today!

Today was a little unusual because we went out to lunch at Olive Garden, so that put me at a big disadvantage.  But it probably would have been worse had I not been tracking.  Even though my current goal isn't to be at losing weight calories, just tracking helped me think twice most of the times I went to eat today. But, sometimes I'd eat something and then have to remind myself to track it after I already ate. Hopefully I'll continue to be even more mindful as I get back into the habit of tracking. I don't have any plans to eat out tomorrow, so tomorrow should be a better day!