Calorie-Counting Challenge: Weeks 3 & 4 Breakdown

I am really good at this one thing.

In case you missed it, I am doing a 12-week calorie-counting challenge. Here’s where I’m keeping all the updates. I got behind on writing up week 3, so I’m combining it with week 4.

Week 3

I’m writing this almost at the end of week 4, so I’m hoping to remember enough of what happened last week.

Looking at my numbers, I know I did pretty good. I hit my main goal of tracking every day.

You can see that I was technically under my calories every day except Saturday.

The thing is, it’s not a true representation of what’s really happening. I’m not really under that much.

How do I know?

I haven’t lost any weight.

I had an initial 3-pound weight loss in week one, which was nice to see, but I know it was water weight.

Since then, I went right back to where I started.

And then I had a realization. I am really good at one thing…

Maintaining my weight.

Check out this screen shot:

As you can see, I’ve been tracking on and off for many years.

I started in January 2012.

I was 139 pound then, and I’m approximately 139 pounds today in October 2024.

I think this is what they call a “set point” in the fitness industry.

My body likes to stay at this number.

In some ways, I don’t mind. I’m 5'6". It’s not a bad weight for me. However, I have a bit too much fat on my body. And I know I would feel better around 130.

It’s a sacrifice to move down to a lower body weight.

I always wonder if it’s worth it.

It depends on the day and how I feel when I look in the mirror…

Trying a new strategy

I have read about this strategy a couple of times, and I decided to try it out. I put my goal weight to 130 in Lose It, then I set my calories to “maintain weight”.

My maintenance calories once I reach 130 pounds would be 1869, so that’s what I’ll try to stay at. That’s a good amount of calories (even though I still go over it quite often).

I almost always get extra exercise calories too. Some people say to use them, and some say not to use them. My thought about it:

I use ’em if I need ’em.

I usually need some of them because of this one thing in my diet that I struggle with…

It’s alcohol. (Wine mostly.)

It uses up a lot of calories. And I know it’s not the healthiest drink. That’s why I gave it up for 9 months last year into this year.

Here’s an article about the benefits of quitting when I was 6 months in:

I never said (or even told myself) I would quit forever. I enjoyed clearing out my body and it felt good.

In my last article I said I wanted to kick it out of my diet again, but I’m not mentally there yet.

I’ve done these long breaks from alcohol a few times. And there’s one thing I have to do in order to be successful — be mentally prepared.

I have to look forward to and be excited about stopping.

I’m not there yet.

Right now, I’ll continue to keep track and make sure not to overdo it.

Week 4

In week 3, it seems that I was on the maintaining track, and I was feeling OK about that.

However, when I weighed in this week, I got a nice surprise.

Start weight 9/25/23: 140.8 Week 1: 137.8 Week 2: 139.1 Week 3: 139.9 Week 4: 137.7

I’m back down into the 137s! I know the scale shouldn’t dictate your mood (and it mostly doesn’t), but I have to say, that gave me a boost of confidence.

It gave me that little push to keep tracking and to keep trying to do better at staying under my calories.

Wrapping up week 4

Week 4 was pretty good! I haven’t adjusted how I eat too much, except for one thing…

I don’t usually eat breakfast anymore.

I only have coffee in the morning (and a nibble of this and that). Then I eat lunch sometime between 12–2.

Then dinner around 6–6:30.

I can’t eat breakfast because I spend a lot of calories on snacks. lol

(This also includes wine, as I mentioned above.)

I probably need to reduce the snacks and junky stuff I eat, but it’s working ok for now. My lunch and dinner are healthy. It’s called balance. 😆

Here’s how week 4 ended up:

I hit my main goal of tracking daily, and I feel like it’s easy to do now. That habit feels pretty secure at this point in the challenge.

I went over my calories 3 days this week, but I was still under for the entire week.

Here’s how my macros look:

I really need to work on upping my protein!

I know when I eat more protein, I don’t feel the need to snack as much because protein is satiating.

Finally, here’s a look at how things are going overall.

A weekly weight loss rate of .6 lbs is perfect. Hopefully, that will continue to be the average.

Until next week…

Join my fun money newsletter and I’ll show you how to create a side income that doesn’t take over your life. Make some extra money for fun family experiences without phone calls, meetings, parties, or multi-level marketing schemes.