DAY 18

189.2
This all seemed to go down hill once I stopped counting everything.  I can't use the PMS excuse.  I think I know where this went wrong (spaghetti sauce) and I'm going to give myself one more week before I start counting everything again.

I have a feeling that there is some kind of magic in keeping track.  I hear it all the time.  People will say, "I don't know why I'm not losing weight!" and I ask, "Are you keeping track are you writing everything down?" and they'll say, "No, I do it all in my head."  Well, maybe that's not good enough.  Maybe if we're not measuring it out and writing it down, we really don't have a clue how much of what we're putting in our mouths.  Maybe, just maybe, we're not as smart as we think we are.

Its discouraging/motivating to look back at this time last year and to see that I was 20 lbs lighter.  I was counting calories - writing everything down and lost the weight easily.  But, here I am a year later 20 lbs heavier.  Something somewhere went wrong.  I think it was that 1500 calories a day was not a very realistic goal for me.  Before I get too discouraged, I should look back and realize that I was losing weight and that I made a couple of bad choices in the past couple of days that caused me to add a couple of lbs on.  I just need to learn and move on.

New Rules:  No more than 3 glasses of wine (or shots of tequila) in a given night.  No more spaghetti sauce or tomato sauce until I have reached my goal.   Limit non-green vegetables.  When I was counting everything, I naturally limited them because they were higher in carbs and I was on a budget.  Like I said, I will give this one more week, then I'm going back to counting.  Finally, No breaking the rules for dinner guests.  It's not necessary.  Everything I cook is delicious.  And, its just to easy to fall off the wagon.