Goals or Good Intentions?

I swear to God I tried to meet my goals today.  I went for a walk although we were limited for time, chosing instead to walk the shorter route just to make sure I did get the walk in.

I went to the store and made smart purchasing choices so that I can get off this stupid merry go round that has me either going over on sodium in order to keep the calories down, or going over on calories in order to keep the sodium down.  I don't know why it's been such a juggle this week. 

My goal has been to eat no more than 1800 or so calories.  Today I made it to 2000.  I'm fighting the urge to just go ahead and eat dessert anyway since I've already blown my goal.  And by dessert I mean angel food cake with strawberries, nothing really bad.

I am so frustrated because today was one of those days that begged to go off program.  While we were out I was ogling Taco Bell, Grandys - you know, the bad places I couldn't fit into my day even if I wanted to. 

Yet I remained steadfast only to go over my caloric goal anyway.

I have to get refocused.  Okay, so I went over a few hundred calories, I can afford it.  I burned 3800+ so I still came in 1000 calories under, which is the absolute MOST I will ever allow myself to eat.  According to the caloric reduction method to losing weight, you calculate how much you burn and then you create a deficit.  500 calories under what you burn will equate to a one pound a week loss.  1000 calories under what you burn will equate to a two pound a week loss.  They recommend you don't go under 1000 under what you burn, but I found that Richard Simmons' caloric recommendation is what works best for me for consistant weight loss, and that's 1800 calories (or 2000 less than what I burn).

I have just been so famished this week.  That might suggest that my body NEEDS more calories, I'm not sure.  I do know not eating enough can stall the weight loss progress as well.  We'll have to see what this weekend's weigh in shows us, I may end up bumping up my calories.

Because it just really sucks that by 11pm (when fitday changes over to the new day) I'm already piling on the calories so that by 12am I've already done significant damage to my totals.  My strategy today was that I was going to prepare a filling dinner and let the calories fall where they may, because I am not going to go hog wild at midnight.  Solution - eat something substantial.  The only problem is finding something substantial that fit into the 200 calorie window I had left.  I tried every solution I could think of, the best thing was the chili dogs (thanks to my best friend Jeff, he turned me onto some low fat low sodium chili dog stuff that made it legal for me to eat these again, yayyyyy Jeff!), but unfortunately my sodium was already so high that the total for that would have gone off the charts at over 3500. 

Sooooooooooooooo I guess what I'm saying is I'm going to forgive myself for not meeting goal today.  I've been beating myself up about it all week and that's just counter productive.  I can't change what was, I can just move on. 

And I'm gonna have my strawberry shortcake.  Tomorrow is a new day.

Calories: 2184 / 22% fat
Sodium: 2434mg
Water: 48oz & counting
Exercise: walked 1 mile