Week 1

Day 1: Tuesday: 1,260 calories

I do love popcorn, especially this Natural Light kind, and I'm glad to find out how few calories it is. The Baked Lays I can do without - next time with my veggies I'll grab a Powerbar.

Day 2: Wednesday: 1,147 calories

Today was a struggle. Due to my splurging on the quesadilla I had to actually decline my parents' dinner invitation to actually have a healthy, well balanced meal to have a tiny dinner. If I eat a 300 calorie lunch, I can have more for dinner or throw a snack in. I'm proud of being right at 1,200 cals, but I was hungry most of the day (particularly between 4 and 6pm). I'm sure it'll get easier. My eating habits were pretty horrendous before. I'm cutting my daily intake by over 50%, I would estimate.

Day 3: Thursday: 982 calories

All I can say is WOW. Under 1,000 calories! I was pretty hungry between 8-2pm. I had breakfast at 8 and by the time I got back from campus and back from the store, I ate around 2pm. I was slightly hungry starting around 4pm, but we had dinner at about 5:30. I was happy to discover that I couldn't even finish the plate at Jose's. I only had 2 out of 3 Toastadas. My mom even gave me 4 Blueberry Muffins to bring home, 200 calories a piece, but I wasn't even hungry enough to eat one a couple of hours ago (I'm not going to eat 2-3 hours before I go to bed). I'll have it with breakfast, possibly, or with carrot sticks for lunch, though. :)

Day 4: Friday: 1,293 calories

Being close to 1,300 is a little disappointing, but I can't be right on 1,200 every day. I don't want to ever go over 1,300 though (except maybe on gym days). Happy I stayed within my calorie range though. I was excited I got to have a snack and dessert today. I like keeping my breakfasts and lunches light. Nutritious, but light. Gives me a little freedom for dinner and a possible dessert or after dinner snack.

Day 5: Saturday: 1,198 calories; gym day

I was extremely happy to see that I lost 2.3 pounds since TUESDAY by just changing my eating habits. I'm sleeping less, but sleeping better, and I just overall feel better. Yes, I'm still hungry a lot in between when I eat, but being in control of how many calories I'm eating and what I'm eating is so fulfilling. I wish I could lose 2.3 pounds every 5 days, but as long as I'm losing weight, I'm definitely happy. I look forward to going back on Monday around this same time. Tomorrow I am going to clean my apartment - not sure how many calories I burn doing that - and maybe take a long walk depending on the weather. It's nice that it's spring break now, but a week from Monday my gym schedule sadly is going to change a bit.

Day 6: Sunday: 1,224 calories

Last night I calculated how much a Chipotle Burrito Bol or Burrito would be the way I like it - vegetarian with black beans, green tomatillo salsa, rice, guacamole, and cheese - and it would be 515 as the Bol and 805 as the burrito. But if the staff would cut it in half, it'd be a 402 calorie dinner and a 402 calorie lunch the next day. Interesting. Definitely something I'm going to "splurge" on in the near future! I made my breakfast kind of hefty - I only have one more power muffin from my mom, which I'll eat tomorrow, but after that I'll go back to just having oatmeal for breakfast, so 200 calories will be cut out of breakfast again. (Or at least 140 - might have an apple with oatmeal starting Tuesday.)

Day 7: Monday: 1,248 calories, gym day

I'm still lacking in protein, but I am going to learn a few fish recipes and make those, plus I'm going to look for anything with black beans in it - or else buy black beans plain and figure out a way to use them. Cramming the peanut butter in instead of butter raised my protein level by a little bit, but I was still slightly under my suggested range. It was the closest I have gotten though.