I've been steady on this weight loss journey for 10 months now. I lost a bit of weight, not as much as I had planned, not as much as the goals I had set for myself, but I lost weight and haven't gained it back.
I've been eating healthy since elementary school. My obesity is mainly due to my utter and complete lack of exercise, and comfort eating through high school. I've been counting calories since January 1st 2010, but I'm not going to lie, there are weeks where I don't count, because I'm sure I know what I'm eating. Really I'm not. But it feels good to pretend like I know everything. Those weeks usually happen when I feel good, when I just lose some weight, or have accomplished something. I weigh myself weekly on Saturday morning, and last week I weighed in at 171.6 pounds. I hadn't lose weight for a while, but I just started going back to the gym, and I was so happy that it was working!
Then, my partner decided we had to go to the mall to get a new video game, so I innocently tagged along, and ended up facing an entire aisle of breakfast cereal on sale for $3 a box. I don't know where you live, but here a box of Lucky Charms is almost $6. So well, I bought 2 boxes of sugary kids cereal. Which is no big deal, I have been eating sweets, fried foods and pastries this whole time. As long as it fits in my calorie budget it'll fit in my mouth.
Well anyhow. I came home with said cereal. Sugary, bad-for-you kids' breakfast cereal. Ahh! Now keep in mind I just weight myself at 3 pounds lighter than last week. I'm feeling great! And I'm not counting calories. And what goes better with happiness than food! And so I ate a bowl of cereal. Which is not bad. About 200 calories. The problem is, before I bought the ******* cereal, I didn't have that bowl of cereal in the evening. Now I do. I've been eating one every night. Scratch that; I've been eating 2 every night, for 4 nights in a row now, and I haven't been keeping track of my calories. I have to weigh in tomorrow morning, and I KNOW I will have gained, because I KNOW I did not burn those extra 4000 calories, there is just no way. And I know what I need to do, and I guess I just needed to vent, but those ******* sugar clusters have gotten me so stressed out all day. It's not like anyone is going to cut my head off if I gained weight, but I JUST started losing again and I'm going to HATE myself so darn much if I didn't manage to at least maintain...
I know how you feel! I have been going crazy on Raisin Bran...not too bad for you unless your eating bowls upon bowls of it, it adds up. I would just slowly work in foods to replace one of those bowls a day and eventually take it out all together.
Look. Breakfast cereals like that are just candy packaged in a box. Would you sit around and eat a bowlful of candy? Well, that's what you're doing.
I don't care how cheap the cereal was, you didn't do yourself any favor by buying it. You can see that now. Throw the rest of it out, and don't buy more. This is obviously something you don't need to have in the house.
We've been talking about cereal on another board recently. I had a horrible encounter with a box of Special K last week that left me feeling sick for two days. (it was a long, overindulgent encounter, IYKWIM)
I am another who has decided to eliminate cereal from my life. I am also working to transition my children to other choices for breakfast. This is going to be hard.
FWIW, I get 1600 for your cereal calories. 200x2bowls=400, 400x4nights = 1600.
Throw it out. It isn't wasting anything--you wasted the money when you bought it. You wouldn't eat poison even if you spent good money on it, so don't eat this.
Sugary breakfast cereals = crack for me. I do buy cereal for my family but I make sure that it is a kind that I don't like. I'm relieved that my son no longer wants Cinnamon Toast Swirls. Now he just wants plain old cornflakes.
The only breakfast cereal I can keep in my office is Kashi Go Lean. Because it tastes awful, I am not in the least bit tempted to eat it except when I'm desperately hungry for breakfast. I have tried to keep slightly less revolting cereal around, like Special K, and the box just doesn't last. Go Lean is the only cereal where I can stop after one small portion.
Sugary cereals are lovely comforting treats but Jay Ell nailed it - it's not that different from eating candy. Vitamin-fortified candy.
I can't do it! I literally can not do it. I can fight through any craving, turn down any snack offered to me, pick the best choices in bad situations. But, stick a box of captain crunch, a spoon, a bowl and ice cold soy milk in front of me and it's all over! Might as well get the moving dolly ready because they're going to have to wheel me to bed when I'm done. I can't stop. So, I don't even start.
Weight loss is a process. Unfortunately you had to learn this lesson the hard way, but think about this next time you're faced with that situation. Just think of this as another tool in your weight loss storage shed! And you know what? Breakfast cereal that you would have never bought before at $6 a box is now 100x more expensive because you bought 2 boxes on sale.
I do bran flakes. Plain ole ordinary bran flakes. No sugar, no fruits..just 1 cup of bran flakes and 1/2 cup of milk. Oddly enough though, I love the stuff. Great fiber start first thing in the morning. It's not as good as say, shredded wheat, mind ya, but that stuff is dreadful!
I hear ya, spaghetti is my crack, I can't have it - period - it sends me on total binge eating - like i will make the whole box and eat it in one sitting. What i did was gathered up all the rice, paste etc in the house and gave it away and threw out what was already opened. It was hard going for a few weeks coming of the carb highs I would give myslef but that is what you gotta do, throw out the cereal - open the boxes and dump em into the trash.
Breakfast Cereals Have Ruined My Life! (Sorta.)
(it was a long, overindulgent encounter, IYKWIM)
