million - YAYYYYYYY! Hooray, amazing, congratulations! I'm so happy for you, you should be incredibly proud of yourself - I am!
Lindy - I'm so excited for you and your husband to spend time together cooking healthy meals. You already seem so much more energetic and motivated since you've been getting up and out of bed more, think how much better you'll feel when you're consistently cooking healthy meals with your husband's help! Should be great
OOW - I struggle with finding my optimal calorie range all the time! Not only does it change as the weight comes off, but it's also hard to be consistent while making what I think are good choices (I usually end up eating too little as well!) and I don't want to shock my body into hunger mode. My suggested range is about 2400 but I find I only lose consistently when I work with 1800-2200 (for now). Some days I just can't do it, and no matter what I just sit around 1500. Not going to go grab a burger to fill up the remaining 500 calories, but it does mean that another day in the week when I'm closer to that 2400 I just don't stress about it
I also find, like Torister said, that if I add healthy fats and/or high protein foods to what I'm eating it's an easy way to bump my calories up, with healthy foods. I usually throw a handful of nuts with everything I'm eating, and I use cheese a lot too. It's all about balance!
I had the best day... seriously. Fantastic day at work, stayed within my calorie range (amazingly) despite eating out all day... the plan to cook healthfully had to start tonight because there was just no way to do it through work today. But for tomorrow I have a taco salad thrown together (ground turkey is a GODSEND!) and I plan to make myself some poached eggs for breakfast... my current way of eating them is to toast a piece of multigrain bread, slice some tomatoes and put them on the bread, then a bunch of leaves of baby spinach, and put the poached eggs directly on top of that. Like an open-faced sandwich. It's amaaaaazing. Yum yum yum. Oh yeah, and after work an amazingly cute man stopped me to talk to me, and we ended up chatting for literally an hour and a half. The time flew. We talked about everything from diet and water consumption to organic food to Wittgenstein (he has his masters in philosophy, I just got my BA with a minor in it) and Kerouac (I'm an English major, he loves literature). I have never felt so great. After coming out of a 5 year relationship with a boy who literally never read anything at all, a flirtatious and intellectual conversation with a very good looking man is a very welcome ego boost. I am on cloud nine!
