[scoutycat]

Ugh, I find that although I'm doing pretty well with calorie counting, I'm always in a panic about how many I've got left. It's been a month now, and instead of getting better it seems to be getting worse. I can look and see 1600 calories left and still feel like "ack! what if there's not enough to eat?" even though I know that I haven't had a problem maintaining that over the course of the day, and not being hungry. Heaven forbid I should get within 200-300 of my goal calories, I feel totally stressed about it - even if I'm not hungry and it's 11 pm, well past the time that I would want anything. I'm trying to attack these thoughts with rational thinking, but like I said I feel like they're amping up instead of going away. My reaction is to want to eat nothing but spinach and lettuce, so that I don't 'spend' my calories just in case (in case of what, idk, some crazy binge I guess). I've been kind of making myself eat at least 1400 calories a day, preferably 1600, even though I'm supposed to have about 1900 per day to lose 2 lbs/week.

My concern is that I'm going to eat less and less, instead of really figuring out how to moderate. I had issues with anorexia and bulimia when I was younger, and I'm concerned that I'm following a similar pattern. I don't think I'm likely to start starving myself or purging again, but the kind of all or nothing thinking that I have around food is not healthy and I'm not sure how to fix it.

help!

[toobig]

I wish I had an answer for you. I think you will be ok just eating 1600 calories a day. That's about what I ate the whole time I was losing. The advice I have to give myself over and over is to calm down and settle in for the long hual. The weight gaining process was a long term deal and the weight loss process will be a long term situation as well.

[dstalksalot]

At your weight, you should be eating your allotment of 1900 or so average a day......you can gradually decrease cals as you lose. It is hard at first and I think it takes a while for your mind or body to trust that you will give it the nutrients that it needs. If you start too low you risk stalling out later when you can not go lower. Eat your calories!

Perhaps think about calorie cycling. You can cycle low to 1700 on one day and higher to 2100 on another day. This will give you a bit more freedom in your weekly allotment. Perhaps that will help. You can also think about scheduling out your calories..... for instance 500 for breakfast 200 for after dinner snack etc.. That may be too much restriction, but perhaps that will help with the feeIing of not knowing if you have enough.

The way to lose weight and keep it off is in small permanent changes. Do what ever works for you and give your self time to adjust to the changes you are making .

[scoutycat]

ok, I'm going to focus on getting my calories at least over 1600/day and not exceeding 1950 (my 2lb/week loss goal). And keep telling myself that this is not a race, slow and steady is going to win - not starving it off.