Calorie Surprise
For the longest time I convinced myself that I really wasn't overeating. And in fact I really wasn't, at least not very much or very often. Here is what I ate the day before I started my diet and it was a pretty typical day:
Coffee w/creamer (5 cups): 75
Lunch
Chicken Sandwich: 700
Fries: 450
10oz Apple Juice: 175
Dinner
TOGOs reg Ham/Cheese Sandwich: 630
TOGOs sm Salad w/ Italian: 70
12oz Lemonade: 165
Snack
Glass White Wine: 120
Bowl Cherry Garcia Ice Cream: 250
Total Calories: 2635
So somewhere around 200 calories more than I needed. Not huge, but 200 calories extra everyday for a couple of weeks is 1lb of weight gain. And that is how I got to 215lbs. And I NEVER realized it until I sat down and actually worked out how many calories I was eating.
But wait there's more misconceptions and self delusions as to the amount of calories. Occasionally we will have Thursday breakfast at work, the admins bring in bagels, donuts and juice for everybody. Now I'm an educated guy, I knew the donuts were death on a stick so I stuck to the bagels and cream cheese - you know the healthy stuff. Boy I could easily inhale a couple of poppy seed bagels. Well guess what almost 300 calories for a bagel, add another 100 calories for the cheese and multiply by 2. An 800 calorie snack to get the day going, a full 1/3 of the total calories I need. And I NEVER knew until I started counting calories.