Is sanity over-rated?

As of this morning I weigh 18lbs less than I did at the beginning of this year.  I'm very happy...not only that I'm managing to lose weight at a steady rate (ok, a wee bit too slow for my liking ~ I'm impatient) but also that I've got a way of visualising the weight.

18lbs = 1stone 4lbs = 8.1kgs =

I'm a visual person - it's how I roll!

The problem is that I don't stop 'visualising' there.  I start to think 'How did I manage to do that??  Carrying the equivalent of 8 bags of sugar around with me all the time!  I'm NOT EVEN HALF WAY!!'  So then I look at my body and wonder where the next 8 bags are going to come from.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not thinking 'OMG...where are they going to come from, I've none left to give?!?'  There are still plenty of options.  I just wonder how my body decides where the next lot is coming from.  Obviously I'd like to nominate areas....mainly around my middle (you know I SWEAR that the other day I felt the beginnings of muscle under my insulation...I swear I did!).

Recently my weight properly plateaued and I was really disheartened.  I eat a ridiculously healthy diet and am exercising a lot.  Now, I do have to admit at this point that a few people have tried to point out that perhaps I've not been eating enough, but that sounded ridiculous to me!  I eat.  I LOVE food.  But, I am used to having to be strict with what I eat AND I'm in the mind-set of "am trying to lose weight, don't eat too much - you FAT cow" so it has been difficult for me to 'hear' what I'm being told.  Also my main focus has been on which foods I am having problems with rather than being concerned with calorie content etc.

However, the other day I was Skyping with my friend Claire and I was moaning (shocker!) about how my weight loss had stopped.  So she asked me what I was eating and I listed off a normal day - as I did this she took a rough guess at the calorie content of each meal, by the end of my spiel, she said...

"Em Jo, I don't think that you're even taking in enough calories to cover a normal day and that's without exercising on top of that! No wonder you are not losing weight."

Me: Eh?

She suggested that I try out 'MyFitnessPal' which is a free website, you enter age, current weight, height and target weight.  It then works out how many calories, carbs, fat & protein you should be aiming for each day.  You then enter everything you eat (which I'm used to doing from keeping my food diary (wow, reading this back I have to wonder how I cope with being so blimmin exciting!!)), any exercise and it keeps a running total.  I did a couple of days from my food diary and it turned out that I was eating somewhere between 750-1000 calories too few a day!  Em....oops!

My new challenge is to try to make sure that I eat enough each day!!  HOLY TOOT...I NEVER thought I'd hear myself say that.  Fortunately I think I've nailed it...hahaha.  Since eating 'enough' I've managed to lose 3lbs, also my energy levels and focus have started to improve.

I have to fess up that I think part of the reason that I've started to 'listen' to this advice is that someone said to me that if you don't feed your body enough then it starts to eat muscle rather than fat as the protein from muscle will keep your body going longer than fat.  Well...immediately my visually-operated brain honed into that piece of information and I now freak out that I've got these wee monsters running about my body nibbling on all my newly formed muscle...FREAKS ME OUT!

Hence why, from this day forth, I'm going to ensure that I'm eating enough!!  As for questioning my sanity, well I just don't have enough hours in the day...