On the Importance of Tracking

Yesterday there were not so many green check marks on my Sparkpeople page. I had a fine breakfast (a little higher in cals than normal) and lunch, came home from work feeling peckish, had some toast with fresh mozzarella, snacked on a piece of cake, opened a beer and then tracked my calories and discovered that was it for the day, folks. All used up. Hmm. Ok then. 

I looked at the kinds of food I'd eaten, realized that I was within my ranges for protein, carbs, fats (a little over, but the day before was a bit under) and that I was not hungry and decided that I was done eating for the day.  My beer was a lovely Sam Adams Honey Porter which took me an hour or more to drink, so that tided my tongue over until it caught up with my stomach. 

I'm noticing that when I start tracking my food, I get better about tracking my money. I love charts and things like that to show me my progress.  When you are out of money, if you keep spending you are just getting into debt. And when you've reached the end of your calorie allotment for the day, if you keep eating, you're getting into calorie debt. 

Without tracking, I would have had my little bread and cheese snack and then just counted that as a an appetizer and would have gone on to fix something else for dinner.  By tracking, I was forced to just sit and think - "ok, this says I've eaten enough calories for the day. Let's see, do I feel like that is true? Yes, actually, I do. Ok, lets move on to something else."  I need the outside information to help me calibrate my inside information.  

Plan for the day: eggs & toast for breakfast, trip to the dump, Lunch Party at my mom's with more cake and planning for chicken coop building.