Let's Do Some Numbers

Alright. Math is about the most concrete-for-sure-not-gonna-change thing out there. Science is very much at the heart of weight loss, and math goes hand in hand with that. So, here are some numbers:

• 240 - my current weight
• 160 - my goal weight
• 2 - the number of pounds I want to lose per week, or,
• 8 - the number of pounds I want to lose per month
  
• 1500 - daily intake calories allowed
• 2500 - daily calories needed to burn

That's not so scary, right? Right? I'm in the process of breaking down my daily calories into each of my 5 meals - breakfast, lunch, dinner, and 2 snacks. So, how about a further breakdown of each meal?

• Breakfast, receiving 250 calories
• Morning Snack, receiving 80 calories
• Lunch, receiving 420 calories
• Afternoon Snack, receiving 80 calories
• Dinner, receiving 670 calories

Each of those meals may be broken up like this:

• Breakfast (250): turkey bacon (35), whole-wheat toast (87), margarin (50), and 1 banana (100) @ 272 calories

• Morning Snack (80): mozzarella stick (74) @ 74 calories
  

• Lunch (420): Salad (324) [lettuce (20), onions (64), half an avocado (144), sunflower seeds (16), walnut oil (80) red wine vinegar (0)], half grilled chicken breast (126) @ 450 calories
  

• Afternoon Snack (80): carrots (5), mozz stick (74) @ 79 calories
  

• Dinner (670): steamed rice (205), rump steak (139), steamed brocolli (87) with garlic (93) @ 437 calories

• Total planned calories: 1500
• Total consumed calories: 1312

I made a few tweaks: I would normally use olive oil on a salad, but changed it out for walnut oil. I would normally eat sirloin, but just discovered how many calories are in it, so substituted that for rump (filet would also have been a good choice). For breakfast, margarin in place of butter (even though I'm a good Southern girl who was raised to believe that margarin is the spawn of the devil), and turkey bacon in place of pork. Aside from that, everything else is relatively close to what I already like to eat!

I did a lot of reading today, most of which gave me the following pieces of information:

1. Don't freak out if you misscount, overcount, or just plain say "SCREW COUNTING!" to counting (every now and then)
   
2. Don't let the counting rule this whole process - counting is done for only a few weeks, and only then so you can gather a good idea about what you are consuming. For instance, I now know that steamed rice (a staple in my diet) contains about 200 calories, and that 1 lemon wedge ads a mere 1 calorie to that cup of rice. Awesome.
3. Drink like a fish. A saintly fish. I bought a 32 oz Nalgene today. I plan on refilling it at least 4 times a day. This should be simple, considering I used to drink about a gallon of water a day anyway.

This just gets less and less intimidating by the day. Now, to work in an exercise plan :)

Oh, btw - hey /r/fitness!