the count

Thanks for your comments and suggestions. Out of interest I decided I would take a look at what my calorie intake is actually like. I figured if I was close enough to approximately 1600 then my casual method is probably good enough and I won't bother with the religious calculations again.

Breakfast
toast (2 x large slice seeded bread) 273
tspn honey 30

Snack
small skinny cap 50

Lunch
2 x large slice seeded bread 273
avocado (30g) 50
lite ham (40g) 50
tomato 15
2 x lite jarlsberg slices 64
diet sarsaparilla 28

Snack
medium banana 100
small skinny cap (with yummy real dark choc flakes on top) 70

Dinner
grilled lemon & black pepper crumb fish 154
steamed frozen veg mix (corn, peas & carrots) 83
steamed fresh veg (broccoli, cauli, courgette) 54
1 tsp pesto 40
sprinkle fresh parmesan 20

Snacks
grapes 35
skinny cow chocolate sundae 105

TOTAL 1494
calculated from food labels and Calorie King thanks for the tip Losing Waist

Exercise
1 hour road cycling

Today was a pretty average day. My veg-fest dinner was probably less calories than normal, without some sort of grain style carbs (pasta or rice) as well as the starchy veg like potato or corn. I was also quite low on fruit, we've been tucking into lots of scrummy fresh fruit salad lately but none today.

So most likely the lower end, but it's certainly a good indication of my calorie intake. I think I'm going to count a couple more days and if my usual routine is close to target I'll leave it there.

I prefer the casual nature of not counting. I've had various experiences with calorie counting in the past. When I first started dieting at the age of 12, a school health visitor put me on a calorie controlled diet. It wasn't long before I began to obsess. My old school books were always covered in the sums. I remember frustratingly pushing myself to lower and lower daily totals, 500, 600 calories even, and wondering naively why I was no longer losing.

Then later, with Weight Watchers, I was very good at keeping to my points but I paid absolutely no attention to how they were made up. My day could have been full of nothing but carbs and sugar but so long as I was within my points I was happy. Wasn't long before my body got faint and weak, it craved the nutrition it was lacking. My mind couldn't cope with cravings of any kind and bingeing was inevitable.

This weight loss game is a simple sum, it is just calories in and calories out - the balance of what we eat and the energy we burn. The body as a whole is a great deal more complex though, as Hanlie commented to my post yesterday, it cares less about the calorie and more about the content. I might be older and wiser now, unlikely to fall into either of my previous traps, but just in case, I'll tot up another couple of days and then I think I'm best to leave the number crunching well alone.