The Blerch.

I'm totally into the Blerch now. If you don't know what this is, please check out The Oatmeal's The Terrible and Wonderful Reasons Why I Run Long Distances.  I'll be here when you get back. 

It's amusing, right? This poor guy puts his body through hell so he can eat whatever he wants.  He says he's like a trained circus animal. He does a trick, he gets a reward. This. Is. The. ONLY. WAY.
I can't get weight loss to work for me unless I grant myself food as a job well done. What does that say about me?

I have a Fitbit. It's awesome. Like Ferris says, "It is so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up." The Fitbit is a pedometer. That's it in a nutshell. The other more awesome thing it does is that it's got an app. This app takes into account your height and weight and then tells you how many calories you should be eating to lose weight.  Sounds simple enough, right?

I used the thing for weeks. Followed what it was telling me religiously. I got my 10K steps a day if not more and I was within my calorie range. I was not losing. I wasn't gaining but I wasn't losing.  This is when I noticed there's a "personalized" calorie range and a "sedentary" calorie range.  The personalized range assumes you're a good girl and you've burned the number of calories it wants you to for the day. My goal is 2338 for a calorie burn. I RARELY, if ever, make it to that goal which is why I wasn't losing anything. I was basically eating for maintenance.

I switched my calorie range to sedentary and all of a sudden the skies turned blue and cherubs started singing!  The way this works is it assumes you do NOTHING. Nada! If I woke up at 12:01AM it would tell me I couldn't have any food for the day. Obviously, I don't get up at midnight, so by 7AM when I get to work it tells me that (even without walking around) my body has used enough calories for me to eat 250 calories of something and still lose weight. HOW AMAZING IS THAT?!?!!!?

Then off I go to eat my breakfast of 300 calories and get on with my day feeling like I've accomplished a workout and I've. Done. Nothing. It's amazing, really.  On it goes for the rest of the day. Normally, I move around enough during the morning at work to allow for about 400 calories for lunch. I take a walk and try to get close to my 10K steps. When I get home, I can have another 400ish calories and sometimes, if I haven't had a 200 calorie snack... I get to have dessert.

Believe it or not, it actually works for me. I don't really understand why it clicked but it totally makes sense in my head.