Okay. So I am following this 1200 calorie a day program, and it is tailored to my preferences, so it is actually beautifully BTD friendly. However, 1200 calories doesn't seem to be enough food to feed my 13 pound CAT, let alone a 5'10" woman doing an hour of exercise every day. Am I hungry? No, I can't say that my stomach is growling or anything, and the meals are really yummy and healthy - lunch was a turkey burger with lettuce, tomato, and dijon mustard, and sautéed mushrooms on the side. And I had a chicken thingy stuffed with spinach and feta cheese for dinner, with some kind of sauce over it and a large side of steamed spinach. It's low-calorie, certainly, fairly low-carb and fairly low in fat, and tastes REALLY good, AND is BTD compliant, so what's my problem?

Part of me thinks it is just sugar withdrawal, and/or fat withdrawal since I probably overdo both of those (but still far less than the average American, and far less than I ever have). I dunno. It just seems so... unsatisfying somehow.

And today I ended up going to two grocery stores and buying not only stuff that we need, grocery-wise, but also about 10 times more chocolate snacky stuff than I EVER buy. And I'm not even supposed to have it this week! As I explained to Gordon, I feel the need to have it around. If I have it around, I feel like I can ignore it until I can have it, but if it isn't at least AVAILABLE, then I will end up at the 24-hour grocery store at 2am buying bags of acceptable chocolate chips (or something) and stuffing my face with them until I can eat no more. So now at least I won't go crazy because there isn't chocolate in the house.

I've never been one to count calories, especially since the BTD came along. I know that if I eat 100 calories of wheat (especially regularly) I will gain weight. If I eat 100 calories of lamb or spinach or artichoke (etc.) I will either maintain the right weight for my body, or I will lose weight and/or build muscle. All calories are not equal. And I know that if I go low-carb for a few days, I drop weight really easily. So this 'low-calorie' thing is new to me - and I'm used to eating however much I want, EVEN when I'm trying to lose weight.

We'll see how the rest of the week goes.

Monday was the first day, and I had a few roasted, salted pecans in addition to the regular meal plan. Yesterday I did fine until mid to late afternoon, then I got a bad headache and we went out to dinner. Even so, I had a few pecans, and then had roasted chicken with apricot sauce, salad, steamed vegetables AND a handful of french fries for dinner. All in all not too bad, and I think that the low calorie stuff combined with eliminating any and all sugar from my system cold turkey was just too much for my body and that's why I got a headache. I considered the fries therapeutic, but they didn't help get rid of the headache. I was in bed early last night, and slept 9 1/2 hours last night. Today, I also did fine until dinnertime, and then I waited too long to eat and ended up eating a handful of dark chocolate covered raisins as we were on our way home from Trader Joe's. Part of me thinks I needed the extra 150 calories, part of me thinks I shouldn't've eaten them.

As I said. We'll see how the rest of the week goes.