It's Not A Do-Over, It's a New Plan of Attack!

After seemingly getting NOWHERE with my diet this past week, I've decided on a new course of action. I know, I know -- some of you are thinking, "wait a second, did she just give up on the 17 Day Diet after 10 days???" ...ummm semi-ashamedly, yes and no.

Now, why, you ask? Mentally and physically, I feel a million times better when not following a regimented eating schedule/plan. I also tend to lose more weight. So as they say, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"...and while I plan to adjust my eating (e.g. eating less processed foods and instead, more whole/complex foods), I am foregoing following a particular diet, choosing instead to set a calorie limit and ensuring I stay at/below it.

Also, I'm experimenting with something that seems, well, somewhat contradictory - increasing my caloric intake!

Say whaaat?!

Yes. INcreasing the calories I'm eating. After a quick read through random sites (which I'm sure are totally written by health professionals)..sarcasm, people...I've learned the importance of ensuring I'm getting enough calories so that my body doesn't go into what is affectionately known as "starvation mode" (i.e. not supplying your body with enough calories throughout the day signals to your body to go into starvation mode, where it begins storing all calories as fat to ensure it has enough calories to survive should it not get the calories it needs and also slows down your metabolism). Sucky, sucky.

And what's even suckier (yes, I've created a new vocab word), is that myfitnesspal totally deceived me! The calorie calculator instructed me to take in no more than 1200 cal/day....after reviewing various calorie calculators (this one was the best in my opinion), I settled upon 1550 calories/day which should equate to 1.4 lb/week. This should be far easier and hopefully works better than my starvation diet! EGH.

In other news, today marks day 3 of Insanity. Holy cow, this workout is far more intense than I'd thought it would be. On the brightside, my good workout habits have given me the satisfaction of besting all three of my male co-workers during each session. Now that, is satisfaction. Haha.

Have you experienced plateaus or weight gain due to taking in too few calories? I'd love to hear your experience and what you did to correct it.