I’m still sick…I hate being sick. For the past three days I’ve been sneezing, coughing and congested with body aches. My back is the worst and It doesn’t help that it hurts more if I sit or lay down. So I’m left to stand. Sigh. My boyfriend made me a sandwich since I told him I wasn’t hungry lol. I probably needed to put something in my system anyway. He made a salami, mozzarella and spinach sandwich melt on french bread and put some tortilla chips on the side. It was pretty good and the fact that it was warm was really nice!

Now if you remember my old post ”Brighter Days”  I had mentioned that I joined a 28 day vegetarian challenge on VegetarianTimes.com. True I did and I was doing fine until my boyfriend made me the cog au vin. Though controversial, it was humanely raised chicken…so it said on the label. I decided to look up the matter and there are lots of different opinions about humanly raised animals. I’m not going to go into much detail about it but lets just say I’m still 50/50 about it. Is it the same or not the same? I’m sure it’s a bit better but we can chat here forever about the technicals.

Okay people now is time to get your wallets out and let the betting begin. Alright I’m only messing with you. I am going to be doing a four week self challenge series. So this week’s challenge? A NO CALORIE COUNTING WEEK. Yes, that’s right I said it, no calorie counting. Time to hide the jorunal and calculator!

This also means you won’t being seeing the nutrition content of the foods that I make if I post a recipe on the blog. I really want to do the whole 28 day vegetarian challenge but when I go home for my birthday weekend, my mom is cooking my favorite dish: Chicken in the oven with yellow rice and white beans. Mmm, I can taste it now. The main reason for not eating meat for me would be for health reasons since I have digestion problems like I’ve mentioned before. I just feel super heavy and bloated from eating meat. That’s just me anyway. For now, I’ll just do a short term commitment of one week no meat for next week’s challenge.

Back to the calorie counting…I think that I’ve come to that point in my weight loss journey where I don’t need to do calorie counting anymore. I primarily use it as a cushion or when I know I’m on vacation and want to stay on track.  I has become a routine for me so it isn’t something that is difficult or takes up time. I just want to not have to do it anymore but rather “eat mindfully.”

That being said, I don’t dislike calorie counting anymore. It is really important to see how much you eat when you are first starting to loss weight so you can get an idea of how much you are putting into your body. Numbers can be shocking. I know that I calculated my favorite Domino’s splurge in college and it was around 1700 calories and who knows how much fat, sodium, etc. I was also pretty much sedentary while I was in college at that time too. For one meal I basically ate a days worth of calories. Not too smart. It helped me see the damage I was doing to myself. I realized it was something I didn’t want to do to myself ever again.

If you’re a calorie counter like myself, join me on this challenge! Try it out, even for a few days. And if you are just starting on your weight loss, try the calorie counting or even journaling what you eat. This will help you see what you might need to change in order to reach your goals.

Follow my challenge series updates on my YouTube Channel

Wish me luck and good luck to those who try it with me too!