I’m about a week in with CICO (calories in, calories out), and although it hasn’t exactly been easy, I’ve stayed below my calorie limit all but 1 day. I’m still well below my restriction limit for the week, which means I did better than my expected.

I’ve set a goal of reducing my caloric intake by 800-1000 calories per day below my Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE), which I calculated to be about 3200 calories depending on my physical activity. I've budgeted a little bit more calories for the weekends because I know I tend to eat breakfast or have the occasioanl beer.

I know a lot of it has to be water weight, but I'm down about 6 pounds this week. I know this will level out, and so long as I stay on track, I could lose about 2 pounds per week.

The most difficult part so far is the evening snacking. I’m noticing my biggest cravings are in the evening. I’ve been trying to eat dense, low calorie foods like carrots.

I’m also finding that I feel a lot more human if I don’t eat breakfast. Breaking up 2,200-2,400 calories over 3 meals and snacks just seems to be not that much food at a meal for my body size. I do still eat breakfast occasionally, but I’m much more mindful of how many calories I’m eating and try to keep it low with a hard boiled egg instead of cereal, which would push me way over the edge.

Even though I'm aiming for 2 pounds per week, my goal is to lose 5 lbs per month until new years, for a total of 25 lbs. From what I’ve been reading, this should be attainable, but never having dropped that much weight before, I’m not sure. I’m planning on updating this blog to log my progress. I’ll check in again next week to write an update about how things have been going.