That's exactly right, Sedoniaraqs - slow but sure is the way to do it. I've lost nearly 30 lbs so far, at the blinding speed of just about eight months.
Funny you should mention the calorie thing - I just this evening bought Charles Platkin's "Countdown" book that lists the calorie, carbs and fat content of 7,500 different foods, from fresh fruits and veggies to soups, donuts and bacon burgers. There are days when I'm pretty sure I'm under-eating and others where I think I ate okay, but I really have no idea what the calorie count was. Guessing, as you said, is a poor way to manage important issues, so I picked this book up to get a clearer picture of my daily caloric balance.
You know what my biggest hurdle really is, though? Throughout my life, I've never been able to sleep enough. I remember when I was a young child, rearranging my bedroom at 2am, or reading a book, or just watching out the window. As an adult, it's still reading or it's the internet - I just can't seem to make myself go to bed early enough to grant me 8 hours of sleep.
When I was younger, it didn't matter, I could totally handle the sleep deprivation. Today, though, not at all. I have sleep apnea (which means even the sleep I do get is not particularly restful) and I have chronically low levels of iron; put all three of these together and, well, you get one massive feeling of exhaustion.
I'm sorry, I digress (I'm in the middle of addressing the apnea and the iron levels with my doc, so it's on my mind) - my point in mentioning all this is the effect it has has on my willpower. It becomes difficult to make the right choices over the easy ones. When I've had a particularly hard few days, I crave potato chips and french-fries insanely, and just thinking about trying to pick out what I'm going to wear to the gym is debilitating - never mind actually going!
My doc has finally convinced me that this issue has the potential to cause me serious consequences if I don't do something to mitigate it, so I've been taking the same small steps here as I did to change my eating habits. I used to stay awake until 2a or 3a in the morning every night; my current goal is to get myself into bed by midnight, and I've been more or less successful at this for about a month (at least, I seldom stay up past 1am now). Soon, I'll aim for 11p. Since my natural sleep cycle is 1a to 9a, I doubt I'll ever be able to go to sleep much earlier than 11p, but I'm blessed enough to have a job that allows me to sleep 'till 7a - so that will give me that ever so necessary 8 hours.
Wow, I'm really rambling tonight - I hope I haven't bored all of you to tears!
I have less than 15 minutes to brush my teeth and get my tired ol' carcase into bed!
