How much I'm really eating...

Woke up and weight 144.5, same as yesterday.  I guess that's not too bad given that I haven't taken a dump since Sunday or Monday (TMI, I know).  Thing is, this morning I felt like it should have been less.  I didn't feel "heavy".  But it made me start thinking about what I really ate yesterday, calorie-wise and I didn't find anything that makes me think my weight gain has been for any reason other than just eating too much.  Looking at the details shows kind of a different thing than looking at it in aggregate.

In aggregate - I eat veggies and protein at pretty much every meal.  I don't eat a whole lot of inherantly unhealthy food. 

In detail - I stuff food into my face pretty much constantly.  I don't often really feel hungry.  I've made a habit of getting a cooking in the post-lunch doldrums (and do some disordered eating of it).  I don't drink nearly enough water (gonna go get some right now, now that I think about it).  I regularly eat 5 meals a day so if each of those has a 100 calories more than I "count", I'm over by quite a bit, even if those 100 calories come from whole, unprocessed food. 

So today I decided to write down everything I eat.  Nothing fancy like an iPhone app, just pen and paper.  The results so far (its just after lunch) are enlightening if not surprising.

M1:  Berry smoothie
S1:  Turkey, brown rice and peanut butter while making my lunch ("I'm in the fridge anyway")  (150 calories)
S2:  Last Rolo in Cynthia's candy jar (30 calories)
S3:  Chips and Edamame on my way to cafeteria (100 calories)
M2:  Strawberry, granola, yogurt parfait
S4:  Chips and edamame on way to get lunch out of fridge (100 calories)
M3:  Turkey and vegetables, apple

So I can see that it isn't even so much that I'm eating big helpings of bad stuff.  It's that I'm eating so many calories-worth so mindlessly, without even thinking about how they add up.  380 so far today, without any need to or enjoyment from doing so.  Just stinkin' habit. 

On sort of a similar note, there was a Precision Nutrition blog post that struck a chord with me today.  It was about decluttering your mind to pay attention to only what is really important.  Don't get distracted by every thing your read or hear.  Filter it before deciding whether its relevant and important. 

I think I got away from that a little bit relative to my eating habits.  I think, in fact, that Precision Nutrition was a contributor to the clutter.  I was looking for something other than "you're eating too much" to be the answer to my weight gain.  Adding that clutter seems to have only made things worse.  Advocating nut butters and flavored protein etc. etc. only added to my mental idea that there was something I could eat that would make me thin - when it's exactly the opposite (what you don't eat makes you thin) and that if I eat too much but eat all the macro-nutrients at the right time I'll somehow end up thin also. 

So, I'm going to go back to the basic basics.  Got rid of the nut butters from the fridge.  Will not fool myself that some "anytime" concoction that has lots of calories (but the right macronutrient distribution) is somehow a better snack for me than a piece of fruit or a hard boiled egg.

And we'll go from there.