Lots of random thoughts. I just went on the ww site to track some points and foolishly clicked on "This week's Meeting topic" I should know better, but the topic was smart snacking and ww usually really does have great recipes and ideas so I thought I'd be safe. NO. They listed things like apple slices and peanut butter and even peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on light bread, crackers and low-fat cheese, small handful of nuts, veggies and hummus, and so on. All sounds good right? And it really IS good as opposed to snacking on potato chips or candy, but did they check the points on their own suggestions????!!!! Peanut butter and apple slices sound great until you look up peanut butter and see that two tablespoons equal 5 points!! Add the point cost of the bread and jelly and it's a really stupid choice. Last I looked hummus was point heavy too and cheese is 3 points an ounce unless you eat the totally fat-free crap. I only get 29 points a day. I HATE it when I'm given "advice" that sounds good, but isn't workable. I started my own thread in response asking for real suggestions. WW DOES have good low point snack ideas--I even brought one to work today (Roasted corn with spices--really good munchie snack at 3 points). Maybe the real people struggling with the program can give me some other real ideas. Fat free pudding cups are another good one. PB2 peanut butter and apple slices are a good one. Stuff IS out there--ww even invented some of it--they could have pulled their own data banks and given me some really good ideas. Or at least given a range of snack ideas with points attached. I suppose their generic list ARE good ideas for people that are super overweight and get a whole bunch of points everyday.
Okay---enough ranting about ww. One thing I LIKE about ww is that they have the fall back core plan. It helps to have something else to do when counting points becomes unbearable. Yesterday felt good. I ate until I was full. It's still hard because there is no fat or sugar or good bread--I have to use my "extra" 49 points for that stuff, but still I had lite bagels and cream cheese for breakfast, spaghetti for lunch, and fajitas for dinner with popcorn, milk and a lemon bar for dessert. It felt good. Today I'm using my 7 points for butter on the morning toast, and blue cheese crumbles and dressing on tonight's buffalo chicken salad. I'll probably be back on points next week though. Perversely, I'm missing eating anything I want---bacon in the morning, and cheese. The cheese is important. We're in virtual Wisconsin for the month of August and to me Wisconsin means cheese.
Lemon-Bars---sigh. So so. I'll have to compute the points with real sugar. Splenda just wasn't the same. I might make them this way again sometime--for a so so light treat they're ok.
Last but not least an important thought and a happy achievement. The thought is an obvious one. Losing weight is a matter of balance--Biggest Loser proves that a person can drop a ton of weight really quickly if they're prepared to go to extremes. I prove that you can drop a lot of weight (30 pounds) super slowly if you're mad enough at the diet industry and just do what little you want to do. The reason I'm here today is that my super slow system seemed to hit bottom. I wasn't naturally willing to do anything else and I put on 10 lbs over Christmas that wasn't coming off--so the total for 5 or 6 years effort was only 20 pounds. I think to really lose the weight and get to goal a person has to find the "sweet spot" balance point--where they're losing enough to feel successful and still able to feel as though they're living a reasonable lifestyle. I think I'm almost there! The WW plan is really hard for me, but not impossible, and I'm able to go on vacations and even have a Harry Potter orgy and still keep losing weight. I usually feel somewhere between "okay" and "abundant" on the plan. i wish I would lose weight a whole lot more quickly, and if I were stricter, I certainly would. But I realize that I don't WANT to be stricter. I'd rather eat more and lose more slowly. The big new thought for me is that this is ok. In fact, it is better than ok. This is MY life and moving at this pace represents something I want to do---not what some artificial entity has deemed appropriate.
Speaking of artifical entities--hooray and bravo again to PEHP insurance company for affirming to me that small loses are acceptable and that I am doing GREAT--despite my own impatience. Every two months I have to turn in a weight verification and then they give me my new goal. My original goal was 7 pounds to be lost over the course of the two months, and the goal after the first weigh in was also 7 pounds, but my new goal is only SIX pounds!!! Six pounds to be lost in two months! I can do that! I know it will still take all I can do, but it's exciting because it means I've crossed a threshold. It's sort of the opposite of ww--at ww as you lose weight you lose the number of points you get to eat in a day until you bottom out at 29. I understand the reasoning--but it sure doesn't feel good. This is the same thing---the closer you get to goal weight the harder it is to lose so less and less is required--the difference is that that feels good! Six pounds is psychologically easier than 7 pounds, and it gives me that important reassurance that a six pounds loss over two months is ok. I think patience more than will-power might be the number one dieting foe.
Losing weight in spite of myself.
I began this blog in February 2011 as a way to help me not quit trying to lose weight, and to learn a few things. It's been an interesting and powerful experience. It certainly confirms what I've long suspected--that although I am a genuinely happy cheery person in the main, I am NOT a happy cheery dieter. I DETEST losing weight. I resent being overweight in the first place and I am a virtuoso in the art of self-sabotage. And YET--I'm doing it! I'm fighting and kicking and EATING all the way down, but the weight is finally going down. The plan I was following in February was a half-baked one largely based on wishful thinking. I gained a little weight and decided to get real. I knew I couldn't just join weightwatchers or count calories or do any one plan and expect to be successful. I decided if I was going to bother to make the effort to lose weight I was going to throw everything I could think of at the problem. And so I do. My real "Day One" for this blog is April 1, 2011. I joined weight watchers, I joined caloriecount.com (awesome website), I read the blog losingweighteveryday.blogspot.com religiously, I keep this blog faithfully, I joined the health programs sponsored by my insurance, I use the principles from overeater's anonymous, I use my church's 12 step program as well, I subscribe--and use--Healthy Cooking Magazine.
The result of all this? Painfully slow progress (About 20 lbs in 10 months). But it IS progress and like the little engine that could I keep on trying in my rebellious way. I have no intention of quitting. This is by far the longest sustained weight loss effort I've ever made in my life. Successful I think, because for the first in my life I've done this MY way--which I've discovered, involves a lot of pizza and restaraunt food. I'm convinced this is the only way to lose weight. For me it must be MY way. For you it MUST be YOUR way. Not weight watcher's way, not your doctor's way, but YOUR way. Any plan or idea I use is only a tool.
The latest plan to lose weight my way began on Oct 29, 2013. It really is my own crazy plan. As you'll see if you read that post. I've implemented the best ideas of all sorts of eating plans and thrown out the scale. A couple of months in and I'm definitely healthier. I'm actually enjoying myself. I won't weigh until April 1, 2014, so I'll see then if this works the way I hope it will.
There is no magic weight loss bullet. But there IS a great deal of magic in the discovery of what I can happily live with (very different from what weight watchers tells me I can happily live with) and still have the body and health I want.
Good luck to all of us on this journey. It's quite a trip!
The result of all this? Painfully slow progress (About 20 lbs in 10 months). But it IS progress and like the little engine that could I keep on trying in my rebellious way. I have no intention of quitting. This is by far the longest sustained weight loss effort I've ever made in my life. Successful I think, because for the first in my life I've done this MY way--which I've discovered, involves a lot of pizza and restaraunt food. I'm convinced this is the only way to lose weight. For me it must be MY way. For you it MUST be YOUR way. Not weight watcher's way, not your doctor's way, but YOUR way. Any plan or idea I use is only a tool.
The latest plan to lose weight my way began on Oct 29, 2013. It really is my own crazy plan. As you'll see if you read that post. I've implemented the best ideas of all sorts of eating plans and thrown out the scale. A couple of months in and I'm definitely healthier. I'm actually enjoying myself. I won't weigh until April 1, 2014, so I'll see then if this works the way I hope it will.
There is no magic weight loss bullet. But there IS a great deal of magic in the discovery of what I can happily live with (very different from what weight watchers tells me I can happily live with) and still have the body and health I want.
Good luck to all of us on this journey. It's quite a trip!
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