100 Pound Loss

My best friend Jane and I struggle over our weight together. Jane is older than me by a couple of years, and she’s therefore battled her weight longer than I have, and her lifestyle and work schedule are the perfect combination for sabotaging any diet plan. When push comes to shove, though we both have similar problems with weight and eating, and we have just about the same amount to lose.

Yesterday, I told Jane about my almost-5-lb. loss last week, and told her that Weight Watchers Core had been the plateau buster. She listened to me explaining how tough it had been and what I’d had to do, but she also listened to how effective it was and how, when it got down to it, I was able to stay on the diet if I was smart and careful.

A few hours later, she called me back.

“So, I’m trying to figure out this Core thing. What about a latte?”

“A fat-free latte is free. It’s a Core food.”

“What?”

“It’s free– you don’t have to use your weekly Flex points for it.”

“I’m SOLD!”

You see, her sugar-free vanilla skinny grande latte on the Flex plan was costing her about 5 points a day. On Core, she could have that indulgence every day and never have to pay the points. All the other foods were manageable for her. She doesn’t drink, smoke, do drugs, gamble, or have irresponsible sex. She sacrifices every day of her life for the people around her, but every day, she likes to go to a coffee shop with a notebook and pen and spend a few minutes writing and thinking and centering on herself. After raising 3 boys on her own and juggling two full-time careers, who can really blame her? The only vice in her life was finally being given to her for free.

“But it has to be fat free milk, you know.”

“Oh, Stephanie,” she replied. “I haven’t tasted regular milk in 20 years.”

Blood pressure: 110/71, 64 bpm pulse.

And now, a little rant…..

When I weighed in this morning and entered my weight, this is what I got from Weight Watchers Online:

While we’re proud of your achievements and pleased you’re making changes in your life, we need you to concentrate on one more thing: You should slow the pace of your weight loss to no more than 2 pounds per week.

We’re at the end of July, here. In 7 months, I’ve lost less than 2 lbs. per month, overall. Screw you, Weight Watchers. Try running a fucking average. At least an average over 3 or 4 weeks, please. The little automated “achievements” message should take an average before spouting this nonsense. Why? Because at the start of your diet (and let’s face it, a 6-month plateau means you’re essentially “starting” again), you lose more weight more rapidly. Everyone knows this. Weight Watchers Online even knows it– they have a special message in the first 3 weeks that congratulates you and warns you not to get too cocky.

Anyway, here I am, having busted through that 6 month plateau, and I can’t help feeling as though Weight Watchers Online has sucked a little bit of my thunder out of my victory.

The same thing happens with another web app I use to log my weight. You enter your goal or guesstimate for what you’ll weigh in 30 days, and every time you weigh in, it sends you an email to tell you where you’re supposed to be if you want to make it to that target weight. It seems a little messed up, since it estimates me losing 5 lbs. in the first week for a 10-lb. total loss. Plus, nothing makes you feel like taking a gun to your head quite like having a 4 1/2 lb. loss and getting an email telling you you should have lost more!

Anyway, the other, less-critical part of my brain is doing this:

GO ME! I ROCK! YEAH!!!!

With 9.5 points left for the week, I went to dinner at a friend’s house last night. This is a friend who I’ve known for about 14 years, went to college together, and saw him through his divorce. Now, he’s remarried to a wonderful woman and has 2 children.

Anyway, between his wife’s diet restrictions (no garlic) and my new diet/lifestyle, choosing a dinner was difficult. We had a bottle of wine we’d brought with us, so I already knew 2 points were going to wine.

There was a nice, healthy, grilled chicken salad option, which would have been point-free.

There was a veggie pasta option, which would cost points.

I caved. I ordered the pasta.

My victory for the night was only eating 1/4 of the enormous garlic bread roll (it was the size of a subway sandwich), and only eating about a cup of the pasta.

I’m out of points– they reset tomorrow, so I have to be on track today.

I’m also down another.8 lbs today from yesterday. I don’t need to weigh daily or anything, but I’m doing so right now just to see if any particular foods trigger inflammation/water gain more than others.

Here in Weight Watchers Core plan land, I’ve had a bit of a snag this week. We’ve utterly failed to get ourselves out to the grocery store, so we’ve been doing our usual dining out/to-go, and accommodating both my new diet, my dad’s sugar-centered preferences, and my stepmother’s low-wheat diet… we’ve had more than a little challenge here and there.

We’ve found that Thai restaurants are better than Chinese for finding plain vegetables and brown rice options. Boston Market was a good option last night– it’s possible to get green beans, steamed veggies, and brown rice in your side dish options. You just have to be willing to skip over the creamy sweet potatoes to get there.

We got a bag of grapes and I tossed them into the freezer as a potato chip substitute. This week, we’ve been doing a lot of work in the attic, and it’s hot, hot, hot! We’ve been drinking plenty of water, but it’s been like a daily 3-hour sauna for the past couple of days. Today’s rainy, which helps cool everything off.

Things I ate in the last 2 days that weren’t on the Core plan:

1 piece of full-fat string cheese (3 points)

chicken salad made with mayo (lunch today: about 4 points)

A couple of pieces of candy (~2 points)

A small amount (2 tbsp) of sherry (1 pt)

1 cup lime sherbert (3 pts)

I’ve been a Weight Watchers Flex plan member for years, ever since they rolled out the program, really. Today, I decided to switch to the Core plan. This was a good time to do so. We have almost nothing to eat in the house, so the next grocery trip we take, we can get almost all Core-happy foods. Plus, hubby was doing the “what’s on the banned list” and I’ve always had trouble answering this on Flex. On the Flex plan. nothing is banned. I can eat chocolate sundaes all day, as long as I don’t eat more than 27 points worth of them.

But on Core, the sundaes are not on the list. The basics of Core are:

Whole fruits and vegetables are OK. Lean meats are OK. Fat free dairy is ok (just for the plan, not for the actual taste of them). Fat-free/low-sugar condiments are OK. Whole grains without processing or flour is OK. Coffee is OK (even fat-free lattes are OK). Everything else costs points.

Which means last night, when my family ordered Thai food carry-out, my brown rice and veggie-tofu meal was OK. I ate one portion of it and, after a few minutes, decided I was still hungry enough for more. After eating a second portion, I felt too full. My stepmother is a wise woman and suggested that, next time, if I eat just the veggies and not the rice, I won’t feel so stuffed, but I will still feel full.

And in the miraculous transformation that is known as “leaving room for dessert,” when my family busted out a bunch of fudge, including peanut-butter fudge (my favorite), I went into the kitchen and found I had a little more room in my stuffed tummy for a nice, healthy, no-point banana.

You know what? It was delicious. And this morning, I weighed 215.8, down almost 2 pounds from Wednesday. I know this first week’s fluctuations are the result of water weight and swelling/inflammation, not real fat loss. But it often feels like about 10 pounds are that awful water/inflammation weight, and I would just as soon have it gone, thanks.

I have also had a headache for 2 days. I’m not sure it’s related to the diet, though.

Yesterday:

1 bowl of heart to heart and nonfat milk. 1 cup of coffee.

1 Kashi Southwest Chicken frozen meal.

1 peach.

1 fat-free yogurt.

2 vanilla sandwich cookies

1 cup steamed edamame.

18 pieces of sushi.

1 salad with dressing (restaurant, so certainly full-fat).

2 bites of steak.

4 handfuls of Smartfood popcorn.

Gained .6 lbs between yesterday and today.

Today:

1 bowl of heart to heart and nonfat milk. 1 cup of coffee.

1 Amy’s black bean burrito and 2 tbsp. salsa.

Water.

1/2 cu unsweetened applesauce.

1 cu. chili.

1 glass white wine

1 vanilla sandwich cookie

1 gulp fat free milk

1 hot green tea

On January 1, 2008, I weighed 226 lbs., approximately 100 pounds more than my “ideal” weight. Without getting into the politics of weight issues (of which there are many, but we’ll explore those later), I cannot say that I am a healthy overweight person. I am not. I have chronic pain in my back, hips, and knees. I do not exercise. My cholesterol levels would make a fried egg blush.

At that time, I made a renewed effort to “work the program” with Weight Watchers online. I lost 8-10 lbs in a few months, and then fell off the wagon.

Here I am, almost 8 months later, and since January, I’ve lost 9 lbs. It’s a start, but not a very good one. I live an unusual lifestyle and can’t really establish routines– from one week to the next, I might not even go to the same grocery store. So, I’ve decided to start a new blog to record both my diet and my internal journey.

I won’t kid you. This blog will be ad-supported. I can’t do everything I do without having some ads involved. So, there will be ads and such on the sidebar. There will also be pay-per-post ads in the blog content and affiliate links. It can’t be helped. But what I will promise is that any pay-per-post or affiliate link will be personally reviewed and approved by me, and that I’ve personally had experience with it. I’m interested in full disclosure, so if you’re looking at a paid-for post, it will say “This post sponsored by” at both the top and bottom of the post.

I can’t speak for the auto-generated google ads. Let’s face it, those ads use every little keyword to bring up a link, and I can’t be sure that when I talk about something negatively, an ad for it won’t appear in the sidebar. That’s just the way of it, I guess.

Starting out, I’m using the Weight Watchers Flex plan, but I’m willing to entertain alternatives. I’m even willing to go on a particular diet plan for a month at a time to compare various diet plans.

Edit: I had put a photo of myself up here, but to be honest, I’m feeling a little shy for that. Sorry– maybe another time.