dianaschnuth

The good news: I’ve started the Couch-to-5K running program!
The bad news: I gained 1.6 pounds this week.

I’ve deposited the requisite amount of money into my Oops-I-Gained-Weight-This-Week savings account, to be withdrawn only when I reach Goal. And that’s all I’m going to think about this week’s gain, except for the acknowledgment (or possibly just the hope) that it was due to starting a new exercise program.

Truth be told, while I was staunchly strict during my first 20-Point week, I was a bit lax last week: I only stayed at or below 20 for two days. Most days, I ate around 25 Points, and I went absolutely batshit overboard on Monday night (yes, the night before my weigh-in). Linda told me to increase my Points just a little this week, but I’m inclined to try to do another true 20-Point week, just to see if it makes a difference.

Tomorrow is a retirement send-off lunch for one of my IT co-workers… at Spaghetti Warehouse. The good news is that they have detailed nutritional information online, so I can decide on a few options before I head out. There are actually a few reasonable lunch options above and beyond spaghetti with marinara sauce, thankfully.

My plan for the week is to eat slightly larger lunches, focus on fruits and veggies (but be sure to eat my protein — my muscles will need it), and to continue with the C25K program. One month until my beach vacation, and I’m going to look good in the pictures this time!

As you may recall, my Weight Watchers leader suggested at last week’s weigh-in that I cut down from eating 25 Points a day (plus my 35 weekly allowance) to 20 Points a day, period. Since I regularly spread out my weekly Flex Points over the course of the week, that essentially cut down my intake by one third, from 30 Points to 20.

It wasn’t easy, but I did it. I rediscovered tasty salad options and reasonable portions of lean protein. I was reminded that eating complex carbs for dinner tends to stall my weight loss. (That’s one benefit of daily weighing.) And I realized that, yes, I do have willpower to draw upon. It all depends on my mindset.

See, Weight Watchers has me trained well. This is a lifestyle change; this is how I eat now. “Diets” don’t work.

Except when they do.

If I have the mindset of “I’m going to be eating this way for the rest of my life,” then I will naturally take all of the built-in flexibility that the program offers. I’ll use my weekly allowance to let me eat things that would be verboten on a normal diet, or to expand my portion sizes, or to otherwise play with the rules. Because, damn, if I have to eat this way forever, I’m going to find ways to make it tolerable.

This is why I’ve been plateauing for the past year-plus: I’ve been training myself on how to be in the Maintenance phase, apparently. I’ve got that downpat.

When I discover the tipping point, when I realize that I have to be more strict for now in order to lose weight, I’m on a diet again. And, for me, that’s a good thing.

I woke up on weigh-in day five pounds lighter than I had been a week before. Of course, by the time noon rolled around, the official Weight Watchers weigh-in claimed I’d only lost 2.6 pounds.

Only. Hah. That’s more weight than I’ve lost in one week since… let’s see… *checking WW eTools* …September of last year? And I’ve been in a holding pattern for much longer than that: since September 2008.

You’d think I would have thought to change it up long before now.

At any rate, I’m moving in the right direction again. I’m learning how my body processes food and how much it needs, and I’m getting more active with the nicer weather and longer evenings. I feel so much better, both physically and mentally, when I bring my A game to this whole health and fitness venture.

I’m on the 20-Point regimen again this week — I’m off to a rocky start, having gone over by a few points yesterday and today, but I’m stepping it up tomorrow and through the weekend.

Looking forward to seeing what I look like at my lowest weight ever. Just need to lose another five pounds… then keep going!

<mantra> I am a strong and confident woman! </mantra>

My weight loss has been slow but steady of late: between ½ and one pound per week. Last week, though, my progress slowed; I only lost 0.4 pounds, and this week I gained that 0.4 pounds back.

Granted, since my weigh-in is at noon, right before lunch, that fraction of a pound could have been one well-timed bowel movement last week, or a mistimed glass of water this week. Even so, I agreed that I would put money into an account for every week I gain at Weight Watchers this year, so I did that this evening. I set up a new savings account at ING Direct, and called it “Goal 170” — when I hit my weight goal of 170 pounds, I’ll take that money and buy some new clothes for myself. (I wonder what size they’ll be?)

My Weight Watchers leader, Linda, took a good hard look at my numbers after she wrote down my weight this morning. She paused, squinted, and asked me, “Can you do 20 Points this week?”

For those of you not familiar with the Weight Watchers plan: I currently get 25 Points per day, plus 35 per week to use whenever I want. A Royal Red Robin Burger is something like 30 Points by itself, while I can have one of those Weight Watchers meals at Applebee’s for around 9 (for an entree plus soup).

I’ve been spreading my Weekly Allowance Points across the entire week, eating about 30 Points a day. Cutting down to 20 a day is going to be a challenge. But, like I assured Linda, I don’t have anything special going on this week that I need to save them for. So, here we go.

This, my friends, is a diet. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Turns out that Linda used this tactic on another member today, who just happened to sit next to me at the meeting. She’s been stuck within the same five-pound range since October. Even though my plateau has been considerably longer than that, it does make me feel validated (vindicated?) to know that I’m not the only one a.) having plateau issues and b.) having to cut way back this week.

The other two people who sat down by me today are Lifetime members (meaning they’ve hit their goal weight and stayed near it for a goodly amount of time). Between my fellow plateauer and the Lifetime folks, I really felt like I was experiencing a sea change in my diet attitude, just by association.

Dinner tonight was an iceberg and spinach salad with strawberries, onion, black beans, and fat-free poppyseed dressing (1.5 pts); a 4.3-ounce baked chicken breast with 1 tablespoon of nonfat vanilla yogurt, plus thyme and rosemary (4 pts); and carrots with ginger and garlic (2 pts). Those seven-and-a-half Points were about the most filling Points I’d eaten in some time. Plus, I actually sat at the dining room table to eat my meal, rather than watching the news or playing a game or even browsing on my iPhone. I focused on my food, enjoyed it, ate slowly, and was comfortably sated by the time I was done. Dessert, a couple hours later, was a small glass of fat-free milk with zero-calorie chocolate sauce (Walden Farms; surprisingly delicious).

If I continue to plan ahead, treat myself to food that’s tasty AND healthy, and not give in, I can turn this thing around. Tomorrow is our team lunch at work; I can easily be good enough for lunch that a large salad and a chicken breast will be sufficient for dinner.

No worries. I’m looking forward to this.

It’s been a full year since the last time I did a full weigh-and-measure, and the numbers… well, truth be told, they’re not as bad as they could be.

Weight: 195 lbs (on the home scale – up 4.4 lbs from last February)
Bust: 43″ (up 1″)
Chest: 36″ (up ½”)
Waist: 40″ (up 1″)
Hips: 46½” (up ½”)
Upper Arm: 13″ (same)
Lower Arm: 10″ (same)
Thigh: 25″ (up 1″)
Calf: 15½” (up 1/4″)
Neck: 14″ (same)

The good news is that my weight has been on a steady decline since the beginning of the year: I’m down four pounds (according to the Weight Watchers scale), which is an average of 0.7 pounds per week. It’s slow loss, yes, but at least it’s consistent.

I’m taking a kind of carrot-and-stick approach right now: when I reach a weight of 190 (on the home scale), I get to buy a new bathing suit for my Mexico vacation. The snag is, the vacation is at the end of April, so I need to get a move on if I’m going to order my suit online and get it in time. (If I don’t, though, at least I do own a swimsuit that fits.)

On the punishment side of things: if I gain weight one week to the next at Weight Watchers, I have to put money into a savings account. Since I calculated that each pound I gained last year cost me $64.75 in WW fees, that’s how much I’ll put in per pound. (Pro-rated for partial pounds gained, of course.) In the end, I’m going to use that money to buy myself clothes when I reach my ultimate goal of 170… so it’ll be untouchable for a while. Luckily, I haven’t had to pay into that account yet, and I hope to avoid it altogether.

I haven’t been as vigilant as I should be about diet and exercise for some time now. I hit my first plateau over a year ago; I tried pushing through it at the beginning, but the lack of results just drug me further down, until I started just coasting. (At least I didn’t give up entirely, though: things could be much worse right now!)

For now, I’m trying to mix up my food and my activity, fill up on fruits and veggies, appreciate that slightly hungry feeling, get muscle-sore on a regular basis, all those sorts of things that I haven’t been doing.

If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.

How much can I push myself to lose in the next four weeks?

The Lane Bryant catalog arrived yesterday.

I pulled out the coupons and leafed through the pages, coming to a stop at the swimwear section. My first thought was, “Why would I buy a zebra-striped swimsuit? It just screams out, ‘Look at my rolls!'”

Then, of course, I felt guilty. Big women are beautiful, too, and I shouldn’t be projecting my feelings about my own body onto these plus-size models.

I realized at that point that the LB swimsuit models seemed to run the gamut of sizes. Without knowing how tall they are, they seemed to go from the low end of Lane Bryant sizes (12 or 14) to maybe a size 18 or 20 — again, depending on height. I’m relatively tall for a chick — 5’10” and a size 14/16 at 197 pounds — so I’m no judge on sizes. Some of the women didn’t look “plus-sized” at all, while others… well, I just wished I could stick a pin in them and let a little air out, and then they’d look just about right.

Which led me to realize: I don’t know which of these women I most resemble, shape-wise. Am I really that fat? I don’t know! I can’t tell. When I look at the thinner plus-size models, I think of them as “normal.” Not stupidly skinny. They have some meat on their bones, but no rolls. But I don’t think I look like them; I must be fatter than they are. Then I look at the larger models, and I hope I don’t look like them… except, well, they look good, too. Sure, they’ve got rolls, and thighs, and upper arms, but they’re pretty and confident and they fill out their clothes well. They don’t look sloppy, just big.

It wasn’t until I did my own private swimsuit photo shoot in the basement this evening that it occurred to me: plus-size models get airbrushed, too! It felt like the biggest “duh” moment ever. You can’t make me believe that none of those big and beautiful ladies has any cellulite on her thighs.

Still, though, I’m having trouble with the mixed signals I’m getting. The Health At Every Size/Fat Acceptance movement would have me be perfectly OK with being a size 14/16, as long as I’m healthy (which, as far as I know, I am) and not eating unreasonably. Weight Watchers says that my health will improve significantly if I lose just 10% of my body weight. The Wii Fit tells me I should be some skinny damn weight I haven’t seen since elementary school.

I just want to feel comfortable in my own skin. I want to stop feeling self-conscious and embarrassed around fit people. In addition to the social aspects, though, I’m curious what I’ll look like when I drop another 20 pounds (on top of the 50 I lost a few years ago).

I think I have some psychological fine-tuning to do, beyond the physical and behavioral that I already knew was ahead of me.