Category Archives: health & fitness

A narrative of my journeys with diet, exercise, and various healthcare professionals

reviews, weight loss Leave a comment

Dueling Diets: Weight Watchers 360 v. Lose It!

First, the good news: I lost one whole pound at this week’s Weight Watchers weigh-in!

Ironically enough, though, I wasn’t truly on-program this past week. I was tracking on the free Lose It! app, online and on my phone.

I’ve done similar stunts before, although usually I’ll double-track on both WW and Lose It, like I’m doing this week. (I thought I’d plug all of last week’s data into my WW eTools, but it proved way too tedious to do after the fact.)

So, why do this other thing, when I’m already paying for Weight Watchers, and I know it works?

I first started using Lose It last year, I think it was, when my Mom needed a (free) diet plan to follow, and I couldn’t keep e-mailing her the PointsPlus Values (PPVs) all of her foods. It was different when I could give her my Points slider from the old Points program — now they’ve made the PointsPlus calculations more complex, so members need to buy an electronic doohickey to calculate PPVs (or use eTools online). Long story short, Mom needed a free option, and Lose It had a social aspect, and one of my friends was already using Lose It, so I double-tracked on this different weight loss program to support my Mom.

Turns out that I really like the user interface of Lose It! And UI is everything when it comes to usage, and usage in this case equates to consistent tracking of food and exercise.

Things I like about the Lose It UI:

  • I like being able to scan the barcode of a prepackaged food within the actual tracking app. WW requires members to use a separate scanner app that then imports to the Tracker app, and the scanned foods database seems to be more sparse than the database powering Lose It.
  • I like the little icons that represent my food. Yeah, I’m a dork. I know it’s fluff. But it’s part of the experience, and I like it.
  • I like being able to see my macronutrients (protein, fat, and carbohydrates). WW isn’t set up like that — the calculation for PPVs specifically makes it easier for members to avoid tracking a bunch of numbers. I like being able to see, for example, that I only got 19.5g of fiber today — should probably ramp that up just a little. That’s just me — if left to my own devices, I would eat macaroni and cheese for most meals of the week. Keeping tabs on my macronutrient percentages helps me not pig out on the pasta, and make better choices for dinner when I see that my carbs are out of control.

I originally had my Lose It program target me to lose half a pound per week. I kept under my calories quite handily on that program. No problem! Hence how I lost a full pound last week, I think — I was doing better than I had to, staying below my target calories, feeling good about my adherence to the program.

Today was my WW weigh-in day, so I decided to start double-tracking today. After lunch, eTools said I only had two PPVs left for the day (wha…? stupid side of macaroni), while Lose It said I still had half my calories yet to go! Hello, disparity! So, I went into Lose It and told it that I wanted to lose two pounds per week. Bingo — then they both matched.

For the most part.

It’s still a challenge to track exactly the same thing in both trackers when I’m eating “real” food — or non-prepackaged food, anyway. For example, that side of macaroni and cheese I had with my lunch today:

Carbs Fiber Protein Fat
Lose It!  49  2  9  2
WW 360  40  1  20  17

All right, so why am I tracking in two separate programs again?

Mainly because I wish that the WW interface looked and acted like the Lose It interface. Plus, I like the fact that I can specifically tell Lose It, “Listen. I want to lose a half a pound a week,” and it tells me how much to eat to mathematically hit that target. I can adjust my PPV target in eTools, but it’s kind of a shot in the dark. Plus, I hate to do that without my Leader’s guidance, because it feels like cheating.

“Oh, I can’t seem to find the willpower to stay within my PPV range — let’s raise it to something I can stick to.” What?

So, I think my goal for double-tracking this week is going to be to get myself back on-plan for Weight Watchers. I know myself. I know that if I allow myself to get too far off track, I’ll just throw up my hands and stop tracking. How about I figure out how many PPVs equates to Let’s Aim For Half A Pound A Week Instead Of Two, then successfully stick to that for a while?

It’s not quitting. It’s not cheating. It’s making the plan work for me.

weight loss 1 Comment

Long-Lost Weight Watchers Buddies

I’ve been a member of Weight Watchers since April 22, 2008 — over five years now. During that time, I’ve lost a bunch, re-gained some, re-lost some, had a baby, re-gained after the initial baby-weight loss, then re-lost some. Through all that, through being on-plan and sort-of-on-plan and way-off-plan, the only time I really left the meetings was while I was pregnant — and even then, I still weighed in on my own to keep myself in check.

I attend At-Work meetings, held every Tuesday during lunch. They’re super convenient, especially now that the Yoga Basics class is on Thursdays instead of competing with my meeting. (OK, for several months, I did skip meetings in favor of yoga — but only rarely would I skip a weigh-in!) They’re even more convenient since At-Work meetings have moved from a 17-week renewal schedule to a Monthly Pass setup with automatic payroll deduction.

The only downside seems to be that people who drift away from the meetings don’t have that kick in the pants to come back and renew their membership every few months. Ten bucks bi-weekly isn’t missed much, plus — “Hey, I’m going to go back eventually! Just not this week. And I have vacation next week. And I need to recover after vacation. So, eventually, I’ll get back to WW, so I won’t cancel…”

Right?
Continue reading →

weight loss Leave a comment

Renewing My Focus

There was a time when I would sit at my computer every Tuesday evening and write about my weigh-in. I’d determine where I’d gone astray that week and make plans for the following week. After a while, those posts started to get repetitive, and I started to wonder why I kept writing them if I didn’t plan to do anything different.

So I stopped.

Tonight, I’m sprawled on the loveseat, smartphone in hand, tapping away at the screen. Wondering where my tape measure is — it’s been months since I took any measurements — but not caring enough to look for it. My mouth still hurts from yesterday’s adjustment to my braces, so I went over my Points allotment for today by holding off on eating until I was starving, then eating all the soft and unhealthy things I could find.

I’ve gained a few pounds back that I had previously lost, but nothing epic. Yet. If I keep eating this way, with wanton disregard to the program and my daily target, I’ll quickly balloon back up to my Oh Shit weight.

I’ve been in this weird half-assed limbo for some time. Not really tracking, not really caring if I lose or stay the same.

The thing is, I do care.

Deep down, I’m tired of my clothes not fitting quite right. I want to honestly say that I don’t care if my shirt touches me just so. I want my pants to fall more naturally in the front, and not do that weird fat puckery thing in the crotchal region.

I also want to feel better. To have more energy. To sleep better. To reduce the stress on my offset vertebra and relieve my bulging disc.

It’s a challenge, though, to draw the parallel between Right Now and my Someday Goal of losing 20 more pounds. Right now, I want dessert. Right now, I want to go out with my co-workers, or my husband, or my friends. Right now, I want a hard cider. It’s challenging to step backward from that goal and to see how tiny choices will affect my getting there.

But they will. And they do. And they have.

The next time I decide I want something from the vending machine, or some French fries, or an order of fried rice, I need to step back and reconsider. Eye on the prize and all that.

Sometimes, though, it’s just so hard to make myself give a shit.

braces 1 Comment

Operation Braceface: Day 243

Today was my fifth adjustment, and boy, was it a doozie.

Over the past seven weeks, I’ve had it easy. No chains, no elastics, nothing except my archwires. The goal was to get my one bottom front tooth rotated into position before continuing the process of closing the gaps.

Well, it’s in position. Commence gap closing.
Continue reading →