dianaschnuth

Aaron and I like to go out to eat on weekends. It’s what we do. It wasn’t what we did once upon a time, when we were both poor college kids, but it’s what we do now.

Eating out wasn’t easy when we were on Atkins, almost five years ago, but we knew what we could eat and figured out how to adjust our dining to suit. Once we got into the groove of Atkins, there were very few places where we couldn’t finagle ourselves some meat and veggies without bread or starch.

Enter Weight Watchers.

This isn’t a more challenging plan overall; in fact, I appreciate being able to eat pretty much whatever I want in moderation. There are things to stay away from, as a general rule, but very few (if any) completely forbidden foods. It’s all about planning ahead.

In that vein, I decided to make a “short list” of restaurants and entrees that would work out well for my current diet. So, when Aaron gets up on Saturday morning and asks me where I want to eat, I can pull a name out of my arsenal of good choices, instead of playing the “I don’t know — where do YOU want to go” game until we’re both so hungry that I just give in to the siren song of the Chinese buffet.

Some places have online menus with nutritional information; for those places, I look online and decide on two or maybe three different menu items to choose from when I get there. For restaurants that don’t have their own nutrition facts online, but that are easily researchable, I take my digital camera (for lack of a cameraphone) and photograph my plate of food. That way, I can go back later and tally up what I ate (and compare it to my mental calculations of what I’d *thought* I ate).

So, without further ado, I present The Short List:
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I know it seems like weight loss updates are all I’ve been posting lately; at least, it does to me. I’ve been spending more time playing Culdcept Saga and figuring out some blog coding tweaks than sitting down and blogging, so I haven’t really been posting any substantive blog entries of late. I wish I could promise that will change… but I can reliably promise no such thing. I can but try.

At any rate, I’m back on the decline! Tuesday’s WW weigh-in had me down 2.4 pounds from last week, and today’s Spring Challenge weigh-in had me down 1.5 pounds from my spring starting weight. Any way you look at it, it’s good news.

BUT. Next week starts my vacation.

Am I taking a vacation from healthy eating and exercise? Not entirely. I’m planning to continue tracking my food until the day we leave for Hawaii, and begin tracking again the day we return (or once the jet lag subsides). While I’m in Hawaii, I’m going to stick to reasonable eating habits: not stuffing myself overfull, not going completely ballistic on booze and sweets, and definitely staying active. We’ll be in Hawaii, for gods sakes! Beautiful weather, all the time. Swimming, walking — I might even join the local Aikido club for an hour’s romp.

I honestly don’t expect to gain much (if any) weight during those seven days. That’s the plan, anyway.

I’m not sure why I keep posting updates. Both James and I are sucking it up big time, and really can’t seem to keep focused on our weight loss goals. I’m back above my spring starting weight again.

However.

I took a big leap on my birthday (Tuesday, for those of you who aren’t keeping track): I joined Weight Watchers. My employer sponsors a Weight Watchers At Work program, so I can go to a WW meeting with my co-workers during my lunch break every Tuesday. It seems fairly well attended — I think there were at least 25 people there, probably more.

I didn’t get the standard-length Getting Started talk; instead, I got a quick explanation and the Week One materials. I’m OK with that, though, as everything seems fairly self-explanatory. The program isn’t difficult to understand. Take a short assessment of your activity level, current weight, gender, and age to calculate the number of points you should eat in a day; use the nifty slide rule to compare fat and calories and fiber to calculate the points value of a food; and track what you eat as you eat it.

Easier said than done.

I’m discovering some important things about myself. Firstly: I am an evening eater. During the day, at work, I’ll eat something small every two hours, and I’m fine. Once I get home, though, it’s time to relax and kick back — and part of the comfort of home is the comfort of food. I enjoy the physical act of eating.

Which brings me to my second point: if it’s in the house, I’m going to eat it. Before I decided to go on WW, I asked Aaron to buy some cans of Beefaroni during the weekly grocery run. (I knew I was being naughty, but I didn’t care.) Once I committed to WW, I could easily have stuck them in the back of the shelf and pretended they weren’t there. Did I? No. Instead, I calculated that one can of Beefaroni is ten, count ’em, ten points, and proceeded to eat the Beefaroni anyway.

Also during last weekend, I had a moment of weakness and bought some homemade sweets from a guy at the flea market: coconut-covered date rolls, chocolate-covered banana chips, and chocolate-covered espresso beans. I’ve been fairly good at keeping my hands out of those, though. Somehow.

Not only am I finding it challenging to slow my evening eating, but I’m finding Weight Watchers to be a major paradigm shift from eating low-carb in general (I haven’t been on the Atkins Diet proper for some time now). Things that I used to think were fine — unbreaded catfish nuggets, protein bars and shakes, peanut butter — are now taboo. Things that were once taboo — fruits galore and real milk, among others — are now encouraged. Where before I could satiate my snackie fix with an Ostrim (ostrich/beef stick — very lean), now I must go with strawberries or pickles.

I’m not expecting big things out of this first week. I’ve already eaten through most of my flex points for the week (even if you don’t count that first day, when I just ate “normal” to see how many points that would be). I know I’ll get the hang of it, and learn all the tricks of the Weight Watchers masters. For now, I really just have to focus on being dogmatic about the diet: Do what they say to do. Don’t question. Don’t go outside the lines. They know what works.

I’ve also discovered some motivation that I wish I would have thought of sooner: trying on the swimsuit I’ll be wearing on vacation in two weeks. It’s a one-piece that I bought a couple of years ago and haven’t had the chance to wear for real. While it does fit… I really feel like a sausage in it. My husband is probably the only person who will think this is sexy. And now there’s no time to do anything about it. I can’t take care of this in just two weeks. Well, I could, but it wouldn’t be healthy.

So, without trying to sound too down on myself, that’s where I stand. Can’t keep focused. Feel frumpy. Thinking that 175 pounds is a pipe dream.

I’m not as fat as I was. I have a lower BMI than many people in my Weight Watchers group. But that doesn’t mean I’m happy with the way I look and feel.

You’d think that would be enough motivation, wouldn’t you? Meh.

Another quick update: back to spring starting weight, after re-losing the few pounds I gained from eating so well much during the Anime Punch weekend extravaganza.

Seriously contemplating either a.) a new low-carb diet or b.) Weight Watchers. Either will require me to be good mindful of what I eat on weekends. Either would be more effective than what I’m doing now (a grow-your-own sort of calorie-counting almost-Zone diet).

It would be easy to berate myself here, but Sensei charged us during Zen yesterday to practice doing no harm this week, both to self and others, and berating myself would only be harmful. So, I will instead accept my shortcomings, bow to them, and let them go.

And come up with a new plan.

Just a quick update: I’m down 0.7% from my spring starting weight, and James is down 1.6%.

I’ve been having some weird fluctuations in motivation and mood lately. On one hand, I can see how these fluctuations are directly related to what i eat and when; on the other hand, it’s damned hard to change habits sometimes, even when they’re detrimental to one’s well-being. Basically, I need to eat lighter in the evenings, and lay off of the carbohydrates late in the day (even whole grains), otherwise I’m more inclined to munch all night (or until I manage to make myself full).

CONSTANT VIGILANCE!