Ups and Downs

[jamesq]

I gained three pounds and I'm OK with that. Let me tell you why.

First, about two pounds of that was stuff I ate right before the meeting, so it's going to vanish in the normal way in a day or two. I normally don't eat until after the weight in, but today work had an after-work get together for all the staff at Shänks. Not only did I eat too much, but I ate too much of the wrong stuff (should have stuck to the cauliflower). Meh, it was still good. Ironically, the first thing we talked about at the meeting was the fact that chicken wings are three points each. Whoops.

The other pound is probably the fact that I ate like a hog this week (I went on a cookie binge). Combine that with only just returning to jogging, so my metabolism has gone down a notch and there's all of the weight gain.

Next week I should be back to "normal", then I can continue to my goal, which I should make in another 3-4 months.

Six months ago, this would have been a devastating setback, but now it's just one of those things. I've already lost 60 pounds. I only have 15 more to go, so I know I can do it. It's just a matter of sticking to the program a little longer. There's a confidence that you gain from doing something once - what was done once can be done again.

More confidence comes from the fact that summer is coming - it's just easier to lose weight and keep it off during the summer as you have so many more opportunities for physical activity.

I ran at the oval last week and on Monday, which gave me the chance to "re-calibrate" my stride. I'm now running a kilometer in 900 strides, which means I'm even faster then last fall. Today I ran outside for the first time in over a month. I was charging up hills, leaping over sheets of ice and generally taking great joy in running flat out. It was fan-fucking-tastic! I think I did 6K in about 32 minutes.

If I could be this confident in my dating prospects I'd be a happy man.

Comments

[ladyerwyn.livejournal.com]

Can you tell me how the point system works?

[jamesq]

Short version:

You get a certain number of points per day based on your current mass. At 214, I get 26 points. You are required to eat this much a day - trying to eat less then your target is bad (it can throw your body into "starvation mode", where it strangles every last calorie and you don't lose any weight). Slow and steady wins this race.

You also get 35 "bonus points" to use anywhere over the week. You can use this for any day you go a little over, or save them up for a weekend binge.

You can "gain points" by exercising - up to four points a day. I almost always get my exercise points because of my running and walking to work.

Food costs a certain amount of points depending on the calories, grams of fat and grams of fibre. The formula is approximately ((cal)+(4*fat)-(10*fibre))/50 [but you can only count up to 4 grams of fibre]. They don't expect people to work out that formula - they give you a little slide rule that does it automatically. I'm a little OC about numbers though, so I actually do work out the formula. In fact, they don't even tell you the formula, I had to look it up myself.

They give you a book when you join that has the point values of many common foods. There are websites that have the point values for many more, including the menus of most major US restaurants.

Weight Watchers has another plan called "Core" (the one above is "Flex") where certain foods are ok and others cost points (a different kind of points), but I don't know the details.

The two most important thing I find about the flex points system are 1) By keeping track of where your points are going you suddenly see what's causing all that weight gain. A candy bar or two cookies or a bag of chips a day doesn't seem like much when you're eating it. When you realize that its the equivalent of two days of normal food over the week it's a bit of a shock. 2) You start to triage your eating habits. Take those chicken wings. Before WW I might rationlize that chicken is a pretty healthy meat (and it is when it's not deep fried and slathered in teriyaki sauce). Now I'll think twice about ordering it if I know that a plate of wings is on the order of 30-50 points. That's every bonus point I have for a week and most of my exercising. Hmm, maybe a garden salad and a light ranch is a better idea.

You can take the occasional day off without impacting your weight loss. My problem recently is too many of these. I also have a problem where I stop counting points if I'm in a social situation with lots of finger foods. Gaming is the worst because we'll put a bowl of whatever out on the table. Yesterday's "eat and drink at the pub on work's tab" outing was bad for the same reason. More pool, less grazing is what I needed.

So yeah, a candy bar is 6-8 points. knowing that's a third of your food for a day, will you still eat them? We'll yeah, I'll have them, but occasionally. I find after nearly a year on WW, that they don't taste as good as I anticipate though. My tastes are changing and I'm craving vegetables more (my recent cooking class also demonstrated that my family has been cooking vegetables wrong my whole life which contributed to my former hatred of all things onion/pepper).

I also subscribe to "Fuzzy Niven's Law" (Don't waste calories - if you're going to have an ice cream sundae, make it a spectacular ice cream sundae). If I'm going to take the point hit, It won't be on a hershey bar, it's be a piece of dark Belgian chocolate that takes five minutes to melt in my mouth and gives me a theobromine endorphine rush.

A word of warning - WW is not just about the points. It's a support group that educates you about health and nutrition. The meetings are an important component of this. If you're interested in the program and can afford it (It costs me $15 CDN a week to attend), you should check out the meetings. Not everyone needs the meetings (plenty of people have lost weight without it) but I do. The points will help you lose wieght. The meetings tell you how to do it safely, with an eye towards a healthy, well-balanced diet.

[ladyerwyn.livejournal.com]

That is really helpful. Thank you. I have been slowly changing my eating habits and I want to take some cooking classes to learn to cook healthy things that are good. I rarely eat fast food anymore and when I do I find that is kinda gross and really greasy. Only my memory makes it seem better. I've also been going to the gym 5 days a week for two months now. I work in a library so I know how to do research so I've been going through all sorts of stuff so I can do it right.

I don't think I'm a meetings type of person. I'm sure it would be really cool, especially when I could talk to others going through the same thing, but I'd end up dropping off. I'm realizing that I have to do things my way or I just don't keep with it and I am sticking with everything. I'm getting older, (i'm not that old yet, but I better start while I can) and I don't want to end up having strokes, heart attacks, getting adult onset diabetes, etc. I also am just very uncomfortable with my self right now. One day I woke up and realized I was bigger than I thought I was. It seems like you'd know your own size, but it just hit me one day. For a long time I had an image of myself that was closer to my 18 year old self than my current 27 year old self.

I'm just taking it one step at a time. I quite drinking pop, I've begun excersizing 5 days a week and will soon begin hiking on weekends, changing my foods that I eat to more fruits, vegetables, stir fries (watching the sodium filled sauces though) and now that I am no longer drinking pop I think it's time I cut out sweets and only eat natural sugar in fruits. I'm thinking I might only let myself eat them on special holidays, but I might just give them up all together. Usually this type of thing doesn't work with me, but I realize how much it's screwing up my diet. There was a time I hardly ate any sweets and I can't pinpoint when I began to eat them regularly.

So thanks again for the info. Maybe I'll show my husband that formula because I can't do more than basic math to save my life and I'll check out that website.

[wendy-licious.livejournal.com]

You can also do the plan on-line if you don't think meetings are for you. Then you have access to forums to discuss and ask questions as well as all the "tools" (a points calculator and such).
I'm with James though. I love my meetings. I'm a Lifetime member which means I've lost an am at goal. I like weighing in each week because it keeps me accountable to myself. I also find it to be a "boost" at the beginning of the week. And you get great recipes and tips too!

[ladyerwyn.livejournal.com]

Last night after looking at a lot of things I decided to buy the "at home" plan, so I just have to wait for that to come it and I also checked out the website. It looks pretty cool. I bought the deluxe plan that also comes with a calculating tool type thing, other than those slider things and booklets. I think you can input info from a food label and it'll calculate the points.

[ladyerwyn.livejournal.com]

I just checked what I had for dinner on that list and discovered it wasn't as healthy as I thought.

I was going to go to KFC because I just spent the last couple of hours shopping and didn't know what I wanted to make for dinner and when I left I had to go somewhere for dinner. So I'd been having a hankering for crispy chicken and mashed potatoes, so I thought I'd go by there. When I got there and saw the twister wraps I thought, "hey one of those 'oriental chicken salads from applebee's would be really good and it must be healthier than this greasy, deep fried chicken". So I went to applebee's and got one. Well I looked it up and it turns out it's worth 20 points and what I would have ended up getting at KFC was 13.5. It has to be the chicken and the sauce in the salad.