Hunger Pangs

I AM SO HUNGRY.

I'm down to 22 points for the week because I can't stop snacking. Seriously, last night I ended up scraping up all of the leftover Bananas Foster I made for my girlfriend and eating it like a creep in the dark (which I counted as two Points, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was more). I snuck a few broken Baked Ruffles and wasn't going to count them until the guilt caught up with me and I counted them as a Point. Then I ate three cups of popcorn at, like, 4am because my stomach was keeping me up. Then I wanted something sweet so I squeezed a big dollop of whipped cream on my finger and ate it--I only counted it as one tablespoon so I wouldn't have to count a Point, but now that the secret's out, I'm going to admit it was more like two tablespoons, which means I'm now down to 21 points. F*CK. I finally knocked myself out with some ZzzQuil and slept until 10am, at which point I woke up even more ravenous. I made us breakfast sandwiches with light English muffins, eggs, and American cheese (two more points), then chugged a glass of skim milk, gobbled down a cup of grapes, popped a few salted cherry tomatoes, and I STILL feel like I'm dying.

 

Seriously, I just want to stuff my face. I want to cram food into my mouth until I can barely swallow, and I want to wash it down with a milkshake and a Pepsi. I can't even imagine how many Points I could attack right now!

 

Simply Filling is NOT working for me at the moment. My girlfriend is at the store right now trying to find me reduced calorie bread (since my delicious bread from yesterday apparently isn't a Power Food), sugar free Jell-O (I have a weird Splenda sensitivity, so she has to hunt down aspartame desserts...great, more chemicals), fat free mayo (we only had low fat, but I need something to mix with my hard boiled eggs to make a Power Food-only egg salad sandwich), and fat free dressing.

Not, mind you, just any fat free dressing. Nope, when I tried to look up fat free dressing on the Weight Watchers app, it showed that only fat free vinaigrette is a Power Food. Guess whose grocery store doesn't have ANY fat free vinaigrette? We have fat free Italian, fat free Catalina, all kinds of fat free dressings. No vinaigrette. She's getting the fat free Italian because it's showing up as zero Points, even though it's not counted as a Power Food. Well, it's zero Points for one tablespoon, 1 Point for two. Fat free vinaigrette...still zero. How crazy is that? The Weight Watchers tracker (which I use most often) says only fat free vinaigrette is a Power Food, but the Weight Watchers Power Food website says any fat free dressing and fat free mayo is a Power Food, while the Weight Watchers Power Food PDF doesn't list either fat free dressing OR fat free mayo in the Power Food list, and neither the old or the new 360 pocket guides list fat free dressing/mayo as Power Foods. Again, this Simply Filling shit is CONFUSING.

With all of these fat free goods, the entire grocery trip is like a shopping spree at the chemical plant. I'm pretty sure I'll be able to count all of the 'natural' ingredients on one hand. I hate loading my body with this many chemicals trying to stay on the Simply Filling plan. Of course, I'm eating plenty of fruits and veggies (begrudgingly), but I don't have that "yay, I'm actually filling my body with delicious whole foods loaded with nutrients!" feeling that I've had the past few months. Now I feel like I'm embalming myself.

Still, I AM planning to stick with it until my meeting. I may be hungry now, but I'm willing to stay with it, if only because I still have more than a week left of my steroid/prednisone treatment to clear up this bronchitis. I don't want to go off Simply Filling and find that I've gained 10 pounds back because of the steroids. (If that happens, will they make me give back the Weight Watchers 10% keyring and 25 pound token I got last week?...I know in my head that they won't, but seeing the keyring/token if I gain back weight is really going to piss me off.)

This starvation better pass soon. It's not fair to completely blame Weight Watchers Simply Filling because there are other factors at play here--the steroids may finally be increasing my appetite as I'd feared, the cold weather is making me feel like hibernating, being at home instead of at work puts all kinds of food options in front of me even though many of them are healthy enough on the regular Weight Watchers tracking, and I think my *ahem* time of the month may be approaching because I keep fantasizing about rivers of chocolate and Snicker bar rafts.

I think I'll try to scrounge up some fruit and whip up a Power Food smoothie before working on some zucchini chips, garbanzo nuts, cauliflower bites (I'll lighten them up and count it as my oil), and some egg salad to get me through this weekend.

If my starvation is from the steriods, I'm going to have to deal with it for another week. Until then, I need to make good choices and keep the damned whipped cream can out of my hands. No, I don't want to get rid of it because whipped cream is one splurge I love to add to my desserts and because it makes me happy. However, I'll try to wait until this Simply Filling torture test if over since I can't spare the Points.

I need this on my fridge as a reminder:

Forget about weekend drinks or Christmas candy...I just want to make it through this weekend without having a Hulk attack, ripping the doors of the pantry and fridge, and stuffing all of the food down my throat with both hands. Back to the kitchen to try to make something that's a Power Food but that actually has real food in it, instead of unpronouncable chemicals and potentially toxic-sounding substitutions for nutrients...maybe then I'll stop being so whiny. I'm getting on my own nerves.