Keep On Truckin'

Not weighing in this week is driving me CRAZY. After three days and nights of a veritable food orgy, I really need the reality check of getting on the scale so I can point myself in the right direction again. Alas, my meeting this week was cancelled and I still don't have a working scale, so I have to wait until next Wednesday to see my Christmas damage.

Seriously, I ate a lot.

I stayed within my Points for the week--but just barely. Like, when I got into the negative numbers, I went in and gave myself Activity Points for things like doing the laundry and playing with my niece and nephew. And then when I went negative again, I started scrolling through the food I ate and amending the amounts ('that 1/2 cup of mashed potatoes was really more like 1/4 cup...and I didn't finish that piece of cake so I'll only count 3/4 of it...'). There was just so much temptation. I didn't go crazy, but I did do some serious buffet-line-grazing. And I just had to "test" the nachos every time I stirred them. And it's not like you can have just ONE chocolate chip cookie when there's a whole bag just waiting to be eaten...

Now that Christmas is over, it's hard to get back into my good habits. I had a snow day yesterday, so we spent the day lazing around and eating leftovers. I knew it wasn't a good idea to bring leftovers home, but I'm a sucker for green bean casserole.  Extra cheesy.

My stockings were thankfully candy-free! I asked everyone to refrain from giving me sweets, so I ended up with tons of new earrings and trinkets and even some sugar free Jell-o boxes (score!). Plus, I got some awesome stuff for the kitchen. A new food scale, a really nice knife block and new knives, some stainless steel measuring cups, some measuring scoops with teaspoons and tablespoons on the handles, an olive oil mister, a garlic press, etc. So in between the bombardments of cookies and candy, I also got gentle reminders of my healthier habits.

It was also really nice to hear all of the compliments from my extended family--they last saw me about twenty pounds ago, so they can see now that I'm losing weight. And I only had to delete half of the photos of myself, instead of the usual 90%, so that was nice also.

I'm struggling to get back on track, and knowing that my next weigh-in is a week away has made me even more reluctant to be good. I'm still snacking on my girlfriend's candy, and I'm not drinking the water I was before. But I'm tracking everything, so at least if I gain next week, I'll be able to flip back through the last two weeks and see all of the bad decisions I made that showed up on the scale.

Hopefully I can reign it in before then, though, and actually lose a pound or two!

Simply Filling Sucks.

I totally would have caved today if I knew I wasn't going to be writing or telling anyone about it here! When I woke up, I remembered that today was a baby shower at work, and we were all gathering at a popular local pizza joint for lunch. Talk about a food trap. I was determined to stay strong. I only had seven Points left to complete my Simply Filling Technique week and I was hoping to use those points for my dessert each night. So the pizza place was truly torture. There were baskets of garlicky breadsticks, plates full of dipping sides, and an entire table full of hand-tossed gourmet pizza running with cheese.
 
What did I have? I packed some egg salad and reduced calorie bread, which I ate at my desk before we went to the baby shower/pizza gauntlet. Plus some pomegranate seeds mixed with sugar free Jell-O. Then I had some 94% fat free popcorn, and I was still hungry the instant I walked through the doors into cheese and pizza-scented heaven.

While everyone else passed oozing slices and fragrant breadsticks, I sat there with some cherry tomatoes, an overripe banana, and a clementine on my plate. It was maybe the saddest meal ever eaten at a pizza parlor.

I passed up the cupcakes as well. White and chocolate, with a mountain of blue frosting. They looked wonderful and really triggered my sweet tooth, but I think they were still easier to pass up then the pizza was. Stupid Simply Filling.

 

Tonight I had polenta and veggies with fat free cheese, and a salad with fat free Italian dressing (Still a Point! Grr!) and croutons made from my rosemary bread. I followed it quickly with another Smart Ones sundae, and with my last bite of dessert, my final Points were gone. Damn.

 

I'm still hungry right this minute! I think I could go raid the fridge and eat until I literally exploded. 

 

 

And I don't use the word 'literally' liberally. It feels like I could actually eat until I split through my skin.

 

I read on some Weight Watchers post that members have given themselves an extra seven Points during their first Simply Filling trial. I think that may have to happen--I don't think I'll be very pleasant to be around if I force myself to wait until Wednesday morning to eat anything with any Points value. Maybe I'm not strong enough, maybe I'm not doing something correctly, maybe I'm just too much of a glutton still at this stage to eat only Power Foods, maybe the steroids or Aunt Flo (gross, sorry) or finally feeling better after two weeks of bronchitis are all conspiring to turn me into a carbo-loading eating machine.

 

Whatever the reason, I'm willing to cheat and go over my weekly Points by up to seven if it means I can avoid eating my dog or turning on a small village, zombie-style. I suppose I could have counted all of the cleaning I did this weekend as Activity Points, but I still feel guilty counting Activity Points unless I'm, like, in workout clothes at the gym. Which hasn't happened yet and probably won't until I lose enough weight to be able to workout in public without humiliating myself. So there you have it.

 

Anyway, just one more day and I'll be gifted 43 magical daily Points on top of 49 weekly Points and I'll be so happy I won't know what to eat first!

Thinking About Food

Man, I'm really trying to keep my mind off of food today. I have seven points to get me through Monday and Tuesday, and I've been unintentionally torturing myself all day by watching Christmas movies. All of the cookies and cakes, the baking and decorating, the big meals and steaming bread. Eggnog and hot chocolate and buttery rolls and nutty cheese balls. Mmm. This Simply Filling week is at least making me recognize when I'm missing out on.

In place of the foods I drooled over on screen, I made a big batch of tofu bacon (mostly a Power Food--the bit of maple syrup I add is less than one point) and some cauliflower. I also spent some time organizing the kitchen. I've been spending a lot of time in there cooking, and it makes it so much easier to cook a complex, healthy meal from scratch when the kitchen is tidy enough for me to find everything.

I put my tofu bacon on reduced calorie bread with fat free mayo and fat free bread, and loaded it up with tomato slices. It was actually better than I thought it would be. But I wanted to make something a little more appealing for my girlfriend, so I made some quick pizza dough and baked her a big, cheesy tofu bacon calzone. I stuffed it with three cheeses, brushed it with olive oil, and finished it at the end with some garlic butter on top. It's like I'm living vicariously through the food I make her--plus, I have to work hard to make sure she doesn't lose so much weight that I give up again. If I can't brush my food with butter now, someone should be able to. Yes, I used to brush my food with butter. Not always, but it does make baked stuff twice as delicious. My family cooks like Paula Deen (and I have been to the Paula Deen buffet and waddled out with a purse stuffed full of bread and desserts--it is truly a magical experience). That's the last place in the world I would want to go today with only seven points left! I would probably have a stroke.

Anyway, my girlfriend needs the extra butter so she doesn't waste away.

See, she's one of those natural thin people. I don't understand people like her. If there's a candy bar in the house, it amazes me that she doesn't even think about it. If there's candy in the house, I am pretty much thinking about it until it's gone. She doesn't eat dessert--I don't consider a meal complete until I have something sweet in my mouth. She eats until she's full and then stops--I have never been able to naturally do that. So she doesn't get my weight loss experience, not really. She's incredibly supportive and helpful and amazing, but she doesn't get it.

The hard part about being the one to cook all of our meals is that she eats what I eat. When I start a diet or my meals take a healthier turn, she starts dropping weight like crazy. It's like those weight loss pill commercials--I try and try and try to lose a pound, and she starts shedding fat like a candle melting. She's on medication that boosts her metabolism even more, and she's much more active than I am. It's all extremely discouraging. When I lost a little weight before, I got so impatient that she was losing faster than I was that I totally gave up after a one week setback. I'm not blaming her. I'm just saying: when I change how I eat, she's the one who reaps the benefits first. Being so much smaller anyway, it's obvious when she's dropped five pounds, while I'm having trouble seeing that I lost 30.

So aside from the vicarious pleasure it gives me to bake her up flavorful, cheesy, buttery recipes, it also helps make sure that she's eating more wholesome food without going on a starvation diet. I wonder how other people do it. I can't imagine raising kids and having to choke down fat free cheese on diet bread while they scoop up macaroni and cheese with, like, french fries and milkshakes. I don't know. Whatever kids eat. I just know that my girlfriend's calzone looked a hell of a lot better than my sandwich, but if I can make it until Wednesday on Simply Filling, I'll be extremely proud of myself.

Sometimes testing your own willpower can be useful.

Keyring, Token, 360...Oh My!

Many small successes today :)

Although I was scheduled to be in a two hour meeting during my Weight Watchers weigh-in, I managed to sneak out and run the half block to weigh in. Yeah, I RAN. I have not run more than two steps at a time for several years. Between my malfunctioning heart, my asthma, my COPD, and my weight, I haven't even tried to move quickly. And to top it all off, I'm still recovering from bronchitis!

Granted, what I call running, anyone watching would probably call "flailing and wildly lumbering". Well, they can suck it. I ran, dammit!

I burst into the meeting about half an hour into it, and I'm very grateful that the 360 plan started today because our meetings rarely last a full half hour. I stripped off my oh-so-heavy glasses, work lanyard, and earrings, and climbed on the scale.

Down 3.8 pounds!

I honestly don't know how that's possible. But it's true! That brought my grand total loss to 30.6 pounds.

Which means...I also reached my 10% goal today!

Keyring=awesomeness.

When I mentioned earlier that I had earned my 25 pound token, I should have elaborated that I earned it but my leader didn't have 25 pound tokens on hand last week. She had offered to give me a 75 pound token and then trade me back, but since I didn't have a keyring yet, I declined and told her I'd just grab it this week. I'm so pumped that I got both at the same time, so now no one else has to know that I earned the 25 pound token before I hit 10%. Whew. Yes, I realize that other people can probably guess that I'm still over 250 pounds, but I'd rather pretend they don't know. Now I can show off the keyring and token proudly. Very happy.

Because I had to run (well, okay, this was more like power walking) back to the other meeting, I didn't get a chance to ask or learn anything about the 360 plan. But I did get the packet and I'm excited to go through everything in detail. I love having new stuff to read :)

Now I'm officially down to 273.4 pounds, and I had to set a new goal since I hit my 10%. I decided on 250 for now--baby steps. I don't want to get too discouraged, and I figured that 250 is a good goal...plus, when I get there, I can finally buy a new scale without worrying how high it registers.

After all the excitement of getting my shiny new keyring and token, I felt pretty prepared to start the Simply Filling plan today. So far I have eaten only Power Foods today (I changed supper to a baked potato and corn with spray butter, along with a light English muffin topped with garlic powder, spray butter, and fat free cheddar--which, I admit, was actually pretty freakin delicious, even though I abhor fat free cheese). I'm about to go grab a SmartOnes chocolate chip sundae, which will still leave me with 45 points for the week.

Not a bad start for my Weight Watchers Simply Filling week!

Simply Filling?

In an effort to avoid my predicted prednisone weight gain, I'm thinking of switching to the Simply Filling plan on Wednesday. That's my next weigh-in and it'll give me a chance to ask my leaders a few questions first. Like: Do veggies still count as Power Foods if I cook them with the suggested daily two teaspoons of olive oil? The books say that anything cooked with non-Power Foods must be detracted from my weekly points. And does the 360 plan still include the Simply Filling option? I assume so, but I haven't taken the time to check yet. If I make a sandwich with Power Foods and non-Power Foods, is nothing in the sandwich a Power Food? So many questions! 

I'm trying to plan ahead so I can make it through a week of Simply Filling without going crazy/being a jerk to everyone/locking myself in a cabinet and devouring chocolate chips and frosting and sugar until I explode.

I already plan my meals a week in advance. I'm signed up for an organic food delivery service, so I know on Thursday what fruits and veggies are being delivered the following Friday. When I get my email on Thursday, I start building my meals and exchanging the items in the bin with other seasonal produce.

I make a (short) list of the other groceries we need, and then everything's mapped out for the following two weeks. Since I'm in charge of the cooking, we're both vegetarians, and I'm able to figure out the point values of the meals a full week in advance, planning ahead isn't a problem for me.

The issue is that I am constantly fighting my inner cheesetarian. I love cheese. Like, I LOVE it. If I could eat cheese for every meal, every day, I totally would. Cheddar, Colby, Blue, Mozzarella, Gouda, Brie, Gorgonzola, Provolone...any type of cheese.

Wait, that's not true. I do NOT like fat free cheese. I loathe soy cheese. I detest low-fat string cheese. So apparently I only like the most fattening cheese I can find. I knew this already. I think the 25+ pounds I've lost so far have all been attributed to cheese. I went from eating easily a cup of cheese a day (Recipe calls for a half cup? Hmm, two bulging fists full ought to do it!) to actually measuring out reasonable portions. UGH. I had totally forgotten what 1/4 cup of shredded cheddar looks like. It looks like what I used to eat while I was cooking the real meal. So depressing. And which cheeses are Power Foods? Yep...fat free cheeses. Despicable. I hate how they melt, I hate how they feel, and I hate how they taste. But if I want to eat anything delicious, I'm going to have to learn to enjoy fat free dairy products because otherwise, every recipe I make will count against my weekly points. UGH AGAIN.

So far I'm planning to make baked potatoes with spray butter, corn with spray butter, and a salad on Wednesday. Thursday will be soup (I chop up the leftover veggies from the delivery service, mix in a box of their organic vegetable broth, and then immersion-blend the hell out of it with a bunch of spices--it helps free the fridge before the Friday delivery). I may attempt some homemade bread if I feel better by then and this bronchitis isn't making me cough all over everything. Friday will be some kind of Italian-style tomato and broccoli bake with fat free mozzarella (UGH) and maybe some awesome cauliflower poppers (I only use two tablespoons of olive oil instead of 1/4 cup, and I prefer to call them "cauliflower bites" because "poppers" just makes me want to sink my teeth into a cheesy fried jalapeno popper...yum). Saturday will be tofu bacon and avocado sandwiches with potato wedges (I know avocados aren't a Power Food, but we need to use them and they're so delicious), Sunday will be ratatouille (again with the fat free mozzarella), Monday will be...well, I think I need to figure out a little more about the Simply Filling plan before I decide on any other recipes. I might be out of points by Monday. Who knows?

I just really hope this prednisone doesn't mess with me too much. I'd hate to have such a setback right before the holidays. It's going to take a lot of willpower to get through Christmas (I might love candy as much as I love cheese--it's a close call) and I want to be in a good place leading into it.

Great, now I'm stressed out and I really want a jalapeno popper. That means it's definitely time for bed!