Water, Water, Everywhere

I think I'm dehydrating.

And I'm blaming Netflix.

It's no secret that I'm a big fan of documentaries, and when I watch particularly convincing ones, I sometimes get wrapped up and try to incorporate that I learn into my daily life. Like, I still haven't bought any eggs at all since we watched Vegucated. I'm okay with that.

A few weeks ago, we watched the documentary Tapped and since then, my girlfriend has refused to buy bottled water. We have a water dispenser thing on the fridge, but the filter is dirty and hasn't been replaced since we moved in four years ago (we can't figure out where the filter is and we have no idea how to change it) so the water tastes terrible. So we can't use the fridge water. We also have a really nice reverse osmosis system that came with the house...but my dad broke it two years ago when he was trying to install a garbage disposal and we haven't fixed it. So we can't use that.

I really miss bottled water. But my girlfriend is trying to make a stand, and I don't want to stand in her way.

As a compromise, she bought one of those filter things for the kitchen sink so we can have purified water. I hate warm or room temperature water, though, and the aforementioned fridge filter issues mean our ice cubes taste gross too. So we've been filling pitchers of water and putting them in the fridge to chill. The problem is that I think the water absorbs all of the smells of the fridge and then it tastes weird. It's not like we have anything gross in there. It's just that all the broccoli and cauliflower and berries and spinach and stuff is always in there with the water, and I think it makes the water icky.

I've tried keeping the water in other bottles so no funky smells get in, but then I feel like it just traps other air in there and it, like, brews and stuff...or something. I don't know. I'm probably just imagining things, but I can't help it. I'm super picky about water. Like, I love Ice Mountain. I will drink it anywhere, any time. But I despise Dasani. Totally hate it. I would rather drink from a public drinking fountain than drink Dasani. So since there's no acceptable water in the house and my girlfriend doesn't want me to have bottled water, I've just been drinking Diet Dr. Pepper like crazy. It's making me feel sticky and queasy but I'm so thirsty and...ugh.

Since I have a weird Splenda sensitivity and I don't have enough Points to drink juice or even some nice green beer for St. Patrick's Day, I'm chugging aspartame like nobody's business.

I'm afraid I'm going to wake up tomorrow with a giant tumor from all of the aspartame. Or at least a third arm or something. But will the aspartame seriously make a difference? I wish I could get a straight answer online...damn you, Wikipedia, you've let me down!

I'm not meeting my daily Weight Watchers goals because I'm not drinking water, and I may or may not be killing myself with Diet Dr. Pepper.

What a life.

Healthy Surprise Subscription Box

I got a Healthy Surprise in the mail.

Unfortunately, it wasn't a very good surprise. Not for me, anyway.

I've been a little, um, obsessed with subscription boxes lately. It started with BarkBox. Then I signed up for Loot Crate. Then Healthy Surprise. I'm currently waiting for BirchBox.

But the one I was TOTALLY MOST EXCITED ABOUT was Healthy Surprise. I loved the idea of getting a big box of snacks every month, full of things I'd never think to try at the store but I just might love. I was looking forward to sampling new things, branching out of my snack rut, and filling my cabinets with organic/vegan/gluten free goodies.

Sadly, it just wasn't for me. At least not on Weight Watchers.

I mean, one of the granola snacks was 9 Points! That's a whole meal for me. Most of the snacks were full of seeds and nuts--super healthy stuff, but also really high in Points.

I love that there were only a few ingredients in each product. And if I was, say, a hiker, I would be totally thrilled to fill my backpack with the chewy energy bars and dehydrated raw foods. For me, though, I just don't need to consume that many Points for a snack.

I'm pretty bummed about it. It's such a good idea, and for anyone looking for high-calorie, nutrient-rich, all-natural food, I would HIGHLY recommend it. The box came within days of me placing my first order, there was a wide variety of products, and the things I did try were totally delicious (like the almonds! YUM!).

The insert that came with my first box said to count ingredients, not calories. I definitely understand that. For people looking to eat healthier, that's always a good thing. But for someone who is still trying to lose more than 100 pounds, it's just not going to work for me.

I was hoping it would be a good addition to my weekly food delivery service but I'm going to have to cancel. Boo.

Now I need a new subscription box to sign up for! :)

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.

Not-So-Simply Filling

Simply Filling is a lot harder than it sounds.

Especially if you're a vegetarian who doesn't like vegetables.

I'm struggling today with sticking to the Weight Watchers Simply Filling technique. I felt a lot better about things yesterday. I am determined to keep up with Simply Filling until my meeting next Wednesday, but Wednesday seems a loooong time away right now!

I thought I had a great Power Food supper planned--butternut squash soup with rosemary bread. I attempted to make the bread into a Power Food by swapping out 3/4 of the white flour with white wheat flour, and by using olive oil spray. It was definitely delicious, but I didn't realize until I tried tracking the meal that the bread isn't technically a Power Food.

Bummer. But it WAS really good! And I liked making my own bread and knowing everything that went into it. Worth the effort and the points, but it won't work this week for Simply Filling.

I've been scouring the internet for a solution, but it seems like the only reduced calorie breads that count as Power Foods are commercially prepared. That's because the calories are swapped with scary sounding chemicals. How disappointing. I made the bread in hopes of using it for tofu sandwiches, egg salad sandwiches, and croutons this weekend. Now I can, but I have to count each slice as two points. Le sigh.

After the two slices of bread and a Smart Ones Chocolate Chip Sundae tonight, I'm now down to 27 points left for the week. 27 points doesn't amount to much when I'm trying to make them last until Wednesday. It leaves me wondering if I am eating enough anyway. I'm pretty hungry. Or a lot hungry. I glanced in front of me and thought for a second that I had a bowl of cheesy, gooey, crunchy nachos in front of me--then I realized it was a bowl full of torn and empty pomegranate peels. What I wouldn't give for a big ass bowl of nachos right now. Sure, I could go make some, but then I'd have no points left for the week and I might become stabby. No one needs that.

The Smart Ones was totally worth the four points, by the way. I love these things. I know I can't depend on these junk food-type snacks, but they keep me from feeling deprived. And they're just so good!

Oh yeah, before my nacho tangent I was saying I thought I may be eating too little. For comparison's sake, I plugged my food from today into SparkPeople and was told that I had eaten 920 calories out of a recommended 1440-1790. That doesn't seem right. I'm still tracking the measurements of my food for Weight Watchers so I can look back and see what worked and what didn't, so I know I measured accurately. It just doesn't seem like I should have used 8 points of my weekly Simply Filling points today when I've only eaten 920 calories.

I'm hungry. And I'm not sure if these 27 points are going to get me through the weekend, let alone until my next meeting. And I really, really want some nachos.