The Glacial Pace of Healthy Weight Loss

At last week's WW weigh in, I'd lost the weight I gained plus an additional .2 lbs. I was pretty happy, though one always wishes for more. It never ceases to amaze me how quickly weight goes on and how incredibly slowly it seems to go away. Truly though, I think SEEMS is the watchword here. When I look at my WW stats, I've lost an average of .9 lbs since I joined on November 30. I've eaten an average of 45 points a day, so I definitely haven't been starving myself. Truth be told, I could have eaten less many days if I had truly been eating intuitively. Last night, I ate a bit past full because my roasted veggie pizza was so yummy. Anyway, even at .9 lbs a week, I could lose the 12 lbs I need to lose to have a "normal" BMI in just over 13 weeks. That's a blink in a lifetime. I keep reminding myself that I am eating the way I need to eat for my health. I will need to eat like this every day for the rest of my life if I want to stay healthy. So, if I'm not willing to do it now, I won't keep off any weight I lose. I'm living without the comforting fullness of a belly full of cookies, but also without the knee pain that was sometimes keeping me awake at night a couple of months ago.

Our WW meeting last week was a bit better. We discussed the difference between snacks and treats. Our leader talked about things that are "treats" (different for everyone, but for me might be things like graham crackers or snack bars) versus "snacks" (anything that you like, tastes good, but doesn't tempt you to eat multiple servings of). I had never thought about it in that way, but she made the point that something that is okay for a snack isn't necessarily okay to eat 2-3 times a day for a snack. If you are depriving yourself of healthy foods because you are using your points for things like graham crackers or Kind bars, you are fooling yourself if you think it doesn't make a difference. Oddly, this is at odds with her "one point hot dog" speech last month, when she said that WW doesn't tell you what to eat, but rather how to maximize your points (with things like 1 point hot dogs). She actually said, "the kind of food you use your points on makes a difference."

I made three healthy-ish snacks for the Super Bowl party we're attending tonight. I adapted a Buffalo Chicken Dip recipe and made it into a Buffalo Bean Dip, and made a recipe from the Weight Watchers handout they gave us last week, substituting vegetarian chili for turkey chili. I was given the choice to bring cookies and veggies or hearty appetizers, but I really didn't want to deal with the temptation of making cookies. I know I won't go the rest of my life without baking or eating cookies, but it is a food I have difficulty eating just one of. I suppose I could have just bought some, but there's something about the idea of buying those bakery cookies with partially hydrogenated oil in them that just makes me queasy. There was cake served at my daughter's play on Friday night and I wasn't very tempted by it Thinking of that greasy tasting frosting and all those trans fats just turned me off. Imagine that.