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.
Showing posts with label weight watchers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label weight watchers. Show all posts
Sunday, February 05, 2012
Friday, January 27, 2012
Kale = Blech! or Maybe Not?
You can't turn around these days without reading about how fabulous greens are, especially kale and spinach. I like spinach and make my salads at home almost exclusively with spinach, but kale is another matter. I just don't much like it. I don't care for any cooked greens. The texture is unappealing to me, and though I choke them down, I really wouldn't eat them if they weren't so healthy. I've bought kale a few times and thrown it away two weeks later after it has turned to slime. I made the ubiquitous (in the healthy blogging world, anyway) kale chips, but eh. They weren't very good, IMO.
So, I brought home yet another bunch of organic kale a couple of weeks ago, determined to make a salad recipe I'd found in a cookbook. When the time came, I just didn't want to go to the trouble, and let the kale wilt for a week before I decided that I needed to cook it, at the very least. Maybe if I mixed it in with a bunch of other vegtables, I wouldn't notice it? I started a pot going, and threw in the kale, several ounces of spinach that were also getting old in the fridge, and a box of mushrooms that I'd bought with some vague intention of sauteeing. I rooted in the cupboard and found a jar of garlic salsa and poured that in. Hmmm. It was starting to look like stew. I added a jar of roasted red peppers packed in water that I'd had for months, and found most of a packet of sun dried tomatoes in the fridge that needed using up, and tossed those in as well. It looked quite unappetizing and I was wondering if I'd be able to make myself eat it when I had a brainstorm.
I've been kind of addicted to eating vegetables with spaghetti sauce lately. I really like spaghetti squash with it, but have taken to eating it on broccoli, green beans, cauliflower, mushrooms...whatever. What if I used my hand blender to blend the concoction into a "sauce" to use over my veggies. It would be so much healthier than jarred spaghetti squash, and heartier too! Here is the end result:
Weight Watchers was a definite disappointment this week. I really like my leader's manner and personality, but her content leaves something to be desired, especially for an aspiring vegan. This week's "theme" was maximizing your points. I assumed that she'd be discussing how to bulk up your meals by adding in vegetables -- extra veggies in casseroles, pureed veggies in sauces or smoothies...that kind of thing. But, no. She spent the entire time talking about milk, and how you should make sure to get in your milk servings because of all of the good protein, vitamins, and minerals milk has. Milk is so satisfying, etc. She spent quite a chunk of time going over all of the different smoothies you could make with the Weight Watchers brand smoothie mix. I haven't looked at the smoothie mix label, but if it has half of the artificial ingredients that are in the bars...well, no thanks. If I'm going to eat artificial crap, I'd rather eat a Pop Tart.
My weigh-in this week was less than stellar. I was up 2.4 lbs (1.2 on my home scale), but I wasn't really surprised. I went on a scrapbooking retreat last weekend and ate WW-unfriendly food all weekend. I went thinking that there'd be something reasonably healthy at each meal, but it didn't work out that way. Breakfast was home fries and a white flour bagel and peanut butter if I wanted to stay away from eggs and meat. Lunch on Saturday was pizza and caesar salad already pre-mixed, along with cookies. I didn't eat the cookies, but had to eat pizza and caesar or starve. Dinner on Friday was only meat for main dishes, so I had a big salad and had some cottage cheese and hard-boiled egg for some protein. Would it have killed them to have garbanzo beans on the salad bar? Dinner on Saturday was salmon, rice, vegetables, and potatoes. Everything was drenched in butter. I also had a piece of cheesecake -- just kind of giving up.
Sunday was a disaster for me. I got up at 4:45am, but brunch wasn't til 10am. I started out eating a banana and apple, but by the time we had brunch, I'd eaten a granola bar, pretzels, cookies, and who can remember what else? I got home, and the snacking continued, unabated. I ate some sugary cereal, Pop Tarts, chocolate....well, you don't really need to know the details. I did log everything in my WW online food diary. I'm trying to do that even when I overeat, so that I can clearly see the connection between what and how much I eat and losing/gaining weight or staying the same. I've never before been this faithful about keeping track of every bite and it's kind of interesting. I've found that it's very easy to think "Oh, I didn't overeat much", only to see that, well, yes I did!
After my Sunday eating fest, I got right back on task on Monday, and ended up eating only 23 points that day, and 26 the next (26 is the absolute minimum I'm supposed to eat). I tried to eat intuitively, and just wasn't very hungry. I'm hoping my weight gain will disappear at my weigh in next Wednesday.
So, I brought home yet another bunch of organic kale a couple of weeks ago, determined to make a salad recipe I'd found in a cookbook. When the time came, I just didn't want to go to the trouble, and let the kale wilt for a week before I decided that I needed to cook it, at the very least. Maybe if I mixed it in with a bunch of other vegtables, I wouldn't notice it? I started a pot going, and threw in the kale, several ounces of spinach that were also getting old in the fridge, and a box of mushrooms that I'd bought with some vague intention of sauteeing. I rooted in the cupboard and found a jar of garlic salsa and poured that in. Hmmm. It was starting to look like stew. I added a jar of roasted red peppers packed in water that I'd had for months, and found most of a packet of sun dried tomatoes in the fridge that needed using up, and tossed those in as well. It looked quite unappetizing and I was wondering if I'd be able to make myself eat it when I had a brainstorm.
I've been kind of addicted to eating vegetables with spaghetti sauce lately. I really like spaghetti squash with it, but have taken to eating it on broccoli, green beans, cauliflower, mushrooms...whatever. What if I used my hand blender to blend the concoction into a "sauce" to use over my veggies. It would be so much healthier than jarred spaghetti squash, and heartier too! Here is the end result:
My photography may be less than stellar, but the sauce was absolutely fantastic! It made about six cups, and have been enjoying it on veggies all week. Toss a half cup of beans in and lunch kept me full for hours with no need for an afternoon snack. I put the ingredients into the Weight Watchers Recipe Builder, and it came out to 2 points for a cup. Low points and satisfying -- bonus! I may be eating a lot more kale now.
Weight Watchers was a definite disappointment this week. I really like my leader's manner and personality, but her content leaves something to be desired, especially for an aspiring vegan. This week's "theme" was maximizing your points. I assumed that she'd be discussing how to bulk up your meals by adding in vegetables -- extra veggies in casseroles, pureed veggies in sauces or smoothies...that kind of thing. But, no. She spent the entire time talking about milk, and how you should make sure to get in your milk servings because of all of the good protein, vitamins, and minerals milk has. Milk is so satisfying, etc. She spent quite a chunk of time going over all of the different smoothies you could make with the Weight Watchers brand smoothie mix. I haven't looked at the smoothie mix label, but if it has half of the artificial ingredients that are in the bars...well, no thanks. If I'm going to eat artificial crap, I'd rather eat a Pop Tart.
My weigh-in this week was less than stellar. I was up 2.4 lbs (1.2 on my home scale), but I wasn't really surprised. I went on a scrapbooking retreat last weekend and ate WW-unfriendly food all weekend. I went thinking that there'd be something reasonably healthy at each meal, but it didn't work out that way. Breakfast was home fries and a white flour bagel and peanut butter if I wanted to stay away from eggs and meat. Lunch on Saturday was pizza and caesar salad already pre-mixed, along with cookies. I didn't eat the cookies, but had to eat pizza and caesar or starve. Dinner on Friday was only meat for main dishes, so I had a big salad and had some cottage cheese and hard-boiled egg for some protein. Would it have killed them to have garbanzo beans on the salad bar? Dinner on Saturday was salmon, rice, vegetables, and potatoes. Everything was drenched in butter. I also had a piece of cheesecake -- just kind of giving up.
Sunday was a disaster for me. I got up at 4:45am, but brunch wasn't til 10am. I started out eating a banana and apple, but by the time we had brunch, I'd eaten a granola bar, pretzels, cookies, and who can remember what else? I got home, and the snacking continued, unabated. I ate some sugary cereal, Pop Tarts, chocolate....well, you don't really need to know the details. I did log everything in my WW online food diary. I'm trying to do that even when I overeat, so that I can clearly see the connection between what and how much I eat and losing/gaining weight or staying the same. I've never before been this faithful about keeping track of every bite and it's kind of interesting. I've found that it's very easy to think "Oh, I didn't overeat much", only to see that, well, yes I did!
After my Sunday eating fest, I got right back on task on Monday, and ended up eating only 23 points that day, and 26 the next (26 is the absolute minimum I'm supposed to eat). I tried to eat intuitively, and just wasn't very hungry. I'm hoping my weight gain will disappear at my weigh in next Wednesday.
Thursday, December 15, 2011
A Bit Disenchanted
With a daily average of 33 "points" on WW (not counting any earned for activity), I find that I am sometimes hungry. Each point is worth about 50 calories, so that's 1650 calories a day for me. It's not exactly 50 per point, but that's a fair approximation. Anyway, I find that I AM hungry with that many points, but not terribly hungry. I want to be hungry for meals anyway -- food tastes so much better if I am. The real restriction for me is that I can't really eat anything "extra" without being hungry. If I "spend" points on a cookie, that's less nutritious, filling food I can eat. So even though they SAY "you can eat anything you want", you really can't if you don't want to spend part of the day hungry. At my points level, anyway. I imagine that if I used 33 points a day on healthy, nutritious food only, I might not really be all that hungry. There haven't been too many days like that, though. Unfortunately, a few of my days have been 60 or 100 points, while others have been 21. Not very smart or healthy of me.
Honestly, I've averaged something like 40 points a day since I started and I've still lost 5 pounds. I think I've gotten away with such a high average because I'm usually quite active. Aside from purposeful daily exercise, I usually get 10,000-12,000 steps a day on my pedometer.
I was a bit disappointed in our last WW meeting because the leader actually brought up the stupid 1 point hot dog! Here I was thinking that WW had changed over the past 6 years since I first joined, but apparently, it hasn't changed all THAT much. The discussion was on how to provide variety to prevent boredom with your meals, and we were talking about sandwich outsides, fillings, and sauces. Someone had mentioned a hot dog bun, which she said you could really fill with anything, but if you wanted a hot dog, what was the best kind to buy? I wanted to yell out "one with no nitrates", but didn't have the nerve. Someone suggested a turkey dog, and the leader said you'd think that, but no! There was a FAT FREE 1 POINT HOT DOG out there! I was glad that a member challenged the leader by asking about all of the crap you'd put in your body by eating a fat free hot dog, but the leader took the easy way out. She said WW isn't here to tell you what to eat because that is up to you. They are simply here to help you know what you can eat and stay within your points. I thought that was a rather specious answer. As a leader, I would assume she is there partly to provide a healthy example of the way to maintain your weight loss. Apparently not.
Honestly, I've averaged something like 40 points a day since I started and I've still lost 5 pounds. I think I've gotten away with such a high average because I'm usually quite active. Aside from purposeful daily exercise, I usually get 10,000-12,000 steps a day on my pedometer.
I was a bit disappointed in our last WW meeting because the leader actually brought up the stupid 1 point hot dog! Here I was thinking that WW had changed over the past 6 years since I first joined, but apparently, it hasn't changed all THAT much. The discussion was on how to provide variety to prevent boredom with your meals, and we were talking about sandwich outsides, fillings, and sauces. Someone had mentioned a hot dog bun, which she said you could really fill with anything, but if you wanted a hot dog, what was the best kind to buy? I wanted to yell out "one with no nitrates", but didn't have the nerve. Someone suggested a turkey dog, and the leader said you'd think that, but no! There was a FAT FREE 1 POINT HOT DOG out there! I was glad that a member challenged the leader by asking about all of the crap you'd put in your body by eating a fat free hot dog, but the leader took the easy way out. She said WW isn't here to tell you what to eat because that is up to you. They are simply here to help you know what you can eat and stay within your points. I thought that was a rather specious answer. As a leader, I would assume she is there partly to provide a healthy example of the way to maintain your weight loss. Apparently not.
Thursday, December 08, 2011
Weight Watching
I have a confession to make. I joined Weight Watchers. I know, I know -- I am now kicked out of the "intuitive eaters" club. My coworker was joining and I went along. I was prepared to hate it, but I have to say that I am very impressed with the changes they've made in the 6 or so years since I previously joined (for a whopping few weeks). The amount of "points" I have to spend on food is enough to keep me from going hungry, provided I don't eat a bunch of fat or sugar filled foods. I suppose that could be said of any "diet", couldn't it? Fruits and vegetables are now "free", except for peas, corn, and potatoes. It does seem a bit out of whack that a baked potato and a big mall pretzel both have five points, but the point system has been overhauled mostly to the good, as far as I can tell. No more encouraging people to eat 1 point hot dogs.
I was really happy with the leader the first week. She talked about how she doesn't cook so she eats in restaurants twice a day every day (whoa...) and eats whatever she wants, not just dry chicken breasts and salad. She went down a bit in my estimation this week when she discussed getting rid of things in your environment so you won't eat them. I know it makes sense -- Brian Wansink showed in his book about mindless eating that people ate more m&ms when they were visible -- so, out of sight, out of mind. Or out of kitchen, out of mouth. BUT, again you have the problem of not being able to throw out all of the m&ms in the world. Sooner or later, you'll be faced with a buffet and you may stuff yourself with multiple desserts, dips, chips, and other foods you haven't seen in weeks or months -- if you haven't made peace with food.
I was going along well til we went to a part on Saturday night. I took some vegan chili so I'd have something to eat, but ended up overeating because I took a few spoonfuls of other things and got overfull. Can you say TRIGGER? I had a few small spoonfuls of desserts and was even more full. Then more people -- with more desserts -- arrived and I had some MORE desserts. I estimated my point intake that day to be about 100 (when I'm allotted 26 per day plus 49 "extra" per week, plus points for activity). However, because I felt accountable to my coworker and WW, I was able to put it behind me and not continue with that behavior for the rest of the week. Rather than throwing in the towel, I ate intuitvely on Sunday. That meant that I actually ate only 21 points. You really aren't supposed to eat fewer than 26, but I honestly wasn't very hungry (perhaps because I overate on Saturday night?). We went out to IHOP for breakfast and I ordered one of the "healthy" omelets. There wasn't anything vegan on the menu that was healthy, and I figured it wouldn't kill me to eat some egg substitute. That was around 9:30am and I wasn't hungry for lunch until 4pm!
On Monday I still wasn't very hungry and ate under 26 points. I ended up with a four pound weight loss for my first week, which surprised me. I ate normally on Tuesday and Wednesday, and so far today. I've been doing fairly well with the McDougall diet, though I can't give up my one Lindt truffle a day or my coffee. I've discovered that I love broccoli and other cooked vegetables with spaghetti sauce (meatless, of course) and hot sauce over them. Mmmmmm.........
I was really happy with the leader the first week. She talked about how she doesn't cook so she eats in restaurants twice a day every day (whoa...) and eats whatever she wants, not just dry chicken breasts and salad. She went down a bit in my estimation this week when she discussed getting rid of things in your environment so you won't eat them. I know it makes sense -- Brian Wansink showed in his book about mindless eating that people ate more m&ms when they were visible -- so, out of sight, out of mind. Or out of kitchen, out of mouth. BUT, again you have the problem of not being able to throw out all of the m&ms in the world. Sooner or later, you'll be faced with a buffet and you may stuff yourself with multiple desserts, dips, chips, and other foods you haven't seen in weeks or months -- if you haven't made peace with food.
I was going along well til we went to a part on Saturday night. I took some vegan chili so I'd have something to eat, but ended up overeating because I took a few spoonfuls of other things and got overfull. Can you say TRIGGER? I had a few small spoonfuls of desserts and was even more full. Then more people -- with more desserts -- arrived and I had some MORE desserts. I estimated my point intake that day to be about 100 (when I'm allotted 26 per day plus 49 "extra" per week, plus points for activity). However, because I felt accountable to my coworker and WW, I was able to put it behind me and not continue with that behavior for the rest of the week. Rather than throwing in the towel, I ate intuitvely on Sunday. That meant that I actually ate only 21 points. You really aren't supposed to eat fewer than 26, but I honestly wasn't very hungry (perhaps because I overate on Saturday night?). We went out to IHOP for breakfast and I ordered one of the "healthy" omelets. There wasn't anything vegan on the menu that was healthy, and I figured it wouldn't kill me to eat some egg substitute. That was around 9:30am and I wasn't hungry for lunch until 4pm!
On Monday I still wasn't very hungry and ate under 26 points. I ended up with a four pound weight loss for my first week, which surprised me. I ate normally on Tuesday and Wednesday, and so far today. I've been doing fairly well with the McDougall diet, though I can't give up my one Lindt truffle a day or my coffee. I've discovered that I love broccoli and other cooked vegetables with spaghetti sauce (meatless, of course) and hot sauce over them. Mmmmmm.........
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