Bad Day #1

So today was my first "bad" day of Weight Watchers. Every day since I have started I have managed to stay under my daily limit on points. (Except for Monday, I went five over. So I exercised five points off. *You get extra points for exercising.*) But today I didn't. I went WAY over.

Let my explain some... Before I started my diet, I was a fast food queen. I ate out for lunch every day at work, and sometimes I would eat out for dinner, too. Plus, since I am such a social butterfly ;P, I ate out for almost every meal on the weekends. One of my habits included eating Chinese for lunch once a week with 2 or 3 of my co-workers. I love Chinese food. But my favorite thing to get is chicken lo mein. Even though I am on Weight Watchers, I am not prepared to 100% give up all of the things I love, including chicken lo mein. But I do plan on practicing moderation and portion control. I want to be healthier, and skinnier, but I don't want to do it at the expense of my complete happiness and if I can't ever have McDonald's or Chinese again, I won't be a happy camper. So I plan on indulging myself, just not as often and by cutting my portions down quite a lot.

Anyway, so we go to this one Chinese take-out place called King Garden, and this is what I used to get: Lunch special of chicken lo mein (no mushrooms) with a "side" of fried rice and an order of crab ragoon. So today I decided I wanted to indulge in some Chinese, but I was going to be good. Well then I looked up the point values for what I get. Here's what it said:

1) One cup of chicken lo mein = 9 points
2) One cup of fried rice = 10 points
3) 1 crab ragoon = 5 points

That totals 24 points. Keep in mind that I only get 37 for the day.

So I decided not to get crab ragoons, even though that sucks, because King Garden has delicious crab ragoon. So that meant that if I only ate one cup of rice and one cup of lo mein, I would be eating 19 points -- which is more than half of my daily allowance. I had only eaten a banana for breakfast, because it is 0 points and I wanted to save up for my Chinese.

Now, my plan was to eat about half of what I got. Because usually I ate ALL of it, including five crab ragoons. So I figured half of it would be alright... even though it was "bad" food, points wise, I was still significantly cutting down what I WOULD have ate two weeks ago. So I got out a measuring cup and measured out one cup of rice and one cup of lo mein. And let me tell you, 1) It was a small portion, 2) It barely made a dent in what was in the box, and 3) I plowed through those first two cups like it was nothing, because I was so hungry.

So I had 2 more cups of lo mein and 1 more cup of rice. That means that for LUNCH I ate 47 points. FORTY-SEVEN points! That's 10 more than what I get DAILY. And that's what I ate for lunch. NOW... let's think of it THIS way...

Two weeks ago I would have ate that whole box. Since I ate about half of it, let's double 47. That means I would have ate 94 points of rice & noodles. Then I would have ate 5 crab ragoons... so let's add 25... That means that I would have ate 119 points for lunch. If this was two weeks ago. Now, think about that in terms of my day... I would have ate 5 for breakfast, so 124... And then my dinner... I would say I probably averaged about 30 points for dinner each night, unless I went out to eat again, which God knows how much it would have been then. So on a typical weekday two weeks ago, I would have ate a total of 154 points... in one day.

Now I eat 37 or less... It sounds super crazy, but the reality is... I am not hungry. I am not starving myself. I am simply eating better food in smaller portions. Instead of an 11 point double cheeseburger from McDonald's, I'm eating a 9 point piece of baked chicken breast. (Most of the time. Not including my indulgences.)

It's just... it's no wonder I lost 4.6 pounds in a week. I went from eating 154 points in one day, to eating 37 (or less) in one day. (Points are calculated up from grams of fat, protein, fiber, and carbs, by the way. But not calories.) For one thing, I think that's awesome. For another, it puts things into perspective for me. Because I was wondering how many points I would have ate before on a typical day. Granted, I didn't eat Chinese every day, so I would have not had 150 points per day... but I probably was averaging around 100, and more on the days I ate at sit-down restaurants.

It's just crazy!

But anyway... so today I went over my points with just lunch. And I think that would've made me crazy a few days ago, I would have felt so guilty. But what I feel is this... I ate LESS than half of what I would have two weeks ago. PLUS, afterwards I felt sick to my stomach, because I ate so much oil. I don't want to feel like that, so I won't do it very often. AND I told my co-worker that I was NOT going to throw away the leftovers, that I just could not do that. So I put it in the fridge at work. 4 hours later when I left work, I said to myself, "Girl, you do NOT need this." And I trashed it. And walked away. I am so proud of myself for that.

And I am proud of myself because even though I was 10 points over on the day, I didn't give up... I went downstairs and walked on the treadmill and earned 5 of those points back. So right now I am only 5 points over. And now... I am going to go make myself an egg sandwich, made from egg whites, on a whole-wheat English muffin, with a slice of reduced fat cheese. YEAH!

Weight Watchers - Week 1

On Tuesday, February 9th, my mom and I joined Weight Watchers together.

This is something I had been thinking about doing for awhile, because one of my co-workers had been having a lot of success with the program, and I had been considering trying it. The motivation I needed, I guess, was my mom's help.

See, I've wanted to lose weight for several years, but I just kept gaining. And I guess I hadn't come around to wanting to help myself yet... I wanted to be skinny, but I wasn't worried about being healthy, you know? And I knew I needed to change my mindset. But I guess the real kick in the butt came from my mom. Her doctor has been needling her to lose weight for years now... And finally we decided to do this together. I want my mom to be healthy, because I want her to be around for a lot more time. And if this is what she needs to do, this is what we're going to do. Yes, I am doing it a lot for me, but I think the motivation to stick with it will be because I want to do this for my mom. Help her through it. So essentially, we are helping each other through it.

We joined last Tuesday and went to our first meeting. On Wednesday, we started the diet, by eating better and keeping track of our points. I know some of the people who read this won't know the system of Weight Watchers, so I'll go through a brief rundown.

Every day a person in WW gets so many points. My personal daily total right now is 37. This number is based on several factors including my height, weight, and age (I think.) As I lose weight, my daily total will go down, but for now it is 37. Every day I am supposed to eat those 37 points. There have been days when I was under my points, but not by many. The program is designed for you to eat all of your daily points so your metabolism stays up.

Anyway, along with the daily 37 points, each WW member gets 49 extra points for the week. I know this isn't the healthiest way to do it, but I am saving my points for alcohol. I usually drink one night a week (on the weekend) but sometimes two. So my points will be saved for that... and if I have leftover weekly points and need them, I might use them, or might not. It just depends if I need to, I guess.

So that's how the system works...

The thing is, since I was like 12, I've wanted to be skinnier. In high school I lost about 30-35 pounds, but then in college I gained all of that back, plus 40-50 more pounds. I would love to go back to the weight that I was when I graduated high school. So that means my overall goal is to lose a total of 77 pounds. Obviously I am going to take my time with that, I know it's not going to happen overnight, or even in a few months or anything. But the thing with this program is that... I can do it.

Every other time I have tried to diet, I have lasted no longer than one month. And it's because I didn't know HOW to diet. I didn't know what was really good or bad, how much a real portion size should be, how to set limitations for myself. Basically, I couldn't keep it under control... so I always gave up. With this program, it's different. Already I can tell, even though it's only been one week. The thing is... having points... and having books to look at and point calculators, etc, it gives me... it's real. Something I can hold on to. A DAILY goal to look at. It makes it seem attainable.

Let's say I want to cook chicken for dinner. I get out my little book and look up chicken. And it tells me that 4oz of chicken is 3 points. So we bought a kitchen scale. And I weigh the pieces of chicken to find out what 4oz is. Then I put some seasonings on it and bake it. And I know that for the rest of the day I have 33 points.

It's like... It just makes sense to me. And now I know what I real portion size looks like. It's like a whole new world has opened up. A light bulb has gone off. It's like, "DUH!" and "Ohhhhh.... so that's what that's supposed to look like." And I am actually enjoying myself. Granted, there are parts that are annoying... like having to take the time to pack my lunch for work every day and trying to eat at a restaurant (especially if that restaurant is not in my dining out book.) But the point is, I feel accountable when I have to keep track of everything that goes into my mouth. When I know what I ate and how much more I can eat.

It just makes sense.

So I am going to use this blog to post about my struggles and my triumphs... to write about how I feel about different aspects of the program, or how my days/weeks/months are going.

So I will finish off today's blog post with my first triumph. Tonight was our second meeting and our first weigh-in since we started the program. This first week I lost 4.6 pounds!!! And so did Mom. I find it really entertaining that we both lost the exact same amount of weight. And I find it awesome. I am so excited! I know that not every week will result in a loss like this, and that's okay. I will start figuring out new things to eat and to do. But right now, I am celebrating because I am a LOSER! :P (Get it... Because I lost weight... I'm a loser. Teehee. I can thank my AWESOME Weight Watchers leader for that one!)