Week 3: Down two pounds. Weight watchers is fussing at me for losing too fast, but I made a rather drastic change in how I approach food and exercise and I’m really not regretting it in the least. I know there’s a risk of my metabolism slowing down, but I don’t think that’s happening. My energy levels are so much higher.
I’ve asked DFH to take some before-pictures for me.
Filed under: Yay!, weight loss | Tagged: Weight Watchers, WW
What was the drastic change?
Well, none of it is extreme… just drastic in terms of breaking some really bad habits I had.
1. I love to cook, but hate to cook for myself. So I now have to make all of my meals. I can’t resort to convenience food or take out. (That really was a drastic change, but my pocketbook was begging for it too.)
2. If I do need to make a break for the convenience store when I’m on the road, I have to read the label and determine points before I make a purchase. (I have the WW calculator.) This cut out a lot of stupid calories right there.
3. I always go for the lower-fat alternative when grocery shopping, unless an artificial fat substitute is involved.
4. I’m using sprouted wheat bread and eating more hummus.
5. The only snack foods I’ll allow myself reguarly are baked chips and salsa, graham crackers, ginger snaps and smartpop popcorn. I’ve also been trying some of the WW snack ideas from its online recipe section. (Girl Scout cookies have a bit of a special dispensation right now, but…)
6. I measure everything and read labels to find out what an actual “serving size” is. I serve myself that size. One trick to this with “items” like cookies and chips is to pull out the exact number of items and then put the box or bag away.
7. I look over my ectomorphic partner’s shoulder when he cooks and point out that, for instance, the sausage he’s including in that recipe means that I can only eat 1/6 of what he can.
8. Cheese and ice cream. Do not want. I just imagine how each of those toll house choc-chip-cookie ice cream sandwiches that I love so much has 500 calories and 15 points. I imagine that they are the primary ingredient in my thighs, which are each bigger around than my waist was in college.
9. Three times I week I do one of the pilates-dance-yoga-fusion workouts from Jennifer Kries (link in sidebar). I feel like a complete dork doing them but because I can do them in my living room or bedroom, it’s just between me and my cats.
10. I’m not just talking about it, as I have done three hundred million times in the past. It takes mindfulness. Blogging about it on Gallycat instead of Helcat, too — that’s bigger, because I have a wider anonymous readership, and for some reason I feel more accountable to them than to my closest friends.
All good ideas. Except regarding 1: I can’t cook, and I think I have a bit of a phobia around the kitchen. I need to get a friend who cooks to get me off that phobia, I think.
Also, to redirect my sweet tooth, I’ve been eating a LOT of fruit and reduced-fat yogurt, which seems to do the trick for me.
And I’m almost able to calculate points in my head, given a label.
Agreed on the DO NOT WANT!!!! mentality. (Also paste lolcat here: COOKIE GOES WHERE?!!) I dunno, lately most food has just seemed so gross to me. I did overindulge on pizza at this week’s EfM but I felt wrecked and awful the next day. Mustn’t do THAT again.
Well, drat, if I lived closer I could volunteer in that capacity because, again, I hate to cook for myself. Heh.
I’m not sure what I’m doing to curb my sweet tooth; I used to do yogurt and frozen fruit bars (those are AWESOME in the summer, btw) but I think it’s the fact that I’ve really gone low-fat and high-whole-food, with considerably less “artificial” comforts. I still drink too much diet pepsi, but I’ve started using stevia in my coffee and tea–oh, and I’m drinking more tea in general, that’s another thing that’s new.
I can guesstimate points in my head but I tell ya something: being forced to drag the calculator out is almost enough in and of itself to make me go, I don’t need it. Part of it is cutting out the nickel and dime BS that was causing me to have to run to hit the DFH up for money more than he or I would like.
That’s interesting that you splurged and then felt awful. I took K out to dinner the other night and definitely splurged (partly because WW keeps nagging me that I’m losing weight too fast. I think it’s because I’ve had an online membership for several years and just started using the tool again, so they’re like, WTF? You didn’t lose anything for 6 mos and now you’re shrinking a dress size in less than a month?). Glad my weigh in wasn’t yesterday, as I was 2 pounds lighter yesterday morning than I am today. Oh, and it didn’t help at all that my tracker dropped my evening meals and exercise for three days this week. I was like, uhhhh.. what did I eat again? So it was thinking that I had these crazy excesses that weren’t actually there.