I have decided to go the "splurge" route.
In part, because when I plotted out my meals for today, I had 12 points left over -- nearly a third of my daily allotment. (Yes, yes I did deliberately plan on a light dinner tonight.)
And in part because the splurging is half the enjoyment of it.
I just hope I'm able to stop.
This is going to be a sort of rough week, diet-wise -- book club was on Wednesday, and while I avoided the cupcakes, I did have apple slices with jelly on them, and heavily buttered popcorn, and a large-ish piece of chocolate chip cookie cake. And a girly martini.
And Hallowe'en tonight. And friends of ours are having a gathering tomorrow, which is usually graced by a huge assortment of treats (and I'm sure, being as it is the day after Hallowe'en, the place will be packed with candy).
Keep your fingers crossed for me.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Goalposts
Let's talk about goals. I'm okay with not even thinking about where I want to stop, yet. The journey's too long to contemplate. So I'm not looking at the destination nearly as much as the journey. I'm taking it in 10% increments.
Goal #1 is to lose 10% of my starting body weight, or 27 pounds. I'm hoping to manage that by the end of January. That will put me at just a bit less than I weighed the first time I joined Weight Watchers. (When weight comes back, it brings friends.)
Goal #2 will be to lose another 10% of my body weight, or 24 pounds, which I'm hoping to manage by the end of May. That'll put me right about where I was when I quit WW the last time. Will anyone have noticed by then? 10% and then 10% again is where I actually started noticing the changes in all my friends who are on diets.
Goal #3 will be to lose - you guessed it - another 10%, or 22 pounds, pushing into (probably) September. That will put me right at 200 pounds, or just a smidge under.
And so forth, but that's about as far ahead as I really want to look. The last time I weighed 200 pounds was right about the time I started dating my husband, which is about thirteen years, now.
Even those goals seem pretty huge, right now. I'm focusing on micro-goals. My next micro-goal is to make the 10-pound mark -- I might be able to make that next week, if I don't let the Hallowe'en candy run away with me.
Baby steps. It's about the baby steps.
Goal #1 is to lose 10% of my starting body weight, or 27 pounds. I'm hoping to manage that by the end of January. That will put me at just a bit less than I weighed the first time I joined Weight Watchers. (When weight comes back, it brings friends.)
Goal #2 will be to lose another 10% of my body weight, or 24 pounds, which I'm hoping to manage by the end of May. That'll put me right about where I was when I quit WW the last time. Will anyone have noticed by then? 10% and then 10% again is where I actually started noticing the changes in all my friends who are on diets.
Goal #3 will be to lose - you guessed it - another 10%, or 22 pounds, pushing into (probably) September. That will put me right at 200 pounds, or just a smidge under.
And so forth, but that's about as far ahead as I really want to look. The last time I weighed 200 pounds was right about the time I started dating my husband, which is about thirteen years, now.
Even those goals seem pretty huge, right now. I'm focusing on micro-goals. My next micro-goal is to make the 10-pound mark -- I might be able to make that next week, if I don't let the Hallowe'en candy run away with me.
Baby steps. It's about the baby steps.
3 Weeks
Three weeks officially completed on Weight Watchers. This week, I lost 1.4 pounds, for a total of 8.8. Next week, hopefully, I'll reach the 10-pound mark.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
All Hallow's Eat Eve
Over the last fifteen years of on-again-off-again dieting, I have learned some things.
One of them is that I'm not good at moderation. I like to fill my plate. I like to go back for seconds and thirds. I can't stand the idea of eating just one candy bar, or just one serving of chips. (I have been known to buy a six-pack of candy bars and eat the whole thing in a sitting -- not meaning to, it just... happens. And not rarely, either.)
One of the things I'm doing right this time (so far, anyway) is snack management. I bring my snack to work with me -- a piece of fruit, usually. Grape tomatoes. Steamed broccoli. I am scrupulously -- religiously -- avoiding the office snack bar, which operates on an honor system and even helpfully provides an IOU sheet. It is OFF. LIMITS. TO ME. Even if I can fit a bag of chips into my day's points (which I usually can -- I tend to clock in under-limit by 2-4 points a day, not even counting activity points earned, or the week's bonus points) I just can't do it. One bag of chips would fit into my diet; four would not. And as soon as I caved, it would be four. I can't not go back.
Weirdly, this isn't ironclad. I had some Tostitos with my chili a week or so ago. (I weighed them out, and scooped up chili with them.) I had a candy bar in the last ten minutes before work was over, and ate it as slowly as I could, so I wouldn't have time to go back for more. But it's the sort of thing that really should remain an exception rather than the rule for at least the next six months -- no more than weekly, say.
This is a horrible time of year for me to diet, though. Christmas is coming. And before that, my son's birthday. And before that, Thanksgiving and my husband's birthday. And before that, my birthday. And before that... Hallowe'en.
Oh, gods, Hallowe'en. We have two big bags of candy at home -- there are a gazillion kids in our neighborhood. Nerds and Laffy Taffy; and Snickers and M&Ms and Twix. Favorites of mine, all. (Not to mention the bag of caramel-flavored candy corn.)
Gods know I want all of it. I could try to be good, fit it into the plan like I'm supposed to... The little boxes of Nerds are 1 point each. The Laffy Taffy is 3 points for 5 pieces. The candy corn is 3 points for a tiny handful of 22 pieces. The chocolate ones are all 2-3 points each. And they're so little... It adds up fast. I could give myself a tiny sample of each and dole it out to myself over the space of a week or two.
Or I could dip into my "overhead" budget and have one actual splurge, fifteen or twenty points' worth of candy, all crammed into one glorious binge, and then brace myself to not even look at the stuff that will be out on offer, for free, in the office kitchen next week.
(Theoretically, I ought to not have any at all. Not with three birthdays and Thanksgiving and Christmas all crammed into the next two months. But... Well, I don't want to do that.)
I wish I could decide which option to go with.
One of them is that I'm not good at moderation. I like to fill my plate. I like to go back for seconds and thirds. I can't stand the idea of eating just one candy bar, or just one serving of chips. (I have been known to buy a six-pack of candy bars and eat the whole thing in a sitting -- not meaning to, it just... happens. And not rarely, either.)
One of the things I'm doing right this time (so far, anyway) is snack management. I bring my snack to work with me -- a piece of fruit, usually. Grape tomatoes. Steamed broccoli. I am scrupulously -- religiously -- avoiding the office snack bar, which operates on an honor system and even helpfully provides an IOU sheet. It is OFF. LIMITS. TO ME. Even if I can fit a bag of chips into my day's points (which I usually can -- I tend to clock in under-limit by 2-4 points a day, not even counting activity points earned, or the week's bonus points) I just can't do it. One bag of chips would fit into my diet; four would not. And as soon as I caved, it would be four. I can't not go back.
Weirdly, this isn't ironclad. I had some Tostitos with my chili a week or so ago. (I weighed them out, and scooped up chili with them.) I had a candy bar in the last ten minutes before work was over, and ate it as slowly as I could, so I wouldn't have time to go back for more. But it's the sort of thing that really should remain an exception rather than the rule for at least the next six months -- no more than weekly, say.
This is a horrible time of year for me to diet, though. Christmas is coming. And before that, my son's birthday. And before that, Thanksgiving and my husband's birthday. And before that, my birthday. And before that... Hallowe'en.
Oh, gods, Hallowe'en. We have two big bags of candy at home -- there are a gazillion kids in our neighborhood. Nerds and Laffy Taffy; and Snickers and M&Ms and Twix. Favorites of mine, all. (Not to mention the bag of caramel-flavored candy corn.)
Gods know I want all of it. I could try to be good, fit it into the plan like I'm supposed to... The little boxes of Nerds are 1 point each. The Laffy Taffy is 3 points for 5 pieces. The candy corn is 3 points for a tiny handful of 22 pieces. The chocolate ones are all 2-3 points each. And they're so little... It adds up fast. I could give myself a tiny sample of each and dole it out to myself over the space of a week or two.
Or I could dip into my "overhead" budget and have one actual splurge, fifteen or twenty points' worth of candy, all crammed into one glorious binge, and then brace myself to not even look at the stuff that will be out on offer, for free, in the office kitchen next week.
(Theoretically, I ought to not have any at all. Not with three birthdays and Thanksgiving and Christmas all crammed into the next two months. But... Well, I don't want to do that.)
I wish I could decide which option to go with.
Onymous
If you happen to stumble across this, and you know me, and you aren't sure whether you should mention it... Eh. Don't worry about it. This isn't my journal for spewing bile and speaking my uncensored mind. So you found out I'm dieting -- whatever. I'm not going to be mad or feel censored or anything if you let me know you're here.
Ahem.
This isn't entirely anonymous, because I am too lazy to make a new blogger profile that isn't associated with my email address or my other blog or contain my name, etc.
But since I don't have time to get involved in the online community (hell, I barely have time to breathe, most days) then I don't think this is going to get a lot of traffic, and I don't think anyone I care about will see it.
Why is this here? Well, because I'm dieting, and I don't want anyone to know. My best friend has lost a huge amount of weight this past year, and she looks fantastic, but she doesn't want me to go on a diet. I'm not entirely sure why. Maybe it's because she wants to be the skinny one. Maybe it's because she doesn't want to feel like we're competing. Maybe it's because I am, as she said, "completely miserable" when I'm dieting and she doesn't want to put up with me.
Well, whatever. She doesn't need to know. I've been on Weight Watchers for almost 3 weeks now, and only one person knows. (Well, I suspect my husband knows, because he's not dumb, but since I haven't said anything to him about it, he's not bringing it up, and he'll probably leave it at that.)
It's not like I'm doing it for either of them. I'm doing it because I'm scared of being the fat one. Because I'm sick of outweighing my husband, who's close to a foot taller than me (and isn't exactly a featherweight, himself). Because my knee gave out this summer, not from injury but from the simple, prolonged stress of holding up my 250+ frame for the past ten years. Because whenever I stopped to think about how much I was eating, I disgusted myself. Because I know too many fat people with awful personalities and I don't want to get lumped in with them. Because I want my kids to grow up with the good eating habits that I somehow failed to learn.
Because it was, as they say, time to shit or get off the pot.
But since I don't have time to get involved in the online community (hell, I barely have time to breathe, most days) then I don't think this is going to get a lot of traffic, and I don't think anyone I care about will see it.
Why is this here? Well, because I'm dieting, and I don't want anyone to know. My best friend has lost a huge amount of weight this past year, and she looks fantastic, but she doesn't want me to go on a diet. I'm not entirely sure why. Maybe it's because she wants to be the skinny one. Maybe it's because she doesn't want to feel like we're competing. Maybe it's because I am, as she said, "completely miserable" when I'm dieting and she doesn't want to put up with me.
Well, whatever. She doesn't need to know. I've been on Weight Watchers for almost 3 weeks now, and only one person knows. (Well, I suspect my husband knows, because he's not dumb, but since I haven't said anything to him about it, he's not bringing it up, and he'll probably leave it at that.)
It's not like I'm doing it for either of them. I'm doing it because I'm scared of being the fat one. Because I'm sick of outweighing my husband, who's close to a foot taller than me (and isn't exactly a featherweight, himself). Because my knee gave out this summer, not from injury but from the simple, prolonged stress of holding up my 250+ frame for the past ten years. Because whenever I stopped to think about how much I was eating, I disgusted myself. Because I know too many fat people with awful personalities and I don't want to get lumped in with them. Because I want my kids to grow up with the good eating habits that I somehow failed to learn.
Because it was, as they say, time to shit or get off the pot.
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