Weigh-in day.
I confess, I was secretly hoping that last week's bump up had been a twitch of the scale and that this week I'd have one of those suspiciously large losses that made the two-week average into something perfectly reasonable. It's happened before, several times. And this week, all my bras are on their third (tightest) row of hooks, which was promising.
For the last three days, my unofficial morning weigh-in has been 192.8, which isn't a large loss, but it was respectable. It would have meant that last week's gain was honest, but that I was firmly back on track. And it would have put me, officially, at 80 pounds lost. So if I couldn't have my secret hope, this was a perfectly acceptable fallback, and this is, hopes aside, more or less what I was expecting.
Instead, I got on the scale this morning and found 193.2. Not quite enough to make the 80 pound mark (79.8). Exactly one pound lost from last week, a grand total of 0.2 pounds lost over the last two weeks.
...The hell? What did I do yesterday that made me gain half a pound? Nothing, that's what. I've been really good this week, trying to make up for the Hungry Hippo weekend I had. Was it the three Tums I ate at three this morning to dispel a (likewise inexplicable) case of heartburn? Do Tums make you retain water or something?
Sigh.
I know I said I'd just be happy to lose what I'd gained last week, but if anyone believed me, they should probably get their heads examined. I'm not quite ready to kick puppies over it, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little... underwhelmed.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Cheater, Cheater, Soup-Eater
There are lots of ways to "cheat" on the Weight Watchers diet without actually cheating. Most of them involve abusing the way points are calculated so that you're skating as close as possible to having to spend another point without quite getting there... This is one reason why, the first time I was on this diet (ten or so years ago), I lost twenty-five pounds and then slammed into a brick wall. This time around, I promised myself that I would try to follow the spirit of the law in addition to its letter, and I'm doing much better.
They didn't have the online tools back then. The online tools are handy, and mean I don't have to carry a converter doohickey with me everywhere I go. (Which is good, because I'm an online-only member, so they don't give me a converter doohickey to carry.) It's worth noting that the sidebar calculator doesn't work quite the same way as the database's calculator. The sidebar rounds to the nearest whole point, whereas the database will calculate to the nearest half unit, if your idea of a serving size doesn't match up with its default stored serving size.
You either already know all this, or else I'm boring you silly, or both, but this is worth mentioning so you can understand my complaint.
For a while now, I've enjoyed Campbell's Select Harvest Light soups. WW granted its countenance to the Progresso light soup line, but I think the Campbell's tastes better. When I first found them, they weren't in the WW database, so I had to add them, which wasn't a big deal -- I do that a lot. Let's take, for example, the Italian-Style Vegetable, which is the diet-friendliest of the bunch. According to the can, a serving is 50 calories, 0g fat, and 4g fiber, which is 0 points. But there's 2 servings in the can, and I dunno about anyone else, but I usually eat the whole can. So when I put it in the database, I put it in for "my" serving, which is 100 calories, 0g fat, and 8g fiber, which works out to 1 point. (It's worth nothing that Nutrition Facts labels are allowed to round their numbers off quite a bit, but even if you assume the posted 0g fat is almost 1g, and the 4g fiber is closer to 3g -- moving both of those numbers in the least advantageous direction for me -- it still works out to 1 point for the can of soup.) Which is a pretty damn good deal, and this is why I try to keep a few cans of this stuff around, in case I'm having a Hungry Hungry Hippo day. The other varieties of the soup go up to 3 points/can, and I keep them around too, because 3 points is a good deal for a reasonably filling lunch on a day I'm planning a big dinner.
With me so far? Good.
So the other day, I went to add a snack of some soup to my day's tally, and because I don't want to type "Campbell's Select Harvest Light Italian-Style Vegetable Soup, 1 can" every time, I just put "Campbell Harvest" into the search bar, assuming it would pull up my three or four hand-entered entries and I could click on the one I wanted from there.
Much to my surprise, it pulled up about twelve options: Apparently, WW has added some of the line to its own internal database! Wahoo! I clicked on their entry, and right away was confused. It said 1 cup of soup was 1 point. Well, it's a rounding thing, maybe, I thought. I changed the 1 to a 2, since the whole can is about 2 cups. The points changed to 2.
I blinked. It should have read 1.5, at most.
Now, I was eating a variety of crackers for a while that, between one batch and the next, changed nutrition data on me -- I actually had the two boxes side-by-side, and they were different, even though nothing else about them seemed to have changed. Maybe I hadn't noticed a change in the soup's data? I pulled out a can, but it didn't look different to me. Just to be sure, I re-entered everything into the calculator. It still told me 0 points for 1 cup, and 1 point for the 2-serving can.
Unfortunately, WW doesn't tell you what nutrition data they're basing their points on in the database. So as near as I can guess, what's happening is that for whatever reason, they're not accounting for the fiber. What frustrates me is that I'm not sure why -- and the cynical commentator in my brain tells me that it's deliberate, that they're not counting the fiber portion for the Campbell's soup because that makes it look like it's more points than the Progresso, which after all, still has the Weight Watcher's logo on its cans and (presumably) is paying a premium for that endorsement... Shall we do a compare?
The Progresso Light Italian-Style Vegetable has 10 more calories per serving, the same fat and fiber, about 2 fewer grams of non-fiber carbohydrates, and... fewer vitamins/minerals (on average, though Progresso wins on Vitamin C), and more than 50% more sodium (700mg vs 480mg). I'm not kidding: check out the published nutrition information here and here.
I'd like to believe that whoever put the Campbell's data into their database just didn't have the fiber information available, but how likely is that? Not very, considering that, even in absence of an actual can, I managed to find the information online in about thirty seconds.
And how likely is it now that I'm going to stop trusting their database to have the correct data for brand names? That... That's pretty darned likely.
They didn't have the online tools back then. The online tools are handy, and mean I don't have to carry a converter doohickey with me everywhere I go. (Which is good, because I'm an online-only member, so they don't give me a converter doohickey to carry.) It's worth noting that the sidebar calculator doesn't work quite the same way as the database's calculator. The sidebar rounds to the nearest whole point, whereas the database will calculate to the nearest half unit, if your idea of a serving size doesn't match up with its default stored serving size.
You either already know all this, or else I'm boring you silly, or both, but this is worth mentioning so you can understand my complaint.
For a while now, I've enjoyed Campbell's Select Harvest Light soups. WW granted its countenance to the Progresso light soup line, but I think the Campbell's tastes better. When I first found them, they weren't in the WW database, so I had to add them, which wasn't a big deal -- I do that a lot. Let's take, for example, the Italian-Style Vegetable, which is the diet-friendliest of the bunch. According to the can, a serving is 50 calories, 0g fat, and 4g fiber, which is 0 points. But there's 2 servings in the can, and I dunno about anyone else, but I usually eat the whole can. So when I put it in the database, I put it in for "my" serving, which is 100 calories, 0g fat, and 8g fiber, which works out to 1 point. (It's worth nothing that Nutrition Facts labels are allowed to round their numbers off quite a bit, but even if you assume the posted 0g fat is almost 1g, and the 4g fiber is closer to 3g -- moving both of those numbers in the least advantageous direction for me -- it still works out to 1 point for the can of soup.) Which is a pretty damn good deal, and this is why I try to keep a few cans of this stuff around, in case I'm having a Hungry Hungry Hippo day. The other varieties of the soup go up to 3 points/can, and I keep them around too, because 3 points is a good deal for a reasonably filling lunch on a day I'm planning a big dinner.
With me so far? Good.
So the other day, I went to add a snack of some soup to my day's tally, and because I don't want to type "Campbell's Select Harvest Light Italian-Style Vegetable Soup, 1 can" every time, I just put "Campbell Harvest" into the search bar, assuming it would pull up my three or four hand-entered entries and I could click on the one I wanted from there.
Much to my surprise, it pulled up about twelve options: Apparently, WW has added some of the line to its own internal database! Wahoo! I clicked on their entry, and right away was confused. It said 1 cup of soup was 1 point. Well, it's a rounding thing, maybe, I thought. I changed the 1 to a 2, since the whole can is about 2 cups. The points changed to 2.
I blinked. It should have read 1.5, at most.
Now, I was eating a variety of crackers for a while that, between one batch and the next, changed nutrition data on me -- I actually had the two boxes side-by-side, and they were different, even though nothing else about them seemed to have changed. Maybe I hadn't noticed a change in the soup's data? I pulled out a can, but it didn't look different to me. Just to be sure, I re-entered everything into the calculator. It still told me 0 points for 1 cup, and 1 point for the 2-serving can.
Unfortunately, WW doesn't tell you what nutrition data they're basing their points on in the database. So as near as I can guess, what's happening is that for whatever reason, they're not accounting for the fiber. What frustrates me is that I'm not sure why -- and the cynical commentator in my brain tells me that it's deliberate, that they're not counting the fiber portion for the Campbell's soup because that makes it look like it's more points than the Progresso, which after all, still has the Weight Watcher's logo on its cans and (presumably) is paying a premium for that endorsement... Shall we do a compare?
The Progresso Light Italian-Style Vegetable has 10 more calories per serving, the same fat and fiber, about 2 fewer grams of non-fiber carbohydrates, and... fewer vitamins/minerals (on average, though Progresso wins on Vitamin C), and more than 50% more sodium (700mg vs 480mg). I'm not kidding: check out the published nutrition information here and here.
I'd like to believe that whoever put the Campbell's data into their database just didn't have the fiber information available, but how likely is that? Not very, considering that, even in absence of an actual can, I managed to find the information online in about thirty seconds.
And how likely is it now that I'm going to stop trusting their database to have the correct data for brand names? That... That's pretty darned likely.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Guests
Hello, if you've wandered over to check me out from my guest post on Hungry Little Caterpillar! (And if you haven't, then you should go check her out, and read my guest post there!)
This isn't my best week, diet-wise -- I gained most of a pound, probably because I've been stress-eating. But I invite you to look around and check things out anyway. Go on, poke into the cabinets, put your feet up, whatever. I'm not picky. I've got lemonade here, and some veggies with hummus dip; help yourself.
Feel free to check out my other blog, as well, which is less focused on dieting and more just a stream-of-consciousness rambling about whatever's going on in my life on any given day. But it's got cute pictures of my kids, so that's a bonus, right?
This isn't my best week, diet-wise -- I gained most of a pound, probably because I've been stress-eating. But I invite you to look around and check things out anyway. Go on, poke into the cabinets, put your feet up, whatever. I'm not picky. I've got lemonade here, and some veggies with hummus dip; help yourself.
Feel free to check out my other blog, as well, which is less focused on dieting and more just a stream-of-consciousness rambling about whatever's going on in my life on any given day. But it's got cute pictures of my kids, so that's a bonus, right?
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Oops.
Gained 0.8 this week - 194.2.
I'm a bit disappointed, but not horribly stressed over it, since there's not much question of why it happened.
Guess my metabolism is crap enough that I'm just not able to dip significantly into my weekly or activity points. I earned 9 APs this week, and used a total of maybe 10 points above my daily minimum. Oh, well. Back to the drawing board.
I also should probably take a tighter grip on the evening snacks. I've been slipping, there, all week. The points are logged -- and sometimes I'm having them specifically to get up to my daily minimum -- but late-night calories just don't burn as efficiently. I'm tempted, in fact, to lay at least 3/4 of this gain on Monday night, when for whatever reason, I just could not stop eating. Need to make up my plan early in the day, stick to it as closely as possible, and come up with things to do in the evenings that make it hard for me to snack.
On the other hand, it's my first actual gain since I started the diet. (Not counting the one that happened the week after I had the stomach flu, which was arguably nothing more than rehydration; or the probable small gain I had the week of Christmas when I wasn't here to weigh in, but which was already gone by the next week.) So that's not bad, for ten months worth of dieting.
I'm a bit disappointed, but not horribly stressed over it, since there's not much question of why it happened.
Guess my metabolism is crap enough that I'm just not able to dip significantly into my weekly or activity points. I earned 9 APs this week, and used a total of maybe 10 points above my daily minimum. Oh, well. Back to the drawing board.
I also should probably take a tighter grip on the evening snacks. I've been slipping, there, all week. The points are logged -- and sometimes I'm having them specifically to get up to my daily minimum -- but late-night calories just don't burn as efficiently. I'm tempted, in fact, to lay at least 3/4 of this gain on Monday night, when for whatever reason, I just could not stop eating. Need to make up my plan early in the day, stick to it as closely as possible, and come up with things to do in the evenings that make it hard for me to snack.
On the other hand, it's my first actual gain since I started the diet. (Not counting the one that happened the week after I had the stomach flu, which was arguably nothing more than rehydration; or the probable small gain I had the week of Christmas when I wasn't here to weigh in, but which was already gone by the next week.) So that's not bad, for ten months worth of dieting.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
I Am That Woman
When I started out on this diet, it was in secret. Thus the blog title, which I still like, even though it's not a secret any more.
That lasted for maybe three weeks before I had one of those moments of triumph that I just had to share with someone... So in strictest confidence, I told my friend Karen. And like opening a floodgate in a dam, I found myself running for her whenever I had something I wanted to say about the diet, good or bad.
I remember one such observation very clearly. I don't remember how the subject came up, but I confessed to her that one of the things that terrified me about losing weight -- and subsequently, losing points -- was that I'd have to deprive myself on a daily basis in order to maintain a "healthy" body. I brought up my mother-in-law as an example, because the last time she'd visited us (which had been about a month before I started the diet) I had watched her have a breakfast of black coffee and a lunch consisting of a single 4-oz cup of (light!) yogurt, and an admittedly normal-to-large dinner... But it terrified me. Was I going to be confined to snacks for my meals, or else sacrifice two meals to get one decent one?
She came to town last week for a visit. (She comes every year for a few days, somewhere in the vicinity of my daughter's birthday.) I don't know what she ate for breakfast and lunch, because this year her visit was during the work week, so I wasn't around. But she was very complimentary of the meals I cooked, which was nice.
We hadn't planned ahead, though, and I wasn't sure if she would suggest, one day, that we go out to eat. So to be on the safe side and make sure I had the points for it, I cut back on my breakfast and lunch. (I don't mind doing that occasionally -- it was the notion of having to do it daily that freaked me out.) I had a 6-oz cup of light yogurt for breakfast, and a can of light soup that worked out to 1 point, along with about half a point's worth of tomatoes and cucumbers with a little balsamic vinegar for lunch. Three and a half points, total.
The breakfast -- the yogurt cup -- was... surprisingly satisfying. I'd expected to be hungry all morning, but I wasn't. I wasn't full, by any stretch, but I wasn't clutching my stomach and watching the clock for the earliest possible moment I could eat lunch, either.
(My weight actually popped up a tiny bit, the next day, because it turned out that we didn't go out to eat after all, and I ended up eating a huge snack before bed to make up some of the extra points. Oddly, I didn't panic at the minor increase. I knew where it had come from, and I knew it would go away in a day or so. And it did.)
I did it again, over the weekend, when I knew I had a heavy lunch planned on Saturday. Same result: No gnawing hunger.
Tuesdays and Thursdays are usually my yogurt-and-oatmeal breakfasts. Monday night, as I was packing my stuff for Tuesday, I looked at my yogurt cup, and wondered: should I drop the oatmeal for good? Just a yogurt? Am I that woman, now, inconceivable as the notion was less than a year ago? I packed the oatmeal anyway, and told myself I'd hold off on it. If I got hungry, I wouldn't deprive myself -- I'd have it as a late-morning snack.
I ate the yogurt (and learned that I like Yoplait's key lime pie yogurt better than Breyer's) and went on to my work. It was even a slow morning, work-wise, which tends to lead me into trouble with the diet.
I didn't get hungry.
My 11:00 meeting was canceled, so I took care of a few minor things, then changed and went to the gym a bit early. I got back to my office a little after 1:00, hungry but not famished, pretty much like I always feel after a lunchtime trip to the gym. I ate my lunch and went on to have a normal day, diet-wise. Skipping the oatmeal even let me have a little dessert after dinner.
Apparently, I am that woman.
I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it. Part of me feels proud and excited that I've come so far and changed so much. But part of me wants to cling to the terror: just a yogurt? How is that possibly enough food to keep me going for four hours? I can't tell if that part of me has a valid point, or if it's just a remnant of the 3X me. Am I going crazy, or going sane?
Whatever. Despite the late-night snacking and the big lunch and everything... I lost 1.2 pounds this week, putting me at 193.4 -- that's 79.6 pounds lost, total.
That lasted for maybe three weeks before I had one of those moments of triumph that I just had to share with someone... So in strictest confidence, I told my friend Karen. And like opening a floodgate in a dam, I found myself running for her whenever I had something I wanted to say about the diet, good or bad.
I remember one such observation very clearly. I don't remember how the subject came up, but I confessed to her that one of the things that terrified me about losing weight -- and subsequently, losing points -- was that I'd have to deprive myself on a daily basis in order to maintain a "healthy" body. I brought up my mother-in-law as an example, because the last time she'd visited us (which had been about a month before I started the diet) I had watched her have a breakfast of black coffee and a lunch consisting of a single 4-oz cup of (light!) yogurt, and an admittedly normal-to-large dinner... But it terrified me. Was I going to be confined to snacks for my meals, or else sacrifice two meals to get one decent one?
She came to town last week for a visit. (She comes every year for a few days, somewhere in the vicinity of my daughter's birthday.) I don't know what she ate for breakfast and lunch, because this year her visit was during the work week, so I wasn't around. But she was very complimentary of the meals I cooked, which was nice.
We hadn't planned ahead, though, and I wasn't sure if she would suggest, one day, that we go out to eat. So to be on the safe side and make sure I had the points for it, I cut back on my breakfast and lunch. (I don't mind doing that occasionally -- it was the notion of having to do it daily that freaked me out.) I had a 6-oz cup of light yogurt for breakfast, and a can of light soup that worked out to 1 point, along with about half a point's worth of tomatoes and cucumbers with a little balsamic vinegar for lunch. Three and a half points, total.
The breakfast -- the yogurt cup -- was... surprisingly satisfying. I'd expected to be hungry all morning, but I wasn't. I wasn't full, by any stretch, but I wasn't clutching my stomach and watching the clock for the earliest possible moment I could eat lunch, either.
(My weight actually popped up a tiny bit, the next day, because it turned out that we didn't go out to eat after all, and I ended up eating a huge snack before bed to make up some of the extra points. Oddly, I didn't panic at the minor increase. I knew where it had come from, and I knew it would go away in a day or so. And it did.)
I did it again, over the weekend, when I knew I had a heavy lunch planned on Saturday. Same result: No gnawing hunger.
Tuesdays and Thursdays are usually my yogurt-and-oatmeal breakfasts. Monday night, as I was packing my stuff for Tuesday, I looked at my yogurt cup, and wondered: should I drop the oatmeal for good? Just a yogurt? Am I that woman, now, inconceivable as the notion was less than a year ago? I packed the oatmeal anyway, and told myself I'd hold off on it. If I got hungry, I wouldn't deprive myself -- I'd have it as a late-morning snack.
I ate the yogurt (and learned that I like Yoplait's key lime pie yogurt better than Breyer's) and went on to my work. It was even a slow morning, work-wise, which tends to lead me into trouble with the diet.
I didn't get hungry.
My 11:00 meeting was canceled, so I took care of a few minor things, then changed and went to the gym a bit early. I got back to my office a little after 1:00, hungry but not famished, pretty much like I always feel after a lunchtime trip to the gym. I ate my lunch and went on to have a normal day, diet-wise. Skipping the oatmeal even let me have a little dessert after dinner.
Apparently, I am that woman.
I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it. Part of me feels proud and excited that I've come so far and changed so much. But part of me wants to cling to the terror: just a yogurt? How is that possibly enough food to keep me going for four hours? I can't tell if that part of me has a valid point, or if it's just a remnant of the 3X me. Am I going crazy, or going sane?
Whatever. Despite the late-night snacking and the big lunch and everything... I lost 1.2 pounds this week, putting me at 193.4 -- that's 79.6 pounds lost, total.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Steady March
A 1.4 pound loss this week (194.6 - total loss of 78.4 pounds). That's the fourth week in a row that I've had a loss of approximately a pound and a half; my little spreadsheet chart looks very neat and orderly for these last few weeks. I don't know if my weight loss has actually evened out, or if it's just that I've been stepping on the scale more often, the last few weeks, so it's stopped pulling its stupid "don't change for two weeks and then suddenly report a three-pound drop" trick. (It does still tend to say the same thing for 4-6 days and then suddenly show the pound and a half drop. Stupid scale.)
I'm continuing to notice external signs of shrinkage, though. I can actually see my wrist bone again! And my 42-band bras are on their second or third set of hooks (depending on which bra it is and whether it's fresh out of the laundry) so it won't be too long until I'm in need of more bras. (Though I still appear to be a DD cup. Don't get me wrong, I like having nice curves, but I wouldn't mind dropping to a D! Any time now.)
And my size XL shorts that I bought expecting them to last the rest of the summer are... not unwearable, but definitely a bit loose. Which is surprising, as my hips/butt/thigh region is usually a size bigger than the rest of me, and I was expecting to stay in XL pants into the fall. I guess we'll see. (On the other hand, the size L stuff I picked up from Sam's Club is way too snug, and I'll have to wait a while before I can reasonably squash into it. No more buying clothes without trying them on!)
Two more ladies in my office have joined Weight Watchers, and one more is planning to join in the fall, after her baby arrives. They're all serial dieters who've been on the program before, though, so I didn't have that proprietary, "Did I do this?" reaction. But it'll still be nice to have some more people to swap tips and recipes with. (This is the social benefit that one is supposed to get out of going to the meetings, but that never quite worked out for me.)
I'm continuing to notice external signs of shrinkage, though. I can actually see my wrist bone again! And my 42-band bras are on their second or third set of hooks (depending on which bra it is and whether it's fresh out of the laundry) so it won't be too long until I'm in need of more bras. (Though I still appear to be a DD cup. Don't get me wrong, I like having nice curves, but I wouldn't mind dropping to a D! Any time now.)
And my size XL shorts that I bought expecting them to last the rest of the summer are... not unwearable, but definitely a bit loose. Which is surprising, as my hips/butt/thigh region is usually a size bigger than the rest of me, and I was expecting to stay in XL pants into the fall. I guess we'll see. (On the other hand, the size L stuff I picked up from Sam's Club is way too snug, and I'll have to wait a while before I can reasonably squash into it. No more buying clothes without trying them on!)
Two more ladies in my office have joined Weight Watchers, and one more is planning to join in the fall, after her baby arrives. They're all serial dieters who've been on the program before, though, so I didn't have that proprietary, "Did I do this?" reaction. But it'll still be nice to have some more people to swap tips and recipes with. (This is the social benefit that one is supposed to get out of going to the meetings, but that never quite worked out for me.)
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