weigh-2-go.org

It’s about as scientific as a sample of 1 can get in three weeks, but here are the results so far of my low carb experiment.

Bottom line: I have way exceeded my allotment of Weight Watchers points, but I have not gained weight.

Here’s how to read the graph:

• It is really 2 graphs. Green and Yellow are Weight Watchers Points per day (numbers on axis on the left). Yellow is where Weight Watchers wants me to be: 20 points per day. Green is what I ate.
• Blue is my weight (numbers on the axis on the right).

In this brief time frame, there is a correlation between points and weight–note that my weight spikes a few days after my points spike. But with an allocation of 25 points per day (20 daily plus 35 weekly), Weight Watchers expects me to gain steadily as I consume more than that most days.

What does it mean? Here’s what I think. All these are hunches so far.

• Sugar sensitivity impacts my success in weight loss, and in Weight Watchers specifically, because the types of points I consume matter–that is, a high carb point “counts more” than a low carb point for me.
• Carbs affect me more than they affect most people. Otherwise, all of Weight Watchers’s science would be consistent with my experience.
• I hear friends say, “Weight Watchers doesn’t work for me–I stay within my points and still gain weight.” Maybe these people are sensitive to carbs like I am.

I’m not out to prove Weight Watchers is wrong or bad. I adore WW. But WW alone doesn’t help me control carbs–in fact their products wreak havoc on my appetite and make me crave carbs. And I’m curious to know whether all points are created equal. For me, I suspect not.

I’m going to keep charting (although my food journaling is admittedly less than perfect–there will be gaps in the numbers).

So here’s how it’s going on my Low Carb Regimen.

First day I started changing my eating behavior was Wednesday, September 23.

Tuesday, September 22, I felt depressed. To feel better and combat my needy hunger, I had two chewy chocolate granola bars for an afternoon snack. Then I had a scone and a brownie–for dinner.

Wednesday was a new day. I still felt like crap but I stopped eating carbs.

I have logged all of my food since Wednesday, using the Weight Watchers Food Tracker. I am blowing way past my POINTS! But I don’t care. The goal during this phase is not to lose weight, and not to develop life-long habits. The goal is to stop craving the sweet stuff.

I am allowed 20 Weight Watchers POINTS per day, plus 35 per week. I’ve been eating between 35 and 50 (50!) per day since Wednesday. I will gain weight this way.

Here’s what’s interesting to me: I predict, based on past experience, that my appetite will decrease in about a week or so, and my daily POINTS usage will go down.

• If my POINTS get below 20/day, cool! I have found a way to get back on the plan when life looks bleak.
• If my POINTS don’t get down to 20/day, but I lose weight anyway, won’t that be interesting? That would be a crack in the WW formula, and score a point for the late Dr. Atkins.

And I am sure (95% certain) I will lose weight this way. I have done it 3 times before. If I don’t, it will be because my body has changed (a possibility) or because I’m doing something different.

So let’s see if my prediction comes true–that I will get down to my allotted POINTS –and perform this little experiment (n=1) to compare my Low-Carb plan with the Weight Watchers system.

So here is the progress I have made in the past few weeks:

• Attended 2 Weight Watchers meetings
• Started writing down everything I eat
• Got through Memorial Day weekend, in a cabin with 10 people, without completely pigging out
• Very limited servings of wheat for the past week

On Sunday I will fix my broken Weight Watchers membership so that I have eTools. Then I will begin counting points in earnest.

This progress is slow in coming. Blogging about it severely difficult because the resistance is not entirely conscious, and is hard to articulate.

The other day I was talking to someone about her choice for a weight-loss/nutrition advisor, and these words came out of my mouth: “Weight loss isn’t just a health issue, it’s a mental health issue.” That helps articulate it.

Well, joining Weight Watchers and doing Weight Watchers are separate undertakings, and I am proof. I signed up, I went to a great meeting, and I’m still eating like…oink, oink, oink.

Last week I posed the question, “How much did [I] change?” The answer, today, is “not much.” I am in a pissy* mood. I put my gym bag in the trunk today, but I’m so resistant to exercise that I let myself off the hook.  (What I did want to do is sit in a diner with my laptop, have salad, fruit, and tea, and blog.)

I am also still resistant to writing down what I eat (says the Elephant), which is silly (says the Rider (same link)) because I used to do it every day for months, and I know it is just not that painful.**  (Tomorrow, I will post what I’ve been eating–the bad and the good.)

The truth is, I’m just angry.

When I was losing weight, I was not angry. At least not like this.

Aha!  “How much had I changed?” What had I changed? I changed my anger. Later I will contemplate what I am angry about. Meanwhile, I am just pissy* and I acknowledge my pissiness* as part of the weight loss experience.

*Vulgar? If so, I regret it…somewhat…but the word is so accurately descriptive, I feel compelled to use it.

**Lyrics come to mind: “Turning back she just laughs / The boulevard is not that bad.” –Bernie Taupin & Elton John.

Yes, somehow I knew I’d be back. This evening I rejoined Weight Watchers.

Why? Weight Watchers was instrumental in my 80-pound effort of 2006-2007. In Weight Watchers I not only learned, but practiced, better nutrition than I have anywhere else. In Weight Watchers, I experienced the quantity of food I truly need to be healthy…and it is shockingly little compared to what I eat without any plan.

I will confirm my current weight on the official WW scales this weekend, but I estimate that I have 21 pounds to lose. That will get me to 135, which is actually below my lowest weight of the “modern” era, which was 138. That should also get me from a size 12 (my clothes are currently uncomfortable at 10) to a comfortable 6. Jeepers.

So now this blog should come in handy as I have some real challenges to contemplate.

It is interesting to me that everything that has happened since I first lost weight has been so predictable. In the Weight Watchers meetings I attended two years ago, so many people were on their second, or even third or fourth, membership. Many people who lose weight gain it back. The real question that determines the ultimate success of weight loss is not “How much did you lose?” but instead: “How much did you change?”  I’m about to see.

…not as I do.  I don’t recommend the following course of action:

I quit Weight Watchers last week.

I love WW and really believe in it.  My reasons for quitting are a combination of my own bad timing (stupidity?), recent backsliding, and new income situation.

In other words, I should have claimed “goal” and gotten Lifetime (free membership!) but I didn’t.  Now the fee is a little too steep and I need to opt out.

If you can learn from my mistake, please do.  My WW story is like so many others.  I got cocky.  I thought I had it in the bag.  I just missed that goal by a few pounds, and thought I’d reach it soon enough…but I never did, and I never stayed there for my 6 weeks to earn the free Lifetime membership. Doh!

And like so many others, I’ll be back.

For the gajillionth time: It is time to get back on track.  I was just reading the Weight Watchers message boards and blogs and it is all the same, over and over: people are perenially getting back on track.  That is how Weight Watchers stays in business.

For the past 4 weeks I have been off of my usual life routine for a number of reasons.  Now I am back with not much else to do except live my usual life.  That is a relief.  That means I need to pick back up the best of my regular habits: eating well, exercising regularly, and generally keeping an orderly life.  All these things have slipped over the past month, and it is hard to crank them up again.  It is always more compelling to take things a little easier.

Ironically, the Breast Cancer Walk didn’t have the effect on my life and weight loss goals that I thought it would.  It was a wonderful experience, and I will probably do it again.  However, all things considered, it didn’t help me to stay healthy–it was a distraction from my healthiest habits.  It gave me an excuse to exercise less and eat more…an excuse that I didn’t have to use, but I did.  It was compelling to take the easier path.  So, I’m not saying that the Breast Cancer Walk was a bad thing–but I am saying that I didn’t use it as a good thing to the extent that I could have.

The bottom line is that no matter what I do, there is simply no escaping the need for self-discipline.  There are no breaks.  Every time I stray from self-discipline, I regret it, but every time I stay disciplined good things happen.  It’s just danged hard.

I have a friend who often asks me, “What do you want?” and encourages me to stay focused in that direction.  So if being healthy is what I want, why is it so difficult?

In subsequent posts I want to explore this topic and come up with some positive and helpful answers.

…and one week back. But progress overall.

It’s been about 3 weeks since I posted “Confessions of a Backslider” and my campaign to get back on the Weight Watchers program. I lost about 3-4 pounds.

The first two weeks I logged myfood and activity POINTS pretty diligently. Success! Then last week, not so much, and of course I back-slid again. So predictable!

My Weight Watchers Weeks begin on Sunday. So every Sunday is an opportunity to begin again. But actually, every day, every moment is such a an opportunity. They teach us in WW that what is past is past. You keep picking back up and starting again. And so it goes on the journey.

And here’s a new twist about losing 3-4 pounds: not only do I feel better, but one of my friends actually noticed. I need to remember that 4 pounds is a bigger deal than it used to be!

By “cheap sweets” I mean foods that are usually artificially sweetened, and serve as sweet snacks and desserts. I call them “cheap” not because of monetary cost, but because of calories and Weight Watchers POINTS.

So who wouldn’t love ‘em? Especially with all the great artificial sweeteners out there? Why give up chocolate cupcakes and oatmeal cookies and ice cream sandwiches when you don’t have to, right?

Not to say that I never indulge, but I don’t rely on cheap sweets to help me keep my POINTS down. I avoid them just like I avoid “expensive” sweets. Why? Because it isn’t about the calories: it’s about my brain. The more I eat ‘em, the more I want ‘em, pure and simple.

I think food is a lot like speaking a language–the more you use it, the more you think it. At least that’s the story for me. When I eat chocolate, I crave more chocolate, whether the chocolate was “cheap” or not. Then the next time I pass the bakery counter at Panera or the candy dish at the office, the chocolate–I swear, can’t you hear it?–calls my name. But if I leave chocolate alone, in all its forms, my brain forgets it after a few days–I lose the language. What a relief!

The good news is: when I eat celery, I crave more celery. Mmm, celery.

The Weight Watchers company is a pro at manufacturing cheap sweets, and obviously they help a lot of people. But I would be interested to hear from my readers whether cheap sweets are helpful to them, or whether, as I do, they find them to be a slippery slope.

OK, here it is, my moment of truth–the whole reason I started this blog.  I’m gaining weight.

I have more and more clothes in the “Too Small Collection” hanging in my “other” closet.  These clothes were all wearable within the past year, but they are too tight now.

This is a moment of truth that, consciously or subconsciously, every weight-loser must face: when the weight threatens to come back, what next?

I started this blog to trap myself into staying healthy.  I have put myself on the spot, on purpose.  I have, what–8?!–blog subscribers who are counting on me!  I’ve published a freakin’ press release!  There is no going back!

So, yesterday, I reluctantly, pitifully, whiningly, with fear and loathing, logged back in to WeightWatchers.com to start logging all my food and counting my POINTS*.  Back to the Flex Plan–for those of you know know the WW lingo!  And for those don’t here’s the way it works**: I get 19 points per day plus 35 weekly “Flex” points to use anytime during the week.  And, on any day I exercise, I earn Activity points that give me a little slack in my eating.

For example, today:  Protein Fiber Shake, 2 pts; fat free yogurt with fruit, 2.5;  lunch was half a tuna salad wrap, 8.5 (@#$!) with a pickle, 0; dinner was a Chick-Fil-A side salad with light dressing, 1 ; snacks were seven (yes, seven!) rice cakes, 4.5; fruit salad, 2; Starbucks iced coffee with sugar-free syrup: 0.
And I went to the Y tonight for weights and cardio.

• POINTS values used: 20.5
• Activity POINTS values earned: 3
• Activity POINTS values swapped: 1.5 (because that’s how much I exceeded my daily allowance of 19)
• Weekly POINTS values used: 0 (which would have been 1.5 if I hadn’t gone to the Y)

Today was Day 2.  So far I have managed to avoid using any of my 35 weekly points.  I like to save them up for Friday and Saturday.

By the way, I usually eat the entire tuna salad wrap, not half.  So being aware of my points has already changed my behavior.  But boy, did I want to eat that other half!!  Mmm, tuna….

* and **: see Comments.