Weekly Weigh In and Weight Watchers Changes

Remember all that stuff I wrote about Weight Watchers and points? Well, they just changed everything. If you have a TV you might have seen the commercials, and Oprah's smiley face seems to have taken over my app and the WW website.

They've been having mass technological issues - I unfortunately had several days worth of stuff just kind of disappear. It seems to be back online, and hopefully will be sorted out once everyone is on the new system.

The point is, last night I was down another 1.4, for a total of 5.4 pounds lost in three weeks! I am really excited at this progress. 

So, the changes to Weight Watchers - they've changed how they calculate points. Ten years ago, food points were calculated by calories, fat, and fiber. Five years ago, they changed that to carbohydrates, fat, fiber, and protein. Now, points are calculated by counting calories, sugar, protein, and fat.

The calories act as the baseline, and then protein can lower points while sugar makes it skyrocket. They're also trying to focus more on whole health, but honestly I'm kind of "eh" about that part.

The point is that they are really, really, penalizing sugar now. A candy bar that was 7 points is now 12. My standard breakfast, the Fage 2% with honey, jumped from 5 to 9 points! On the other hand, beans, tuna, and chicken breast went down. They adjusted the daily and weekly flexible/anytime points. Mine essentially stayed the same - my dailies went up by one, but my weeklies went down by seven. This is going to be tricky since a lot of food are higher in points now - not just sugar, but dairy - but I'm still on the same amount of points. Fruits and veggies are still free, though!

Regarding the sugar penalty - I adore sugar, and at first I was really annoyed by the changes. How can Weight Watchers have the whole "lifestyle" and "fitting everything in moderation" shtick if they make the cost of a slice of birthday cake basically prohibitively high? This I soupboxed at John for awhile.

After a bit of thought, though, I think maybe it could be good for me. I really do struggle with sugar. Maybe this could help me to have fewer treats and appreciate them more. How many times have I grabbed a 40-calorie mini Milky Way from the office candy bowl? A hundred million? How many do I remember, how many did I taste? Zero, probably. In the end it just became a habit. Maybe this will help me stop, when I realize how much it's costing me.

To my fellow, celebrators, Happy Chanukah! As someone trying to lose weight, I'm super duper pumped about a holiday that revolves around frying things and eating them.
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Weekly Weigh-In & A Little Bit of News

It's been a little busy around here, so this won't be the long rambling post I know you all enjoy so much.

In short, I'm really glad I got a little stricter with my food. I definitely needed  bit more structure, and it's been going very well. I have to plan more carefully since there's a lot less room for little extras, but that's the point and a good thing. Only hiccup was Friday night, when I went way off - just a wonderful, heavy meal where I almost gave up trying because of all the temptations. I'm not happy about undoing the previous day's work, yet I got right back on the next day and have been going strong.

Besides from Friday, office food has not been had, lunches have been packed and not bought (mostly), and meals have been planned. The passive voice has also been thoroughly abused.

This week's weigh-in:

	Start	6/8	8/19	9/30	10/29	12/31	1/28	2/11	2/25	3/4	3/10	3/17	3/24
Weight	200	191.2	182.6	181	181.4	177.2	174.6	174.2	177	175	173.6	172.4	172
Lbs. Fat		82.7	72.5	70.3	70.8	67.1	65.3	64.7	66.5	64.6	65.1	62.7	62.7
Lbs. Muscle		67.3	66.8	65.2	67.3	63.9	64.4	63.5	68.2	64.1	66.2	65.3	62.7

Muscle and fat match exactly this week, fat level is the same and net weight down a pound. I was hoping my effort would show on the scale since I'm confident I ate a pound's less worth of food, but I'm trusting that it will show up. After all, last week I had a loss that was definitely not the result of that week's work, but probably farther back than that. Bodies are weird. 

Onto the news: Since my manager knows and it's not a secret, I decided to share that I'm currently looking for a new job. I've learned a lot being a paralegal for the last two or three years, but it's time to figure out what I actually want to do with my career and life. My job is structured in that people usually leave after two years, for law school or another career path, so my news is not surprising to anyone at work (it's happened before with other people). I also happen to have an outstanding and supportive manager, for which I know I'm really lucky. 

So, that's that! Tell me about your week!

Weekly Weigh-In: Another Loss and Changing Things Up Again

This was a weird week, actually. Wednesday was bad, and on Thursday I worked hard to balance it out. Then I overdid it on Friday and Saturday - not horribly, but definitely not weight-loss level.

The Beyonce butt - totally turned it around on Sunday. I've been thinking about getting stricter with calories for awhile, and finally took the plunge on Sunday after the crappy previous four days. I need a reboot, a dunk into cold water. I need to get more extreme briefly to find moderation again.

But before I get into that, this week's weigh-in:

	Start	6/8	8/19	9/30	10/29	12/31	1/28	2/11	2/25	3/4	3/10	3/17
Weight	200	191.2	182.6	181	181.4	177.2	174.6	174.2	177	175	173.6	172.4
Lbs. Fat		82.7	72.5	70.3	70.8	67.1	65.3	64.7	66.5	64.6	65.1	62.7
Lbs. Muscle		67.3	66.8	65.2	67.3	63.9	64.4	63.5	68.2	64.1	66.2	65.3

Yes and yes! Weight and fat down to a new low! Might actually get out of the 70s this month! I can also count this as a week where the scale caught up to my efforts. I definitely did not earn the loss this week, but the loss is the cumulation of a few weeks. Either way, yay! Now I'm working to earn a pound loss this week.

Could this BE any more amazing?

Back to my my reboot: As much as my plan of having a minimum daily net intake of 1,000 calories plus 2,000 weekly "anytime" calories (for an average of 1300 a day) is probably the overall best way for me to do things, I think I sometimes get lax or a little too flexible after a while. What should be a 3,500 weekly deficit turns into 3,000 or 2,500. I'm still happy with that because progress is progress, but I know I can do better. So I want to do better.

Thus I'm doing a little mini boot camp for the next 2-3 weeks. The only change is that I'm getting rid of the weekly calories. I did this back in June-August and it really worked for me. I ate good food, little to no junk, and felt awesome. (I also got preemptively defensive about people telling me that 1,000 calories/day (plus eating back workout calories) was too little, but I'm not going to do that here again.)


This timing works out well because of an upcoming challenge: Passover, the Jewish holiday, starts on April 4th, so that gives me just under three weeks. For an excellent account of the story, see the Rugrats version. I have it on VHS if you would like to borrow this brilliantly made episode.

In terms of the practical, the bottom line is that for a little over a week, my dietary choices will be limited, and for three of those days I'll be in Michigan with my in-laws, and two more days at my parent's house. I am excited for both because I'm lucky to have wonderful in-laws. As an extra bonus, John's sister and brother will be visiting from across the world, and we haven't seen them for a year.

But food-wise, it will probably be tough. You'd be surprised at the incredible food that can be made without grains or legumes. I need to think of a strategy besides "Don't eat everything." Things work better when there are specifics. It would also seriously suck to undo the progress of the weeks before.

Pictured: Not a great plan.

First Week On Flexible Plan - A Great Weigh-In

This was a really good week, and I think a large part of that is due to the changes I made to my eating plan. I’ve said in the past that I think one of the keys to weight loss is to forgive the inevitable errors because guilt is pointless, and I still think that. However, in this revamped plan of counting calories weekly as well as daily, I can actually make up for my mistakes a bit instead of just letting them go.

The final plan was simple: eat a minimum of 1000 net daily calories, with 2000 weekly calories that could be used however I wanted, restarting every Wednesday. Still averages out to 1300/day, but much more flexible. For the record books, I’m not counting the calories in non-starchy vegetables because, let’s get real, I didn’t get fat eating too much lettuce and I figure it’s highly unlikely that I could consume enough broccoli to impede my weight loss.

I got a little snacky on Saturday (Snacky On Saturday - romcom coming February 2015). We ate lunch with some friends and there was just a lot of food around. But what got me, calorie-wise, was the picking at leftovers once back home. “Picking” is definitely one of the things I struggle with, especially at home, and I am working on it (kind of). But the great thing is that my estimated 2100 calorie Saturday - a full three hundred above even the regular maintenance level and an impressive 1100 above my minimum - actually fit healthfully into a week in which I had a 3500-calorie deficit. Balance!

On that topic, for now I’m still only eating back exercise calories on the same day that I burn them, but maybe in the future I’ll throw that into the pot.

This is the net calorie breakdown by day:

Wednesday - 1200

Thursday - 1300

Friday -  1500

Saturday - 2100

Sunday - 920**

Monday - 925**

Tuesday -1500

It was quite great, and not as annoying to keep track of as I thought. I felt more in control of my weight than ever because I was confident that whatever challenges presented themselves, I could figure them out and fit them into the week.

My positive feelings were reinforced when I got on the scale this morning.

Weigh-in:

	6/8/2014	8/19/2014	9/3/2014	9/30/2014	10/15/2014	10/29/2014	11/6/2014
Weight	191.2	182.6	182.8	181	181.6	181.4	179.6
Pounds Fat	82.7	72.5	73	70.3	70.8	70.8	70.3
Pounds Muscle	67.3	66.8	67.2	65.2	67	67.3	65

Remember when September was going to be the month I got into the 170s, and how I thought it would be so easy? And then October was going to be the month? Well it turns out it’s November. I don’t even care, I’m just glad to be here.

Now that I have finally (finally) hit the goal that I’ve been after for months, it’s time for a new one. I’m going to aim further this time, and set a deadline. I joined the gym last February, right at my 25th birthday, with the dream of losing a significant amount of weight by my 26th. While I won’t be 50 pounds lighter on my 26th birthday, I am going to try to be below 170. In order to make this goal, I need to lose ten pounds in the next 14 weeks - totally doable, with room for a plateaus or a few bad days. From now on I’ll weigh in with this particular goal in mind.

One-seventy would be a great accomplishment since this was the highest weight I looked okay i.e. my weight might not be the first thing you notice when you look at me. If this weight loss is like the previous time around, these ten pounds will come out of my face and hips.

Just because I love these.

**Please don’t freak out, Internet. These are net calorie counts, not gross. On each of these days, I ended up burning 500-600 calories at the gym and just didn’t feel the need to eat them all back.

Weigh-In, New Challenges and Changes

Good evening! 

First, here’s the weekly weigh-in:

	6/8/2014	8/19/2014	9/3/2014	9/30/2014	10/15/2014	10/22/2014	10/29/2014
Weight	191.2	182.6	182.8	181	181.6	181.6	181.4
Pounds Fat	82.7	72.5	73	70.3	70.8	71.3	70.8
Pounds Muscle	67.3	66.8	67.2	65.2	67	65.4	67.3

Essentially the same number as the previous three weeks - a bit annoying since this was the first week “back” after all the Jewish holidays, and I was hoping to lose a bit.  Overall I’m considering October a maintenance month - not ideal, but pretty good considering the challenges.

Speaking of challenges, while I’m not a huge fan of the aforementioned weight-loss related ones that life craps out, I do like making little challenges or goals for myself. In fact, I’m so committed that I’ve been trying to break into the 170s since August.

Challenges keep me accountable, keep me focused, and make things interesting. When I did the low/no sugar month, I stopped eating office food, something that had definitely been stalling my weight or at the very least, slowing it. 

I was able to do it for the month because I knew it was temporary, and then I was able to keep it going after the time ended because I realized it was a good idea, and not as impossible as I’d assumed it would be. Just today our boss brought in delicious apple fritters for everyone and put them on my desk since that was the central location at the moment, and I didn’t eat any. And it was fine, and nobody cared. So I’m going to consider October not as the month I maintained, but rather the month in which I broke a bad habit.

New challenge: starting today and through November, I want to try and stop picking at food in other setting - that piece of pasta out of the strainer, that bite of leftovers, you know what I mean. I track it, but it’s really mindless, pointless calories that I barely remember and definitely are not satisfying. Maybe there are food issues at hand, but part of the reason I do this is plain old habit. And habits can be broken.

If I can work on issues one at a time, I think I could make real long-term progress.

I’m also going to change up how I count calories so that it works better for my style and can help incorporate those “picking at food” slip-ups into the week instead of wrecking the day. 

Since March, when I started diligently tracking my food, I’ve had a daily calorie goal. It’s on the lower end of the expected range, but I ended up averaging a bit higher because of occasional high-calorie days. Sunday through Thursday, I can usually hit that target number without too much effort. I slip up some days, of course, and go over my calorie goals, but for the most part these days have routines and I often “earn” more calories by working out.

However, I didn't give myself any flexibility. This Sunday I burned 700 calories from Zumba and walking to/from the gym, and felt like I had more calories available than I really needed or wanted. And then on Tuesday, I was weirdly hungry, even after my normal breakfast. So why not take the calories I don’t need from Sunday, within reason, and save them for the rest of the week? Why not count calories weekly instead of daily? I think as long as I’m eating a healthy amount each day and have an weekly average deficit of, say, 4000-4500 calories, the daily breakdowns don’t matter as much and my weight will go down.

I’m going to copy part of the Weight Watchers plan, specifically the idea of having both daily and weekly calorie goals. Weight Watchers managed to be be flexible but stringent, if that even makes sense. Essentially there were flexible rules, and flexibility built into the plan, and if you were careful to stay (rigidly) within those flexibilities, you’d lose weight. There was a daily minimum of “food points,” and a weekly allowance that could be used at any time - all in one day or split over different days. 

So I will start giving myself weekly calories, two thousand of them, available anytime from Wednesday through Tuesday, started today. Based on my patterns, I expect to use most of them on the weekend, but again, it’s all about flexibility.

I’ll keep this up for the next four weeks, and see how I feel. I’m thinking of October as the month I stopped eating office junk, instead of the month where I struggled through holidays and barely maintained. So maybe November could be the month that I get a handle on nibbling at foods and having unplanned higher calorie days.

On an unrelated note, you might have noticed that goodnightcheese.blogspot.com is now redirecting to goodnightcheese.com, of which I am now the proud owner. Did you know they'll let anybody buy a domain?