Weight Update in 2016

I hope everyone had a very happy new year! I celebrated by falling asleep at 8:00 p.m. and waking up to the sounds of someone somewhere outside yelling "Happy New Year!" with the kind of enthusiasm and slurring only a wonderfully drunk person can manage. It was actually really awesome - I got to ring in the new year. Then the first hours of the new year were spent with John on Netflix.

We had some plans, but I ended up kind of pooping out on them.

Weight update: I was a pound up last week, which I guess can only be expected given that I was 130 points in the red. Yup, 130 points. Surprisingly easy if you eat junk food. This week so far has been better, so I'm hoping for better results tomorrow.

How exciting was your New Year's Eve? Did you stay up till midnight?

Weigh-In and A Great Pep Talk

Last week I was down another .8, for a total of 7.4 pounds since November 17. That's an average of 1.4 pounds a week! Awesome, though I really can't expect to keep up that pace.

This week was hard. I don't know what I'm expecting at weigh-in tomorrow, but I would be surprised if I wasn't up.

I don't even know how to describe this, but this week was hard and I did not do well. Tuesday and Wednesday, and even Thursday were pretty good. I stayed out of my weekly points (saving them for the weekend), went to my double-trouble Power Dance then strength training class with my favorite instructor. I was feeling pretty good.

Then we went to my parents, and it was like I instantly regressed to that sad, fat little ten-year-old who thought "people be gone from kitchen" was a sign to "eat all things not glued/nailed down." That (the regressing thing) probably didn't help, but it was also that I'm still really not good at having food around, especially sweets, and not eat them, like sweets.

My parents are awesomely kick-ass, and this was a great weekend where the whole family was together, my two siblings included. That part was pretty great. But I absolutely sucked at the eating. My mom made cookies, and she asked me to make a dessert, and then some neighbors came by with homemade Christmas treats, not to mention the mealtimes themselves. I just really sucked.

The good news is I just tracked everything I could remember from the last few days. As best I can tell, I'm about 100 points in the negative. Triple-digits. Ugh. It's not as hard as you'd think, because of how many points sugar is - for example, a standard slice of cake with frosting is 25 points. For reference, I get 30 points in an entire DAY. So that 100 points could translate into - WAIT, nope. Just did some Weight Watchers calculator games. That 100 points could easily be an extra 2,000 calories eaten this week.

Still my favorite gif.

So I'm definitely not happy with myself, but I'm trying so hard to just get right back on today, and keep going. That started with tracking everything I could remember. John gave me a great pep talk on the way home from my parents. I definitely hit the lottery with that guy. The gist was just that this, right now, is where a lot of people who end up failing, fail. If I can get back up from this, in six months this weekend can just be a blip on my weight loss chart. Maybe a gain, maybe not, but it won't matter. This can be the beginning of the end, or just a bump on the way to a healthy weight. I get to decide that. 



For those who celebrated, how was your Christmas? Merry Christmas!

For those who didn't, did you see Star Wars? We did and I thought it was great. (No spoilers)

Weigh In & Holiday Parties

I’m down another pound, yes! That brings me to a grand total of 6.4 pounds in 4 weeks, putting my current weight at 188. It’s slightly annoying since I weighed myself at home right before I started Weight Watchers, and it said 184, compared to the 194.4 that Weight Watchers had on their scale. However, I’m trying to go with it, and realize that in the end, those eight or ten pounds don’t really matter.

I’m also getting used to the new Weight Watchers plan, how sugar makes the points value of a food skyrocket. I’m definitely off the office candy bowl. There’s also been a few other times where there has been some great treat in the office, and I didn’t give a second thought to not having any. I also realized that I don’t actually need all the honey that comes in my Fage 2% with honey, which brings the points of the yogurt back down to the original 5 points. Progress!

I'm feeling pretty in control these last few weeks, which is a wonderful feeling indeed. I can gauge how confident I am in my weight loss by what I daydream about while walking to the subway. Is it showing up svelte to my company's holiday party next near, when (hopefully) they would have not seen my transformation because I finally got a new job? Is it running into my sixth grade crush/bully while he's drunkenly peeing in the street and I look great? Or is it what I'd do with 2, 4, or 6 million dollars? It's all in the daydreams, my friends.

How was your office holiday party? Open-bar-fancy-apps or daytime pre-ordered luncheon?

Sometimes I Think About What Happens After Goal Weight

The other day I was reading an interview with a transgender woman about her transition, and something in it struck a particular chord with me. Nora lives in the Netherlands, where the state will pay for everything, but there are a tremendous amount of meetings, counseling, therapy, waiting periods, etc, involved in the transition process. Much of these meetings focused on what Nora wanted to do with her life after becoming a woman - everything from hobbies to career goals, to love and friendships. What were her plans, what was her support system?

She explained, “You spend your youth wishing you could live your life as a woman, but once you accomplish that goal, you then have to actually go out and live your life as a woman. That's not the end of a story -- it's the beginning of one.”

Obviously my situation is very different from Nora’s, but what she said there really struck me, and I think there can be some interesting parallels. Really, her words can apply to any big accomplishment or event - finishing a game of Risk, getting married, taking that trip, whatever.

How often does something like this happen? You plan and you work and you try for months or years, and then you finally do it. You’re married, you’re living as your preferred gender, you’ve gotten to your goal weight. Then what?

How much time and energy have I spent on my weight? Planning diets, reading tips, staring at the scale, even blogging here? How many of my waking hours are spent thinking about the type and amount of food that will enter my mouth? (Ha, you didn’t think I’d say ‘mouth!)

That’s something to remember. After I lose all this weight, there will probably be some new clothes and an enormous amount of celebrating and creating before/after jpg that I not-so-secretly hope will go viral. But then eventually life will go on at this new weight. At some point, I might have more people in my life who have only even known me at 140 pounds or whatever than people who remember my 190-pound existence. Isn’t that weird?

There are already people who’ve never known the me that was looking for a post-grad job forever, or the me that was really depressed, or the me that had [opinion] on [controversial topic] that’s now done a 180.

We all keep creating different versions of ourselves, and with each new person that we meet in life, there’s one more person who has no idea who we were before they met us. I found out that a girl I was friendly with was a semi-famous violinist. I’d hung out and talked to her at least 20 times, but had no idea. She had this huge skill, these amazing accomplishments that she’d earned, and I had no clue.

So I need to remember that maybe someday there will even be people who think I don’t understand what it’s like to be bullied for my weight, because they’ve only even known me as a the supermodel I became later. I guess the older you get, the more that happens. Most of the people in my parents’ lives have only ever known them with kids. Hell, I’VE only ever known my parents as parents, not the clean-shaven law student or the reporter living in a cool apartment. (However, I’m positive that my dad has always made dad jokes.)

Weight loss will hopefully just be a part of my past someday, just like the months I thought crunchy gelled hair = extreme attractiveness. And it should be. I might always have to think about food a little to maintain, but it won't be like now, where weight loss is high on the priority list. 140-pound Leah will be the new Leah.

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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