Week 3 overview

Okay, so I didn't really keep this updated this week. Christmas morning I weighed myself. Then I forgot what it was, so after I opened presents and everything, I weighed myself again.

Current weight: 282.6
New goal weight for 2012: 230

That's up at least four pounds from last week, but I am okay with that because 1) I didn't really track anything, 2) I weighed myself after I ate and 3) I had my period, so I was bloated anyway.

I've been tracking this week, and I know I will do better on the scale. I'm a little worried about weighing myself Sunday morning, right after our New Year's Eve/JanNo kick off party, but I just have to watch what I eat and not be a pig. I survived Michael's mother's party Wednesday without overeating. I can do it tomorrow, too.

Week 2, Day 4

I finally feel like I'm starting to make progress. Usually I eat bad food that's high in points and doesn't keep me full for very long. That's why I used up all of my points in the last three days and then some. But today, things are different. I made that spicy Asian peanut chicken thing for dinner last night, and I had the leftovers for breakfast and lunch today. Then I made crock pot chicken taco chili for dinner. Eating better is definitely helping me stick to the diet more.

Breakfast (12)
leftovers (10)
coffee (2)

Lunch (10)
leftovers (10)

Dinner (11)
chili (5)
tortilla (4)
cheese (2)
ff sour cream (0)

Snacks (2)
2 small pieces of chocolate

Week 2, Day 2

Brunch: (9)
1 turkey and cheese sandwich w/1 tsp mayo (9)
4 cups water (0)

Dinner: (34)
2 cups diet coke (0)
4 pieces pizza (28)
4 cookies (6)

Week 1 Weigh-in

Okay, to be fair, I wasn't really OP this week. I started to keep track the first two days and then was out of weekly points and then stopped counting. I wasn't really expecting to lose anything. I was going to start over this week. Then I went to weigh myself to see what my starting weight was. And that's when I realized that I was down close to 2 pounds since last week. That's exciting!

Today was drunk brunch. I wasn't keeping track of food while I went (because, honestly, I wasn't expecting to start my diet today either, despite what I said above), but this is my estimate of what I ate:

Actual brunch: (30)
waffle (5)
6 cookies (9)
croissant (5)
coffee w/small amounts of creme de menthe (5)*
1 slice bacon (1)
egg casserole (5)

Dinner (14)
2 slices cheese pizza (14)

After-dinner eating: (25)
1 bowl cereal (4)
1 WW snack (2)
leftover nachos (14)
1 drink (5)
Total: 69 (46 + 2 APs + 21 WPs)
APs: 2 (stairs + walking to the pizza place)

Remaining WPA: 28
Remaining APs: 0

*I'm not sure on the points for the creme de menthe, but I didn't use that much of it, so I'm going to go ahead and say that it was 3 points. I'm a really, really, wussy drinker, so I'm okay with that estimate.

55 pounds in 55 weeks

Many people (including myself) are participating in the 52 books in 52 weeks challenge, where they try to read a book every week of 2012. I've decided to give myself an additional challenge of losing a pound a week, starting today and ending at the end of 2012.

Starting weight: 280
Starting BMI: 41.3

Goal weight: 225
Goal BMI: 33.2

That goal is not considered "healthy." I will still be obese. I will still be bigger than most of the people I know outside of my family. And I am okay with that. I don't think that everyone has to be the same size. I don't think that BMI charts are the best way to judge if someone's healthy. I don't think that there's anything wrong with being fat. I actually like it to some extent. I like being squishy. I like that I'm more fun to hug.

What I don't like is that I'm still close to 40 pounds more than I was through most of high school and college. Most of my clothes don't fit anymore. I used to be a size 18 and wear XL shirts. Now I shift between a size 20 and 22, and I wear 2XL shirts. I used to want to be a size 14. Now I just want to go back to where I was. I would still like to get down a little lower (size 16), but I would be okay with not. This year, I just want to focus on getting back to a comfortable 18. I think getting down to 225 would get me there.

I started Weight Watchers about this time last year, and I lost 30 pounds in three months. I've kept 15 pounds off, which is nice, but I want to do more. I don't want to get back to where I was. I also don't want to pay $20 a month for their online tools. I bought a PointsPlus calculator. I bought the books. I know how Weight Watchers works. I am going to use this blog to keep track of my daily food intake and weekly weigh-ins. I hope doing so will help keep me on track.

"Put one foot in front of the other..."

It's taken a little while, but I'm back on track with Weight Watchers. I lost the three pounds I had gained two weeks ago and then another three pounds, bringing my total weight loss so far up to 18 pounds in 9 weeks, or 2 pounds a week. I am satisfied with that. I wish I hadn't lost time with my "experimentation" with points, but I've still lost weight and am feeling a lot better about myself now, so it's still a win.

It helps that I'm working now. I'm a school photographer, meaning I'm on my feet for close to eight hours a day. I haven't worked out in two weeks because my feet are always killing me when I get home from work, but that's still a ton more movement than I'm used to, so it's still a positive thing. I'm also frequently carrying and setting up heavy equipment, so I'd get some APs just from that. It takes 30-60 minutes to set up the camera equipment, and about that same amount to take it back down at the end of the day. That's about 3 APs a day just from the first and last part of the day, not including the walking back and forth taking pictures, posing children, and keeping the lines moving smoothly.

I need to work on eating better, though. Dad's been making some pretty points-heavy meals for dinner since I started working (since I'm not there to help plan), and I'm generally so hungry by the end of the day that I eat too much of it. I've bought some of those 100-calorie packs that are about 3 points each, but they're not quite enough. I've written out some WW-friendly meals, so hopefully those will be made from dinner more often.

Uncertainty

I'm nervous about the WI tomorrow. Weight Watchers says you can use all your Weekly Points and still lose weight. This week, I'm testing that theory. I have 49 points but have only ever used 22 in one week before. I haven't counted up a total for this week yet, but I know it's at least in the 30s. I wouldn't be surprised if I used up all of them.

Sadly, most of those points were used up yesterday. We went out with my boyfriend's family for lunch, and I had cake and pizza for the rest of my meals. It was my sister's boyfriend's birthday, so we had a lot of junk laying around. Usually I wouldn't have had any, but since I had already decided to test the point thing, I decided to go with it.

I still exercised almost every day, though, so I'm hoping I haven't gained back anything, even if I haven't lost. Friday we were at my boyfriend's house, so I didn't work out then, but I exercised every other day this week for at least 20 minutes. Plus today was my first day of work (training to be a school photographer), so I was on my feet, carrying and setting up heavy equipment for about 8 hours, so I definitely got some APs in that way.

I guess tomorrow we'll know the truth.

Restaurant woes

Apparently we're going to Ruby Tuesday with boyfriend's family tomorrow for lunch. I went online to look up the menu and try to decide the best options, and I found that they don't list protein. It's better than the last place we went with them (Longhorn, whose website didn't list protein OR fiber), but still...is it too much to ask that restaurants post ALL their nutritional information online? How can they expect people to make good choices if they don't have all the information they need in order to decide? Sure, I know grilled chicken is better than fried, and that tomato sauces are better than cream sauces, but it would still be nice if I could calculate the points for each option I'm considering.

Everyone criticizes fast food places for having terrible food, but I have yet to go on one of their sites and not found their entire menu's nutritional information. Some even have interactive menus where you can choose all the different foods you're going to get, and it calculates the information for everything in your basket. How come fast food places can help you make good (or at least decent-ish) choices but restaurants can't?


My boyfriend says I'm being ridiculous because I could just go to the waiter tomorrow and ask for the complete information. But I'm not good at that. Like I said yesterday, it was a huge step to ask for sf powder instead of syrup, and the week before was the first time I had ever ordered sf/ff anything because I always felt like the cashier was looking at me and thinking, "Really? You think that's going to be enough to lose weight, fattie?"


Yes, I'm being ridiculous with that last part (because even if they are thinking it, who cares?), but I still don't feel comfortable asking for that information when I'm out with his parents and two other people I have only met once. I only just told them I was on WW yesterday, and that's because they were talking about ways his brother could lose weight (he's 15-20 pounds away from being able to join the navy). I don't want to be the annoying person who makes everyone wait to order because she has to pull out her calculator and figure out the points. I would rather go online and figure it out beforehand.


I eventually found the information that I needed (I had to go to several different sites and trust that their information was correct). It just really hurt that my boyfriend, who's constantly complaining about things I think are stupid, would tell me I was being unreasonable for wanting restaurants to post all that info online.

"Heavy" thoughts

I watched the first episode of A&E's "Heavy" two weeks ago, and I am only just now getting around to writing up my thoughts on it. Each episode features two people through a 6-month weight loss course. For the first month, they stay in a controlled environment with the show's trainers. For the next five months they return home, though they are still provided with personal trainers. If they stop losing weight, they have to return to the facility.

What I like about this show is that it's not a competition. As much as I love "The Biggest Loser," it starts to get annoying as the show goes on and they start voting people off based on who's a bigger threat and who isn't. In my opinion, whoever loses the least amount of weight should be kicked out, and everyone who's still working hard should get to stay. But that's not the point right now...

I watched and enjoyed episode two of "Heavy," but the first episode really had a lot of moments where I could completely identify with what the characters said. I identified with Jodi the most, especially when she said this: "What if losing all this weight doesn't change how I feel inside?"

I've lost weight before. I got down to 197 pounds in nineth grade, which was still overweight but was the closest to my goal weight that I've been since I can remember. I gained it all back and then some. When I was at the University of Minnesota, I had free access to a gym. I went with my friend for a few months, but once she stopped going, I stopped going. Why did I do that?

I think a lot of my problems stem from that fear of success that Jodi was talking about. I have always been overweight, and I have always dreamt about how awesome it would be to be thin: to be able to go shopping with friends and actually be able to look for clothes instead of standing awkwardly behind everyone else; to be able to dress up and not feel miserable the entire time because my clothes don't fit properly; to be able to look at myself in pictures and not cringe.

And yet I keep eating. I don't have one or two pieces of pizza; I have four or five. I don't have a scoop of ice cream; I have three. I don't have a bowl of macaroni and cheese; I eat the whole box. And I do this because a part of me is afraid of change. I am extremely shy person. I ate lunch alone for half of nineth grade because I was afraid of going up to people I kind of knew and asking them if I could eat with them. I didn't have a boyfriend until the month before I turned 20 because I could never bring myself to talk to guys I liked.

And whenever I was home alone, wishing I had a lot of friends or a boyfriend, I could blame my weight. I could say that guys are shallow and only care about looks, so it was beyond my control when no guy asked me out. If only they could look past my weight, they would realize I was an awesome person. If only I were thin, people would want to hang out with me. There was nothing I could do about it: after all, you can't change other people.

So what if I were to lose weight and was still all alone? Then I would have no one to blame but myself, and who wants that? I would much rather be fat and be able to blame all my problems on the shallowness of others.

But that's not the case anymore. I have a wonderful boyfriend, and I made decent friends in college. If I ever get a job, I'm sure I could make a friend or two again. I don't need a ton of friends, just a few. If nothing else, I have the support of the people on the BCB forums that I can turn to for help. I can't lose weight if I'm going to pin all my hopes and dreams on it.

Losing weight won't fix all of my problems, but it will fix some of them. And that's good enough for me.

A single step

Some look at obese people and wonder how they could have let their weight get so out of control. They look at the five-hundred-pound woman and think, Couldn't she have done something before she reached that point?

What those people don't undersand is that there isn't any one point when a person goes from being a healthy weight to being obese. It's a gradual change. In the six months after I graduated from college, I went from a size 18 to a size 22 without realizing it. I'm sure I'm not the only one who's experienced weight gain like that and not realized it. Some might not understand how a person could gain 50 pounds and not realize it, but it's actually rather simple.

Because the weight gain is gradual, the close you already own grow with you to some extent.  Shirts you've worn for years still fit because as your waist grew, it stretched out the fabric. Shirts you've purchased in the last year don't fit nearly as well. You tell yourself that you're still an XL because, after all, all your other XL shirts fit. These newer shirts must have been made differently, is all. You must not have broken them in yet. After all, you aren't really a 2X, you tell yourself. You just wear them because they're more comfortable, because you can wear them without having to worry about your stomach sticking out.

It's the same with pants. You get used to your pants not fitting properly, so you continue to squeeze into them and don't register that you're actually getting bigger. You tell yourself that they're tighter because they were just washed and haven't loosened yet. If you're a woman, you're used to pant sizes' being different depending on which cut and brand it is, so the fact that the 18 you grabbed to try on is too small doesn't really tell you anything. You tell yourself that a different brand's 18 would fit. It's just that one cut that you have to buy in a size 20.

Then you get used to those pants, and you forget that they're not the same size as all your other ones. You just think of them as the comfier pants. It's not until months later that you finally have to face the fact that not only do you not fit in any 18s but you also do not fit in any 20s. It's only then that you accept that you're not wearing bigger clothes because they're more comfortable; you're wearing them because they're the only clothes that fit.

I'm not 500 pounds, but I can understand how someone could get that heavy and not realize it. I'm just glad I noticed in time to stop it from getting worse. I started Weight Watchers the week of Christmas, and I've lost seven pounds so far. The goal is to reach my goal weight of 160 by the end of 2012. I'm hoping to be down to a size 14. Smaller would be nice, but I'd be happy with 14. That would be smaller than I have ever been in recent memory. Even after a semester of PE in ninth grade, when I lost 20 pounds and was looking better than ever, I was still a size 16 and weighed almost 200 pounds.

They say that a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. I have 127 pounds to lose. Other people have done it. So can I. Let's go.