about setting goals.

Since it's like, you know, that time of year, I want to talk about goal-setting.

I read a piece of advice a few years ago about achieving goals and it advised, essentially, not to make your goal something you didn't have 100% control over. So if you wanted new friends or a new boyfriend, you shouldn't make it your goal to 'make new friends' or 'get a boyfriend'. Those things were too far out of your control. Your goal instead should be something like "Do at least one thing a week that will force me to talk to someone new", or "Ask at least one person on a coffee date each month." If you wanted a new job your goal shouldn't be 'Find a new job', but maybe, "Send out at least ten resumes each week."

The idea is that, yes, you should know what your end goal is, and what you're working towards, so you can be sure you're taking the right steps. You should keep in mind why you're sending out ten resumes a week: you want a new job. But there's nothing you can do to literally give yourself a new job. You just have to take all the steps you can towards it, and hope / trust that it will happen.

Recently, I've been trying to take that approach with weightloss. In the past I've gotten frustrated when I felt I wasn't losing fast enough, or if, God forbid, I had a small gain. But really, we usually weigh in once a week. And bodies are weird things and the truth is, I can't totally control what's going to show up each week. Maybe I forgot and wore heavy pants that day, maybe I haven't used the bathroom recently enough, maybe I ate a lot of salt or didn't drink enough water. Okay, I guess you CAN control a lot of those things, but who wants to be that obsessive? None of those things represent real true weight loss (or gain) anyway.

I'd also get frustrated when I'd set myself goals like "Lose x pounds by x date." Either the goal was too ambitious, and I wouldn't make it, or the goal was relatively modest, and I'd get depressed and think I should be losing faster.

Who needs this constant up and down?

My new goals are more like this:

- Eat as many filling foods as possible
- Track everything I eat
- Stay within my points each week
- TRUST THE PROGRAM.

That's it.  Each week my goal is basically just to follow the program as best as I can. I know that the weightloss will follow, regardless of any little fluctuations from week to week. I still go to my meetings, to keep focused, and to have a record of my progress, but the number on the scale doesn't matter too much. Okay, I'd be a dirty liar if I said it didn't matter at all, because everyone loves to see a nice big loss, and no one wants a gain, but my feelings of 'success' or 'failure' each week don't depend entirely on the scale. I know whether or not I met my goals for the week before I ever even set foot in that meeting room.

Now these goals are specific to the Weight Watchers plan I've chosen to follow, but it's the same idea across the board. Your goals might be to drink 8 glasses of water a day, eat 5 servings of fruits and veggies, or go to the gym 4x a week. Those are things you have exact and immediate control over. 

So. You can't control whether or not someone is going to offer you a job, but you can control how many resumes you send out and how many attempts you make at networking and how many times you proofread your cover letter. And, at the end of the day, you can't control what number shows up on the scale. You can't literally slice the weight off your body (as much as we've all occassionally wished that.) But you can definitely control what you put in your mouth, how many miles you walk, how many times you choose fruit over cookies. Those are my goals. Those are my victories.

it's a Christmas miracle!

I went to my weigh-in this afternoon and I am just THRILLED to report that I lost 1 lb! That's right, I managed to lose weight over Christmas!

I am so pleased with myself. Going into the holidays, I made myself just one promise: that I would track and journal everything I ate, even if I went over my points.

And that didn't mean writing it all down two or three days later -- I had to write it down as soon as I ate it, just like I always do. Anyway, it worked out better than I hoped -- knowing how many points I was using kept me in check, even when I gave myself permission to go a little crazy and eat whatever.

For instance, on Christmas Day, we ended up going to a breakfast buffet, for brunch. I ate a moderate amount of food -- I didn't 'pig out' like I normally might, but I definitely didn't hesitate to go back for a second (small) plate of hashbrowns covered in gravy.

As soon as I got home I tallied up what I had eaten, and realized I had already maxed out my points for the day, and that whatever else I ate that day (Christmas Dinner, any chocolate, etc.) would be coming out of my flex points. And even though I didn't intend to limit myself that day, something inside me just didn't want to go too crazy, knowing how much I'd already eaten, knowing how much damage I could do. By the end of the day, I'd used the last of my flex points, and five extra, but I feel like that was a very minimal amount of 'damage', all things considered.

Anyway, it was all worth it when I stepped on the scale today to find out I'd had a loss.

*Happy Dance*

a thing I never thought I'd do.

Tonight I threw half a chocolate bar in the garbage. I'm still in a bit of shock.

Shuffle! To the side! Now squat! Side squat! Shuffle back! You're doing great!

It's a walking DVD made for little old Weight Watchers ladies, I thought. How hard could it be?

I thought, I'll do the 20 minute walk, instead of the 30, but then I'll also do the toning workout from the other tape. That should be enough of a workout for me.

I pop the walking DVD in, and select the 20 minute walk, and then I stop it to grab my pedometer. I spend 20 minutes just trying to figure out how to program the thing. I restart the video.

Okay, we're walking. We're marching. This is pretty easy. Ok, now we're 'mambo-ing'. I can't get the rhythm of the steps right, but it doesn't matter cause now we're LUNGING. And SQUATING. And shuffle-shuffle-shuffling. Except mostly I'm just staring at the television. And the cats are exchanging glances, like they know I've finally gone crazy and how long do they have to wait before they break into the tin of cat treats?

By the end of the 20 minutes, I'm huffing and puffing and I still haven't figured out the shuffle. I collapse onto the couch and drink some water. There is no way I'm doing that toning video now.

After I relax for a bit, and stop sweating, I realize I still have to go to the store to get cat litter, so I throw my coat on over my workout top and head out the door. I start to go down the first step and my thighs practically give out on me. I have to hobble down the stairs like the little old Weight Watchers lady that I am. Great -- now I've got the shuffling thing down.

I head out to get cat litter feeling both pleased that I got such a good workout, and bummed that it took so little to do it.

I never thought of gravy as a breakfast food but I do now.

Hello! I hope everyone's been having a fantastic holiday!

I had a very Weight Watcher Christmas this year. In more ways than one.  For Christmas I got:

- Weight Watcher measuring spoons

- Weight Watcher food scale

- Weight Watcher pedometer

- Weight Watcher Walking Kit DVD

- Weight Watcher 'Get Healthy' DVD

- Weight Watcher 3-month journal

- Weight Watcher tote bag to put all my materials in

- Eight (8!) Weight Watcher cookbooks

And in my stocking were Weight Watcher granola bars and mini bars!

Ha ha ha!

It's all courtesy of my Mom. She's a Weight Watchers leader herself and my biggest cheerleader. 

I managed pretty well with my points over Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, though I think I might have gone over by a tiny bit. We ended up at a breakfast buffet on Christmas Day, which I hadn't been planning on, so that kind of threw me. You seriously have not lived until you've had scrambled eggs, bacon, tater tots, stuffing, turkey, and gravy -- all on the same plate. So good, yet so bad. 

These past couple of days (post-Christmas) have actually been the hardest -- I ended up with a lot more chocolate than I expected, so it's just been sitting there, calling to me. Caramel truffles, and Lindt truffles, and dark chocolate coffee truffles. SO MANY TRUFFLES. I've been feeling really out of control, even though I've been staying within my points.

Something kind of cool happened today though: I bought a pair of pants. Well, they were a size 20, and a bit snug, but they look nice. And I realized they wouldn't have fit me if I hadn't have lost those 11lbs. Eleven doesn't feel like that much, but I think it was enough to squeeze me in these pants. And since they're a bit snug, I can look forward to them fitting better and better as the weeks go by. 

Anyway, that's all for me, for now! I'm going to watch Moulin Rouge while S. is at work and I can sing as loud, and cry as much, as I want. 

Toodles! 

what has two thumbs and is rockin' the holiday weigh-ins? THIS GAL.

I am so happy! After last week's gain, I vowed that I'd quickly get rid of those 2.6lbs, and I weighed in today (two days early, even!) to find out I am down 4.6! That takes care of last week's gain, and two extra pounds to boot!

I can't stop using exclamation marks!

!!!

a man a plan a canal panama

Bad news: I forgot my tracking journal at home! OH NOES.

It will be okay; I'll just copy everything out when I get home. But I like my little ritual of writing everything in my book as soon as I eat it. Oh well!

I can't believe it's already December 22nd! This week is just gonna sail by. Does everyone have their holiday eating planned yet? Luckily I had a quiet weekend, so I haven't used any of my flex points for this week, but I know that between Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, they're all going to get used up.


For Christmas Eve, we're supposed to go to some friends for dinner, but it's S's first night off in three weeks, and I really don't want to force him to spend a whole evening socializing with MY friends. Anyway, they always make this crazy rich lobster thing (lobster in a cream sherry sauce, in puffed pastry). I just don't really want to spend the points on it, and S. doesn't like fish anyway, so what I'd like to do is eat first, and then just go over for a glass of wine and a short visit. They can be kind of demanding friends though, so I have a feeling this plan is not actually going to work, and I'm going to be eating lobster patties. :)

On Christmas Day itself, I think I just have dinner to worry about. We won't have anything special for breakfast, though I sort of am tempted to make cinnamon buns. For lunch we'll have something small, like grilled cheese and salad, or some soup. Then dinner with the same friends -- to be honest, I don't plan to count that night. Actually, that's not true: I will count and journal everything, I just won't force myself to stay within any points limit. I know the wine's going to be flowing, and I know I'm going to partake, and to be honest, I feel better if I just plan to indulge, than plan not to indulge and then feel deprived or guilty (depending how I fare.)

So! That's my plan. Or sort-of plan, at least.

weekend update.

I've had a great weekend, food-wise. At the grocery store on Thursday, I managed to find FAT FREE CREAM, which is something I've always looked for. I know it's available in the states, because I always see recipes that call for 'fat free half & half', but I've never seen any here, only the weird flavoured kinds (Irish Cream, Hazelnut, etc.) 

Anyway, but this week I managed to find a plain one, so I've been experimenting with that. Yesterday I made low-fat butter chicken: 3 points for all the sauce in the pan, and that was enough for two large chicken breasts and a few cups of spinach. DAMN it was good. And today I made some excellent scrambled eggs. 

Unfortunately, my mom sent me a Christmas package, and she included a ton of those Weight Watcher mini bars. They're so good, but they've put my snacking urges in overdrive. Today I ate four of them! Usually I rarely snack on the weekends, but today I've been bored and kind of lonely, and it just made those sweet little treats so irresistable. And then once I snack a bit, I want to snack MORE. It's a vicious cycle. 

I'm excited to weigh in on Tuesday. I hope it's possible to lose 2.6+ lbs in four days! 

my first gain :(

I was debating not posting this, because it's kind of depressing, but I had a pretty big gain last night at my weigh-in: 2.6lbs, exactly what I lost last week.

The thing is, I think it's mostly attributable to the buffet earlier that day -- I stayed within my points for the day (didn't even use any flex points), but I ate all those points just a couple hours before stepping on the scale. I've also eaten soya sauce for lunch three days in a row now, and I could actually feel how much water I was retaining -- my hands felt all puffy, and I usually don't notice those kinds of things, so it had to be pretty significant for me to be able to tell. I feel like I'm making excuses, but I do believe that my next weigh-in will have me back down to where I was, and maybe a little extra.

My next two meetings are actually cancelled, since they fall on Christmas/New Year's day, so I found a Tuesday lunch-time meeting near my office where I can go to weigh-in. I'm vowing now to be perfectly on plan for the next five days, and be rid of this 2.6 by then. You heard it here first!

friends don't let friends go to buffets.

Today is weigh-in day!

Today is also my office Christmas party!

Eep!

So our office party is a lunch/afternoon affair, at a fancy pool hall / bar that features a HUGE HOLIDAY BUFFET. And I am supposed to go to this thing right before I go to my weigh-in. Hence the 'eep!'

I had a lighter breakfast today to compensate, and I plan to focus mostly on the sushi section of the buffet, since I think that'll be lighter than the turkey/ham/potato section, so I do have a bit of plan, but I'm still worried. We're going to be there for FOUR HOURS and that's a lot of time to try to avoid eating cake.

I'm going to try really hard to think about how it would feel to step on that scale and see a gain.

how to be good.

I'm feeling really good today. I've been eating well the last two days, and have been super-productive in other areas too. I don't know about you, but I just feel so much happier when life is ticking along like this.

My poor sweetheart has been working 18-20 hour days for the last two weeks (including weekends) on a project that has had one unexpected problem after another. I honestly don't know how he's doing it, the poor guy. Anyway, I've been trying to make an extra effort to keep the apartment clean, make sure he has clean clothes and towels, picking up healthy snacks he can grab on the run, etc, so that the little time he DOES spend at home is as easy and stress-free as possible. It feels nice to take care of him, but I have to wonder: why is it so hard to be good to other people, and so hard to be good to ourselves?

I never thought I was one of those people who needed to learn that lesson; I thought my problem was that I was TOO good to myself. I'd spend hours zoning out in front of the tv, ignoring the housework and other responsibilities, and eat a giant bag of Doritos or a box of eclairs. If that wasn't being good to yourself, I didn't know what was.

But the result of that behaviour was anything but good. I got fat. My house was always messy. I never had enough clean clothes. I never bothered to straighten my hair or put on make-up in the morning. I'd feel like shit all day, stressing out about how terrible I looked and how out of control I felt. Be good to yourself, I'd say, and eat another brownie to calm down. Get a bottle of wine tonight, and order some Swiss Chalet, and that'll make you feel better.

And it would make me feel better, in the short-term. But the next day was the same story. Cookies are wonderful things but they don't do your laundry. They don't file your taxes, or vacuum your floor, or clean the cat box. And they don't make you healthy.

Why is it, say, with S., that my instinct is to make things better for him? To keep the apartment clean, make sure his favourite shirts are washed and that there are fresh towels when he has a shower? To say, 'there's yogurt and apples and spinach salad with chicken in the fridge for you to take to work'? I would never, in times like this, even THINK about saying, "I know you're stressed out, so I've kept the apartment extra messy. Here, come sit in the dark and eat this cheesecake with me, that'll make you feel better."

Anyway, it's a funny thing. Maybe sometimes, the way to be good to yourself is to put your foot down, a least a little, on some of the self-indulgent and unproductive behaviour. Maybe being good to yourself is doing laundry and having spinach salad, and not slacking off on the laundry and having a bag of chips. WHO KNEW?

forgive us our trespasses. or should I say, our cookies.

I am happily 100% back on track today. I did do my hour-long walk yesterday (well, it was actually closer to 2 hours, but it was intersperced with a bit of Christmas and grocery shopping.) I had a nice dinner of sauteed mushrooms and onions with a chicken burger (the unbreaded kind), on a Weight Watcher's roll, with roasted red pepper and goat cheese. YUM. I also stocked up on a few more work snacks like almonds, bananas, and yogurt. Tonight I plan to make a spinach salad with chicken, mushrooms, raspberries, goat cheese, and a pear vinegraitte. And maybe a bit of brown rice, depending on how hungry I am. Don't be too jealous now, everyone!

I've decided not beat myself up too much about the slip-ups this weekend. If I'm going to do this program for the rest of my life, I need to acknowledge that there are going to days here and there where I don't eat as well. The holidays are probably the hardest time to eat healthily anyway, AND it's not like I went totally off the rails. I didn't eat until I was exploding, I didn't sneak food when no one was looking, I didn't stop at the grocery store on the way home (like I wanted to) so I could have a full-on binge. I ate basically normally, just with a few wrong choices. To be honest, if I could do it again, the only things I'd do differently are:

Friday: don't eat the samosa, and have a bigger glass of water with dinner. (I did have water, but only a small glass.)
Sunday: eat beforehand, and only have one cookie. Maybe skip that last glass of wine.

So in retrospect those are not really such huge transgressions. I'll be okay. :)

whoever came up the idea of putting frosting on cookies is my new nemesis.

Oy. Oy oy oy.

I hate the expression 'fell off the wagon'. I hate when people go a bit over their points and claim they 'fell off the wagon.' That expression makes it seem like it's then going to be so hard to get back ON the wagon. I picture an actual wagon and it's heading on down the road without you, and it makes me shudder because I can feel how hard it would be to pick yourself up and going chasing that wagon down the street, how tempting it would be to just lie there in the dust a little longer.

So I refuse to use that analogy here. But the truth is, I did screw up a bit this weekend, thanks to a Christmas party and a dinner with friends.

The dinner on Friday was hard. I was invited over to the home of two friends who know I'm following WW. They have followed WW in the past, and sometimes still cook from the recipe books, etc, so I assumed we'd be having a nice, healthy dinner. Only I got there to find out they'd decided at the last minute not to cook, and instead to order INDIAN food. I hadn't planned for such a heavy meal so I didn't have nearly enough points left for the day. I ended up using about 25 of my flex points that night.

I know it's not their fault, that I'm the one who put the food in my mouth, and still chose to drink wine, etc, but is it wrong that I'm also kind of disappointed that they would put me in that situation? Including ordering me a lamb samosa even after I said I DEFINITELY did not want one?

Anyway, the Christmas party later on the weekend was truly my own fault. I made a rookie mistake and showed up famished, thinking they'd have sushi and veggies as they usually do, but instead it was all cookies and cheese and chicken wings. Three things I LOVE. So by the end of the night, when all was said and done, I ended up needing to use another 13 flex points, which, if you're doing the math, you'll see is three more than I even had left to use. So now it's only Monday and I've already used all my flex points plus three extra. And I still have my office party on Thursday.

I just feel so shitty about the whole thing. I feel like I failed my first real test. I'm proud of myself for still tracking and journaling everything, and I definitely am not 'off the wagon', but I wish I could get a do-over on this whole weekend.

What I AM going to do is take an hour-long walk after work, to earn three activity points, so I don't have those three over-used flex points hanging over me. I know technically you're supposed to earn the points before you eat them, but I think going for the walk is the best I can do to mitigate the situation now. So that's what I'm going to do. And I'm going to try to remember how crappy I feel today, when I'm at Thursday office party. Hopefully that will be enough to discourage me from over-indulging again.

Anyway, hope everyone else had a good weekend! Thank goodness Christmas only comes once a year!

tgif, man, tgif.

Alright, first up: the weigh-in. I lost another 2.6 lbs! That's 9.2 in total, and I got down into a new weight 'decade' -- the 240s! Which means my daily points target went down by one as well.

It's funny, I was feeling really excited about my progress so far, but then I started chastizing myself because 'it's only the first month and OF COURSE I'd be doing well in the first month, the real challenge hasn't started yet blah blah blah'. But then there's this girl at my meetings who started when I did, and she's had two bad weeks in a row now and is pretty vocal about it in the meetings, and I realized: duh. It can be just as hard in the beginning as it is in later days. I shouldn't write off my successes so far just because it's 'still early'.

I forgot to pick up yogurt last night after my meeting, so I had to grab a little cup in the cafeteria this morning. By mistake I got plain instead of vanilla, and it turns out it's only 1pt! And it's a 'filling food'. It wasn't too bad either, so I might try to start eating plain once in awhile. I don't know how I'd feel about eating it on its own, but mixed with granola and bran buds, it was pretty tasty.

Tonight I'm off to a tree-trimming party, so that should be fun. A bit of wine, a few snacks, and we're going to watch Elf. Needless to say, I'm gonna stay far away from the artichoke-cheese dip, and stick with the lower point snacks.

Hope everyone is having a great Friday!

pre-weigh-in jitters.

Weigh-in tonight! I'm excited, though a bit nervous. I don't have a scale at home so every week I go into my meeting with no idea what the scale will report. I kind of like that though ... it keeps me on track for the week. Fear is a great motivator. :) I do believe that I'm noticing a difference in how my pants are fitting this week though, so that's a good sign.

I should also be hearing about the new plan tonight at my meeting! I've already read about most of it online, but I'm excited to get my new booklet, and see how they've set everything up. I think I do so-so on the whole 'filling foods' thing already, but I'm curious to track it in their new more 'official' way.

I had a unit lunch today, at a pasta/pizza place. I ended up getting a smoked salmon salad -- which was literally just smoked salmon, mixed greens, and balsamic vinegar. It was actually good, and I was so impressed with myself for ordering it. I figured the salmon to be about 5pts, and that was it. I admit it was hard, though, watching my coworkers eat their ooey gooey cheesey Italian food. My boss was sitting across from me and she had a huge breaded chicken sandwich with tomato sauce and mozzarella, and a giant ceasar salad. Damn it looked good, but I just knew the points would be off the charts -- not to mention I didn't want to eat that much food just before my weigh-in.

Now I have a lot of poins left for the rest of the day, too, which means I can indulge in a bit of chocolate after my meeting. I have a new secret love of the Ritter Sport bar with yogurt in it. YUM.

the right reasons.

Tomorrow will be four whole weeks of doing Weight Watchers! I'm pretty psyched about that! I'm also pretty psyched about the fact that I've stuck to the program completely: tracking and journaling everything, and not ever going over my points, and going to all my meetings. I've been trying out WW recipes, and measuring my foods, and doing grocery shopping at the actual grocery store and not the convenience store, aka the chip-and-pop shop.

I don't know, something feels different this time. I think something 'clicked', as they say. It's like, in the past, my reasons for wanting to lose weight were different. I wanted to be 'thinner', because I wanted to wear cute clothes and have cute boyfriends. But that didn't give me the long-term motivation that I needed to keep going -- I'd lose a couple pounds, my clothes would fit again, I'd have a good hair day, and I think, "I don't need to lose weight to look good!". And really, that was kinda true. Or I'd try to lose weight because I wanted more guys to be interested in me, but after a few weeks I'd get bitter about it, and start thinking "Why would I want to be with someone who only wants me if I lose weight?" And really, that was kinda true too.

Don't get me wrong, I hated being fat. I mean, I hate it still. I would lie in bed and dream about slicing off parts of my body. I would grab my stomach in my hands and dream about just tearing it away, ripping it off. (Of course, in this fantasy, the result is not a bloody mess, but rather, 6-pack abs. Obviously.) But I think that my motivation hadn't crystalized yet. I didn't understand yet why it was so bad, why I HAD to lose the weight.

I think I'm getting that now. I'm getting older and I'm getting pains where I shouldn't be. I mean, I'm only 28 which is not exactly old, and already my knees hurt, and my hips hurt, and my back hurts. I get stuck in the turnstiles at the subway. I can't walk up a flight of stairs without being embarrassingly winded. My, ahem, sex life is not as varied and energetic as I (and I'm sure my dear S) would like. My posture is terrible, partly from a back injury I suffered a couple of years ago, but also partly because I physically can't sit/stand straight, because my fat gets in the way. I try to sit straight up in my chair, but all the fat at the top of my hips bunches up around me. You know, what some people call 'the muffin top'? Well, we're talking more 'the six-tiered wedding cake'. And it shifts around and I can't. even. sit. straight.

That makes me sick. It makes me sick and it makes me sad and I think it makes me, finally, ready to do something real about it.

I wish there was a way to 'record' these feelings, a way to take a sensory picture. I know lots of people take their measurements, or save their fat jeans, or even just amass a huge and hideous collection of 'before' photos, but I wish there was a way I could memorize this feeling. The way it feels to be swallowed by fat. The way it feels to be buried alive.

dining with "friends"

I changed the colours on the blog a bit today, just to make it a little more Christmas-y. :)

*****

I'm feeling pretty good today -- like I'm back on track, even though I don't think I was ever really off track, exactly. Yesterday's dinner was pretty delicious -- I made basically a stir-fry, but with a Mexican style rather than Asian. I used chopped onion, garlic, and green pepper, then threw in some frozen kernel corn, a bit of stir-fry beef, then a package of Uncle Ben's 'Express' brown rice, and topped the whole thing with about a cup of salsa and a bit of lime juice. YUM.

The whole pan worked out to be 18 pts, but I think I ate a little more than half, so I'm counting my serving as 10pts. I think next time I might bulk it up with some extra veggies, so I can get more than two servings (and have it be less points!) I also think a can of black or pinto beans would be really good too. I'm thinking of making it again and freezing a few portions for lunches. The best thing is, it took all of 10 min to make!

After dinner I watched a few old episodes of Friends, and there were a couple of references to the fact that Monica used to be really fat in highschool, and for a second I felt really inspired by that, thinking, "Hey, if she can lose weight, so can I!" And then of course I realized she's a fictional character and therefore it doesn't exactly count. Ha ha!

im in ur fridge eatin ur cheez

This weekend was a bit hard, though I think I did okay. Since I moved the cats over to S's last weekend, we decided I'd spend the whole week sleeping at his place, to help them settle in. That's the first time we've done that and it was ... hard. I mean, I knew moving in together wouldn't be easy for us -- I just thought we'd get a few weeks of the 'honeymoon period' before things started to get stressful, but I guess not.

Anyway, of course when I'm stressed I want to eat. I felt lonely and sad all weekend and seriously wanted to stuff my face, to make those feelings go away. On Friday I was making us little personal pizzas for dinner, and all of a sudden I realized I was standing there, eating handfuls of shredded mozzarella straight out of the bag! I mean, without even noticing! I think I only had about three smally handfuls, so I counted it as 5 points, but JESUS. I gotta tell you, that really scared me, how I could do that so easily, so without thought or care.

Saturday was a bit better -- I ate pretty lightly all day and actually came in a bit below my daily points target. Sunday S. went into the office to get some extra work done, so I decided to have a bit of girl time. I had a long shower, with shaving, moisturizing, etc, and then did a face mask and watched Love Actually and cried my eyes out. I ate lunch of smoked salmon, cream cheese and rolls. I went a bit overboard there, and ate TWICE the serving amount I'd planned. but I had a small dinner to compensate, and I came in a couple under my daily target again.

I dunno. I don't know if I should feel bad about those little 'binges' if my day still works out okay. I guess it's still not terribly healthy behaviour, so I should definitely work on it, but I also know I can't change everything all at once. I still think I'm doing pretty well so far. And, on a more positive note, Friday, after the mindless-eating-of-cheese incident, I portioned out the rest of the cheese into 1/2 c. servings, and threw them all in the freezer so they wouldn't tempt me, and I didn't eat a single morsel while I was doing it.

Anyway, I'm going to be sleeping at my own house tonight, and making a slap-dash meal of stir-fried beef, corn, peppers and salsa over brown rice, so that will be good. I might pick up a season of Friends or something too, just to cheer myself up.

yessssssss! and nooooooooo!

I am so funny. When I think I've done well on my weight loss, I only lose 0.8. When I think it won't be so great, I lose 3.2. I think my intuition needs a check-up.

Anyway, I'm pretty psyched about the loss! That brings my three-week total to 6.6lbs lost! It was my goal to be out of the 250s by New Years, so if I can stay in control over the next couple of weeks, I definitely think I'll be able to achieve that. And I think I'll be able to stay in control ... so I'm actually not too worried. :)

******


Though speaking of control, our office does this thing every week called "Friendly Fridays" where people take turns bringing in treats and we all get together in our boardroom and snack and chat. Since I've started WW, I've been able to resist ALL the snacks, until today. These two Phillipino women brought in 'tropical snacks' like homemade banana bread, homemade coconut danish, lemon loaf, and mango candies. Those are some of my favourite flavours, plus everything was homemade and so delicious looking -- I ended up having a small piece of banana bread, the teeniest square of the danish, and a few pieces of fresh melon.

I feel a bit disappointed, especially after the cookie incident from yesterday, but I think it's okay. I'm going to count the points for it all (I'm thinking 6pts?) and I have healthy stuff planned for the rest of the day: chicken stew for lunch, homemade pizzas for dinner. I was planning on using this whole wheat pizza dough I bought, but it's 8 points, so I'm thinking maybe I'll actually pick up some tortillas instead, for a 2 point pizza. Or maybe I'll have the 8pt pizza but skip the wine. I guess that would be the healthiest choice. :) We'll see.

c is for cookie.

Another weigh in tonight! This time I'm trying to be more realistic with my hopes. :) I had a good week eating-wise, but I don't 'feel' like I've had a big loss, if that makes sense. You know sometimes you can just tell? I'm not feeling it this week.

*****

I've had two 'challenges' in the last couple days, and I think I've done pretty well with both of them. Last night I went out with A. to see a movie, and we stopped at a pub for dinner. I had two pints of beer (8pts), which I had planned, and then I got a salad to go with it -- roasted vegetables and goat cheese on a bed of mixed greens. I thought I'd feel deprived, but it was really good and I was quite full afterwards. I think it helped that A. just ordered soup, so I didn't have to sit and watch someone chowing down on a burger and fries or anything.

Then today, I had to cover an event for work, and there was a free buffet lunch there. I filled half my plate with a very green salad (lettuce, cucumber, zucchini, brocolli), topped it with a tiny spoonful of raspberry vinagraitte, and then took 3 teeny tiny sandwich triangles.

Of course, then I decided to have a coffee and got a cookie to go with it. The cookie wasn't even that good and I still ate all of it. I hate that. I kept thinking to myself, "you shouldn't eat that, you don't like it and it's too many points and why not use them on something that tastes better??" If I could have thrown the cookie out right away, I think I would have been okay, but there was nowhere to put it, and I was just going to have to leave it on my plate, and I just KNEW I wasn't going to be able to resist it. That I was going to keep breaking off pieces and eating until it was gone, just because it would be sitting there. SO I just ate the whole thing and pretended I really liked it and that it was a great use of 5pts. LAME.

tim horton's how could you do this to me i thought we were friends.

I've made a horrifying discovery. Apparently the coffee I drink every day -- a large Tim Horton's with two cream and one sweetener -- is four points. FOUR POINTS. I'd been counting it as two.

That means that I have 14 points for last week that were unaccounted for. Which means I actually DID go over my points for the week, which explains why I had a loss of only 0.8lbs.

Yeesh. It was so helpful emailing my food list to my mom. She had tonnes of helpful advice (including that little tidbit about the coffee), and even just the act of typing up what I ate over the course of the week was quite eye-opening. You know, you go about this program on a sort of day-to-day basis, and it was really helpful for me to look back at how I did over the whole week. Realizing that, yes, I may have been within my points range, but I drank a LOT of wine, and apparently ate nothing but grilled cheese and those little Weight Watchers cakes.

I actually feel kind of stupid for complaining about being a slow loser. The truth is, I just don't think I was following the program as well as I thought I was.

I'm determined now to do even better over the next couple of weeks. I want to get some nice losses in before the new year.

***

One thing I'm a little worried about is the fact that I have TWO big work lunches coming up -- and they're both on my weigh-in days. I'm not too worried about 'binging', but even if I eat something healthy and points-friendly, it's still going to end up being more food than I normally want to eat before I step on the scale. I haven't decided yet if I should just suck it up, and remind myself that it's not a real 'gain'? Or if I should try to find a different weigh-in on those two weeks. Decisions, decisions!

how to get through December: a partial list.

One of my goals for this month is to find low-point alternatives for some of my favourite holiday indulgences. The thing is, for me, it's not always about the food itself (though sometimes it is), it's often just about the act of 'treating myself'. So I'm looking for ways to do that without going on a crazy calorie binge.

Here are some thoughts I have right now:

Port: I do love a bottle of port around the holidays, but this year instead of buying the big ass, cheap ass bottle, I'm going to buy a smaller, more expensive bottle. I'll get a BETTER treat, and not have as much of it around to tempt me. (Since I'm the only one who drinks the stuff.)

Egg Nog: Truthfully, I don't even think I like eggnog that much. I just drink it because it seems like a festive thing to do. So I'm just going to skip it. However, I've found that Second Cup sells an eggnog-flavoured coffee that hits the spot if I do get a craving, and it's zero points, since it's just coffee (it's not mixed with any real eggnog or anything, it's just a flavour variety, like their 'Irish Cream' or what-have-you).

Cake for breakfast: I don't know, there's just something about having a thick piece of cake first thing in the morning, with a hot cup of coffee and plenty of time to lounge around in your pajamas. I've found a few recipes for low-fat spice cakes, that use a spice cake mix and canned pumpkin. Normally I'm against the act of adding pumpkin to everything, but I think it would work nicely in a spice cake. I'm also hoping I can cut it up and freeze it, or bake it in mini-loaf pans and freeze a couple of those, as I think it will be bad to have a whole cake sitting around.

Cheesecake: Not sure about this one, but I'm thinking I can make mini (muffin tin) cheesecakes for S and I, using some fashion of cream cheese and FF cool whip? With just a tablespoon or so of graham crumbs, and maybe some fresh raspberries, pineapple or pomegrante? (Or, gads, all three!) I think that'll satisy my craving. I also made some tasty desserts once with ricotta cheese, blueberries and phyllo pastry, and with a bit of tweaking, I could probably make that work too.

Christmas dinner: this should actually be pretty easy. It's just going to be S and I, so I won't bother with a turkey. I might roast a small chicken, and I'll make mashed potatoes, and my mom's potato-based stuffing, and some kind of veggie, and that'll be it. The gravy I've always made is low-fat anyway, so that should be okay, and we won't bother with bread or any other extras. I might do the mini cheesecakes for dessert.

Mulled wine: Not sure if I'll bother doing this this year. I do love it but it makes a lot. I might do a hot toddy with a cinnamon stick, a clove, and sliced apples if I get in the mood, or maybe just a hot apple cider with a shot of brandy. Much better than making the whole pot of mulled wine. I'm also going to re-evaluate my mulled wine recipe and see if there's a way I could make just a single mug.

Hot Chocolate: Actually, this isn't something I need to find a substitution for, it's just something I found that makes a nice treat. The light hot chocolate isn't too bad, and when I need an extra 'something' I throw on a small scoop of Cool Whip. Yum. It feels totally decadent, even though it's 1.5 pts at most.

a busy weekend.

I'm always kind of relieved when Monday gets here, because eating during the weekdays is so much easier. Or at least predictable.

Things didn't go too badly this weekend though. Saturday we had a hectic day -- S and I are kind of at a transitional stage in our relationship, where, we're not quite ready to move in together, but we like spending most of our time together. However, I've got two cats, and was constantly feeling guilty about them and missing them, and I'd have to leave his place to go home and feed them and hang out with them etc. Anyway, after much discussion and planning, we decided to finally move my cats to S.'s place.

So Saturday we had to do a few things to get ready for that. We were up early that day and went first thing to Canadian Tire to buy a litter box, a new cat carrier, a new broom, a scratch pad, and a few other things to settle the cats (and us) into the transition. Then we went home (well, to S's home) and cleaned like CRAZY. Beezus likes to scratch cardboard and S's place is filled with random boxes, so we had to organize all that, and Zack has a habit of eating small things off the floor (bread ties, elastics, etc.) so we had to do a super thorough cleaning of all the nooks and crannies where those things tend to hide. Then it was off to my place to coralle the cats, and collect all their stuff, and lug them back to S's place.

Did I mention we don't have a car, and did all of this via public transit? So needless to say by the time we were done, we were quite tired. We'd missed lunch, and were both hungry and not in the mood to cook, so S went and picked up a thin-crust frozen pizza and a 12-pack of light beer. I ate half the pizza and could not BELIEVE that it was 18 points. For that! I mean, it was tasty, but I was quite stunned at how points-heavy it was. I only ended up having two of the beers (total of 4pts), so since we'd missed lunch, I didn't actually do too badly for points that day.

Sunday was better -- S went to work, and I stayed home and finished cleaning the apartment and settling the cats in. I made a brief trip out for groceries, then made a chicken stew for dinner, with a few Pillsbury rolls for S. Crushed pineapple and Cool Whip for dessert, and a couple more beers, and that was that.

And now I have leftover chicken stew for lunch today, and another portion in the freezer for another day. I like leftovers. :)