Down 3.2 at weigh in tonight. Reached my 5%.
I have a serious food addiction and one of my big challenges is how I handle myself the evening after I weigh in. I usually have 20 to 40 weeklies left at the end of my week. After I weigh in, whether it be good news or bad, I binge. Tonight there was left over spaghetti in the fridge. As I was driving home from my meeting, all I could think about was the spaghetti. Now I would have been ok if I had slowed down and measured it and tracked it, but no, I just inhaled it. I have always had this problem. Last time when I was on program and lost over 70 lbs, it was my eventual undoing...listening to the voices calling me from the refrigerator. Anyone else facing similar demons?.
DH would be better equipped to answer you, because his food issues are pretty severe and even after a year and 2+ months of WW he still deals with the demons. The other night we had pasta for the first time in a
long time. (we never intended to cut it out, but it's so hard to control ourselves with it and it's so pointy that we just sort of stopped making it routinely) We measured out the number of servings we wanted to cook, using the dry weight. Should have made 5 servings (2 for DH, 2 for DS, 1 for me). Once it was cooked I used the WW spoon to measure out a cup (cooked serving size, generally) for me, 1.5 for DH (he decided it looked like enough on his plate), two for DS. And there was at least a cup left in the colander. Hmm.
So there was pasta, sitting in the kitchen, all alone. I admit to a few walk-bys, snagging a couple elbow macaroni pieces each time (an occasional thing, and it's a reason we slowed down on the pasta!). But yesterday DH confessed that while he was cleaning up in the kitchen, the rest of the pasta went into his belly, with some butter mixed in. (he would have included garlic, but that would have brought my attention to it, and he didn't want me to know, nor did he want to have to share as he knew he would if I knew about it, LOL) He didn't want to track it, but he forced himself to.
So we started talking about solutions. One, don't leave the pasta out. Two, it was really really good that we knew how much pasta it was, so even if he was going to have an episode like that, he didn't really have to guess. Saves some of the heartache of losing control.
So I wonder if you could portion out your leftovers while you are serving it before they are leftovers? That way if you get home and you
must have that pasta, you just pull out a container that you already know is a serving size, so there's no guesswork at the end? Underestimating is bad, of course, but overestimating can mess you up too, because you end up being hungrier than you need to be.
I would have such a hard time dealing with an evening weigh-in, because of the issue of still being inside my Weeklies week! I like a morning meeting, so as soon as I start eating on that day, I'm at the start of the week. But if I were in your situation....what if you stop looking at it as a *binge*? What if you just thought of it as your planned use of Weekly points? Don't beat yourself up over it (if you have been, and by calling it a binge I think you are).
Those points are there for you to use, and since you are doing well so far it's not hurting you at this time. (and might never hurt you) There are some who simply cannot use the Weeklies, but WW put them into the plan on purpose. I don't think they put them into the plan so we would all fail and be paying for WW forever.
Since we have Saturday morning weigh-ins, we don't tend to eat beforehand (I'm working on changing that, though, because the longer I am on this program the more I'm realizing I do need to eat a bit more often than I used to think I did). After weigh-in, no matter what the results, we go to Starbucks, have some breakfast (the hearty blueberry steel cut oatmeal with the fruit/nut pack, the agave, and the blueberries is so delicious, especially if you sprinkle cinnamon on top, and it's a solid 7 point dish that will stick with you for hours and hours), have some coffee, have a nice time. I do use more Weeklies on Sat and Sun than I do through the week, because I like to only have Activity points left as extra by Friday, so I use a lot of them early in the week.
But I don't see the weekends as binging, it's just a planned use of points. I have, at long long last, given myself permission to
eat, and to
enjoy eating. It feels a whole lot better than wanting to hide in my closet because I'm not allowed to eat or enjoy food. And while I haven't done exactly that (DH has, though, and it started
young, put on a diet at 3 years old...what his parents did to him regarding food was awful and makes people cry at meetings when he shares), when I visit my fit and trim brother and sister in law, I've been known to buy a bucket of "Dunkeroo" cookies from Trader Joes, hide them in the guestroom (even from my son), and eat them all over a week's visit, up in the room, sneaking them. Awful awful. Future trips, I'll buy the bucket, keep it in their pantry, and eat them as my points allow. It feels a whole lot better. And it's mainly a mental thing, of allowing it. And to not call it a binge.
This is all a process, and what works for you now might change down the road. I never thought we would eat pasta as INfrequently as we do now, it just sort of happened. I never thought I would stop drinking beer to the extent that I have, but the taste just sort of fizzled, and it's only worth really really good beer now. I had a Redhook Wit at a Road Runner Sports even the other week, it was delicious and worth it, but now I can't find it. Which is ridiculous, it should be around, but it's not. Guess I'm glad though.
Anyway, be gentle with yourself.
Holy cow, I need some help! (Sorry this is long. I'll try to keep it brief).
I joined WW about a year ago and initially lost a bit of weight. It wasn't grand, but it was enough that I was comfortable. I lost that weight over the summer when I had more time to prepare healthy meals and go to meetings.
I've been in grad school this year and have a very busy schedule. I have an internship three days a week for the whole school day and then classes at night. Most of my days are very long. (Yesterday I woke up at 6 and went to bed at midnight. I was going the entire day without stopping). I just didn't have the time to cook. Plus, I usually had dinner out because I wasn't home for so many hours and it was just easier.
I noticed I was gaining weight, but I just didn't have the energy to care. Flash forward to now - my wedding is *this month* and I just popped a button on my pants that, a few months ago, were pretty loose on me. Now I'm going to be the heaviest I've ever been on my wedding day...
I'm taking off my WW hat and putting on my "wedding is this month" hat.
Pilates if your body can handle it. Lots of water. Lots of fruits and veggies. GOOD foods. More water. Apples. And regular food, too, of course. You can drop some of the weight before the wedding. Remember the wedding will probably involve tasty food and good cake (make SURE you eat at your wedding! make it a priority! don't get swept away in the festivities; sit down, eat, and make people come to you while you do so), so you've got that to look forward to, and it's not that long before you get it.
I am curious to see how people handle their weekly points. This is not my first time on WW and I tend to stay away from them unless I feel like I really need to use them. I just find that it's easier for me to stay on the plan that way. Routines work for me.
Anyway, everyone have a great week!
I use them. I started early, because I realized that they are actually part of the program, and WW did not decide to put them in to keep us all heavy. When I stuck to minimum Daily points the 3 previous times I did WW, it backfired. I was hungry. I made horrible choices (especially when fruits/veggies weren't mainly 0 points). I ate bad foods and ignored the guidelines entirely. I absolutely refused to count oils. etc. (counting oils was one of the many reasons I quit the last time, when DS was 1 year old or so)
For me, success meant I had to at least try to eat them. I started, I continued, I kept losing. And losing. And losing.
A little while later, as I started to up the exercise and was feeling tired and sloggy while on the elliptical, I decided to get a heart rate monitor and count Activity points. Got the HR monitor for Mother's Day, so I suppose it was just over 2 months when I started using APs (wow that was quick...it felt like I had been doing WW for a million years by that point!). I calculate APs with the HR monitor by giving myself one point for every 80 calories I burn. Some use 100 calories. I am conservative with it, in that I don't just get to 400 calories and stop, calling it 5 APs. I will go to 440 or so, then stop, and call it 5. I've gotten to about 3 calories before the next point mark (stopping at 637 calories instead of getting all the way to 640) and stopped. And I call it 7 APs.
This has been really good for me. I've belonged to the Y for nearly 4 years now, and I gained quite a lot even while working out all the time. I would do an hour moderate on the elliptical and feel that I deserved 3 slices of pizza for it. Um, no. My perceived food reward was all off from the reality. Knowing the APs has helped me to treat myself but not destroy myself.
And eating the Weeklies and Activities has allowed me to eat very adequately, generally get in my "good health guidelines" foods like dairy (or nutritional equivalent) and the OILS (so important...when I get them in my hair and nails look great!) etc. And it allows me to treat myself so I don't start thinking I'm going to die if I don't get chocolate.
Oh and I weigh or measure everything I can. The greek yogurt, the ice cream, etc, goes on the food scale and I scoop it out until it hits the mark (negative of course since I'm taking away from the container). That way I get what's on the spoon, too. This works VERY well with peanut butter, because you get what you've taken out and put onto your bread or crackers or apple or whatever, AND you can lick the spoon and feel decadent). I weigh my servings of salad dressing; put the salad plate on the scale, tare it, drizzle the dressing. No overmeasuring. And it feels like more food than just looking at 2 tablespoons of dressing.
That doesn't really answer your question directly, but it's been said on the WW site's forum that people who use their Weeklies and/or Activities tend to be the best at measuring every little thing, probably because they *have to*. If you aren't leaving yourself wiggle room in the form of those points, you simply cannot mess up with the serving sizes. (except for snagging pieces of pasta...maybe that's where I save myself by how I count APs?)
My husband felt that he was weighing and measuring, but as we've talked about it he has realized that there's still a lot of eyeballing going on. Once he stopped assuming his serving sizes, re-checking that he was using the right tracker entries for the foods he was eating, and tracking as he ate (instead of waiting until nighttime, and worse,
after dinner), he busted his plateau.
I try not to use any during the week and use about 10 to 15 on the weekends (that is my wine allowance) - I lost an average of a pound a week for first 8 weeks - I have stayed the same the last 2 weeks so I may have to cut out some of those for now
Your wine allowance.
You'd fit in at our meetings; sometimes we call it A-AA meetings, for anti-alcoholics anonymous, because there's so much discussion about how people fit in their booze! And our leader is right there with 'em.
One of the most powerful meetings she did with our group was about serving sizes vs portions (or something like that), where she brought in a big wine glass (one of those big blown-out ones that allow you to really swirl the wine around?) and a typical wine bottle (with juice in it). The wine glass fit the entire bottle's worth of wine inside of it.
It really brought home how important it is to even measure your wine, and make sure that at restaurants you're getting a proper pour, not a "bartender being nice" pour.
Anyway, yes, booze. Important to know how to fit it into your points!
I was UP 3.0 lbs at WI.
I am happy with that because I left for WDW on 4/14 and returned home 4/27 and pretty much ate freely the whole time. Being up 3 lbs is not disappointing at all!
Awesome!!!
Hello everyone! I skipped last week's WI (but went to my meeting) because it was my birthWEEK. Yup. I celebrated all week long. *sigh* I went to my meeting today and weighed in and lost 1.0 today
. I still have some "Disney weight" to get rid of from Spring Break but I am headed in the right direction
.
I have been wearing my ActiveLink for 3 weeks now. I'm not sure if I really like it or not. I think it gives me more points that I "deserve" ... certainly more than I would have calculated on my own. I ate all my AP and WP last week but I will attempt o cut back on eating all the AP since I still don't think I am really earning as many as it thinks I am. I think it's because I am over 50 and my baseline is so low.
We talked about "finding your anchor" today in our meeting and I admitted that I had "nothin'". Certainly this thread helps and so does going to meetings, but they are not "anchors" as far as I can tell. What is your anchor?
Nice weigh-in!
I don't use the active link, as my method of calculating APs has worked really well for me. And mentally I wouldn't respond to it the way others do. Others will see it not hit 100%, and will go walk around the block until it hits the mark because they are awesome and amazing and normal. I would just throw it at the wall. Maybe that would get it to 100%?
Do you think that your baseline-determining week was not really correct for you? I think you can clear it out and start over, if you think that the week at the beginning wasn't a typical week. I know that many people will start using it on a really lazy week, and not do much of anything, so it thinks you've increased your activity a lot once it's really calculating APs for you.
The anchor thing doesn't work for me. I'm just not that kind of person, I guess. I love my keychain with the charms on it, but it's not something I pull out and stare at. It makes me happy, but doesn't inspire me. My leader loves the paperclip chain, and I started doing it, but stopped about 30 lbs ago. It's just a thing of paperclips, and while it works amazingly well for her, it was just office supplies for me.
For me, I guess my own body was the anchor and is the anchor, in opposite ways. Not being in pictures was the anchor. Developing weird mental/vision issues where I wasn't looking anywhere but right in front of me, for fear of seeing myself reflected in something accidentally.
And in Feb 2012 having pain with every single step I took at
Disneyland and Universal Orlando (crazy bi-coastal trip) while my ankles swelled and I was embarrassed and my leg swelled and I had to consider if this was normal for me or if it required the ER....that was my last straw. My body was an anchor to what I wanted to do, it was literally weighing me down, slowing me down. It was making me cry in frustration and pain. And fear (leg swelling...yeah, I should have gotten looked at, but I was far too embarrassed, and have had
far too many utterly rotten, near-malpractice-type experiences with MDs to take myself into a random office to complain of swelling).
Got home, still in pain, hating how I felt. Saw a Jennifer Hudson commercial. Went to a meeting the next day. Sat under the poster of her that was the image from the commercial. And I've never looked back. And now I'm getting a body that my husband has never seen on me. I'm nearly 20 lbs under wedding-weight, I'm nearly 10 pounds under what i was when we met. From the running I've been doing, I'm whittling things down on me that I don't remember being whittled before. I'm getting runner's muscles. There's still some softness over them, but I can see them and feel them. Even when in high school I never allowed myself to enjoy my running muscles, because those muscles made me heavier on the scale than my friends were. Even though I knew that the muscle "bulk" was part of the cause, it didn't help. And I wasn't as rail-skinny as some of my friends were (and those friends still are that thin...it was just their natures, not anything they were doing) and I let it get to me to the point where I couldn't enjoy myself for what I was. So it's nice to be pleased by it now.
Anyway, now the changes I'm seeing are so positive I don't want to go back. I want to keep running, I want to keep eating right (with my treats!). Now it's anchoring me to the positive stuff.
So I guess my own body was and is the anchor for me.
And while I never looked back after starting the program this time, it's not like I never complain. You would not believe how much I complain sometimes. Actually, I take that back; anyone who "knows" me here on the Dis (or in real life!) wouldn't be surprised by how much I complain sometimes.
I whine and moan and say I'm hungry, but as DH has reminded me, what I
don't do is go into the kitchen and do what my tastebuds and stomach WANT me to do. I stay in control (except while at Disney), I almost always stay within my points (daily, weekly, activity). I still measure and weigh. So it's not like it's been easy-peasy for me, but thinking of the pain I was in before, just over a year ago, keeps me going.
Anyway, you're not alone in not using the anchor thing. That's an idea WW has used a lot, even before PointsPlus, and it's never worked for me, and I've decided this time that it's OK if it doesn't work. It bugged me that I couldn't figure it out before, but it hasn't affected my success any, so that's OK.
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Started weight training on Tuesday. And now I know that I have triceps. OUCH OUCH OUCH.
Oh, and I got to buy new bras. I'm back in a blissful 36C. Ahhhhh, happiness. Hope it goes down more though. I want my Bs back. Haven't seen those since college!
WW should tell us to start a savings account for getting new clothes, LOL. Or they should start a clothing bank. I got the loveliest winter coat from a WW employee who had undergrown it; traded a too-big coat of mine that she gave to her mom. I wish they would do that routinely. Though I must admit I don't wear the coat to the meetings, that would be weird to wear it in front of her.
And now I'm under-growing it.
Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine!
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Keahgirl, how is maintenance going? Is it hard? Easy? Tricky? Mystifying?
) Preparation might help?
Was hoping for a bit more, but it was 2.2 last week, so I'm happy to have 3 lbs in 2 weeks. I swear, one scale at our meeting is "better" than the other, and this week I happened to get the "mean" scale. I am at the point of digging through my closet for things that fit. I started in Feb busting out of 18's and now I am in 16's and 14's depending on the brand. I found a pair of 10's in there, and I want to know when the heck did THOSE fit? We have been in this house 7 years and I can't imagine! Oh, I lost another point, down to 26. Isn't that the lowest? My BMI is still firmly in "obese" territory, and I'm down to 26? Pout.
) He has sleep apnea, and had surgery for it years ago, but it's coming back. He hates the C-PAP and it's not working as well as it did before anyway. I would LOVE it if he came on board. He brings a lot of "temptation" into the house, and even when he tries, he doesn't get it. He's the main cook in the family. "I didn't put in MUCH butter". 
Plus he's the one now who is offering the kids ice cream and other treats, and they need better habits too. 12 yo ds definitely has some pudge. So I would love it if he made an effort to lose some weight, and I know it would have health benefits for him.
. My leader recommended that I try the "peeling the onion" exercise where you start with the question "Why do I want to lose weight" and then keep on asking "why?" to the answer to find my anchor. I got about 20 questions down and then stalled without any anchor. She warned that there would be tears, but that didn't happen either. I did uncover that I eat emotionally more often that I thought I did, so I guess it was useful.
