Points FAIL

Today got off track. I started innocently enough with a balanced, 5-point breakfast. When I returned home after my facial (aaaah, facial...reverie), I was very hungry for lunch, but we didn't really have anything prepared. So I ate the frozen samosa and a glob of hummus and some spinach and some tortilla chips, but the store had been out of baked ones so G. bought regular. (Incidentally, they tasted greasy to me. It's interesting how the palate adjusts.)

Then I remembered that the liquer I'd made was ready today! And it was fabulous, smooth and slightly sweet with a nice coffee flavor and a hint of orange on top! And I kept sipping on it, going back for more...and a little more...and oh, just another sip...

MIL and her partner were visiting and wanted to see the famous Cheese Shop. And there I bought parmesan twists, these wonderful, crunchy, strong-flavored swirls of bread and cheese. And the MIL and Partner bought three cheeses which we then tried. Then we went for dinner. I ate a rather large dessert. And I came home and sipped more liquer and munched more parmesan twists.

Now, none of this was bad food. It was great food! It was, however, too much of a good thing. The rich foods need to be treats sprinkled here and there, not the mainstream of nutrition. Also, these calorie-dense foods? Ironically, not so filling, which is why I kept eating more of them. No matter. It was enjoyable, and tomorrow is a new day.

I will save some points for more liquer, however.

Why now?

I spent a long time feeling perfectly content at my overweight weight. Ann, whose thoughtful blog everyone should read, got me wondering why I suddenly joined WW and embarked upon this Journey of Weight Loss.

There was one immediate reason: My new health insurance gave me coupons to go for free. There were other more superficial reasons, too, like the fact that all the MyPyramid effort left me feeling tired, hungry, and alone. Clearly I needed an established system, and WW has been around for 45 years. That's quite a bit longer than I've been around.

OK, fine, but why the decision to lose weight? I think it has to do with my Saturn return.

When I turned 30 last February, I examined my life carefully. I decided to make a complete career change, complete with graduate school and everything. I decided not to take crap from people anymore; I was too darn nice. I also decided to get a new, adult wardrobe.

In a sense, everything I've started since my 30th has been about becoming the shaper of my own life. I'm a go-with-the-flow gal, but I decided it was high time for ME to be the one in charge. Part of shaping my life, I decided, was shaping my own body, and with it my own health.

I've been proofreading an oncology nutrition textbook, and let me tell you: Obesity increases the risk of every single kind of cancer, and they don't even know why. Don't get me started on heart disease.

Actually, DO get me started, because all my grandparents save one have had major heart disease. Grandpa F., a foodie like me, was so obese by the end of his short life--I don't think he reached 70--that he could not walk. He could not leave the house. He had gigantic, edemic ankles that were always in pain. He slept with an oxygen mask because of the apnea. His world grew sad and insulated. Like me, he ate only fresh, nonprocessed food. He died and left Grandma F. to fend for herself with breast cancer. She was very thin, but if I have the gene and the extra fat, my risk is automatically increased.

Grandpa C., a living miracle at 81, has had several massive heart attacks. Grandma C.? Quadruple bypass surgery. Now, I'm not saying that all of these problems are caused by weight. What I am saying is that I have a tough genetic history that does not need to be encouraged by extra weight.

I have a tough genetic history, and two docs pointed out to me that a person in her 30s will gain weight eating the exact same food in the exact same amounts that she ate in her 20s. Because I had gained weight in my 20s, when youthful metabolism was still running high, I was likely to end my 30s even bigger. I decided not to test this out. I had a vision of becoming Grandpa F., spending life between bed and kitchen chair, painful purple ankles. I am most happy when I'm dancing to music I love, walking outdoors, canoeing. I have to move. I must go outside. It is my nature.

Melodramatic visions aside, this is really about being the one in charge of my life. I am lucky, in a sense, that I've never been on a traditional "diet." I am free of the diet mentality. The older women at WW are constantly being reminded to lose the notion of "diet;" I'm like, "What's a diet?"

On the other hand, I have always gained or lost weight without really knowing how or why. I mean, yes, caloric intake greater than caloric output = gaining weight. Caloric intake less than caloric expenditure = losing weight. I get that. But it would happen to me, randomly, without my conscious choice of gaining, losing, or maintaining my weight. I decided that this was not what I wanted. How could I be in charge of my life if I was not even in charge of my own fat cells? If I was not aware of how the food I ate was affecting them?

I think my mentality--I am doing WW to learn how to take care of myself and to be in charge of my own destiny-- is much of what is breeding my success. My weight loss of about 2 lb/week is exactly on target for what WW says to expect. Other people are not having as much success, and I suspect that they are coming at the program from a different angle. Their headspace is different.

So, to return to the beginning: This is all because of my Saturn return.

This week's weigh-in

I'm down another 2 lbs this week. When I lose 1 more lb, I will be 5% lighter than when I started.

Weight loss can be stupid.

I looked in the mirror today, and I was like, hey! Where did my arms go? Now, believe me, my arms were not particularly fat. Now they are particularly thin, however. But svelte arms? No one looks at another person and thinks, "Check out those svelte arms! Ooh, baby!" The general public does think, and not in a good way, "Damn, that's one fat ass!"

Memo to ass: Lose some fat. Memo to arms: Please let ass go first.

Second Weigh-In

I lost another 2.2 lbs this week, bringing the grand total to 6.6. I got a green star sticker with a "5" on it for reaching the 5 lb mark.

It takes me a little while to get it.

I went for a nice, peaceful walk today. I chose the quieter area available to me, the arboretum with its paths through the woods. I wanted to commune with the winter songbirds and, also, to walk on paths shielded from the wind by tall pine trees. I saw two friendly chickadees, one determined woodpecker, and a fat tufted titmouse. We watched each other, which is the interesting thing about birdwatching.

Anyway, I returned home in a particularly peaceful frame of mind with a particularly open heart, and there in the mailbox was an advertisement for Shambhala Sun, a Buddhist magazine. And there, nestled in the marketing materials, was a letter from my teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh, writing about mindfulness, about how mindfulness is the miracle that makes happiness possible. And then it hit me.

To a certain extent, I've been seeing my WW process as a battle, as a fighting to stay within my point ranges and burn those calories through exercise. But the combination of birdsong and Thay's message reverberated, and shook loose this idea: What if I reframe this undertaking as a sort of mindfulness? What if I see this counting points as a form of food meditation, intended, as all forms of mindfulness, to create health? Why, it becomes a whole different thing, doesn't it? So this is my new frame: mindfulness.

Snacks.

The best snacks, of course, are fruits and veggies. Sometimes, though, we just need that sweet shimmer of processed goodness across the tongue. Here are some snacks I've found that don't kill the points value for the day. However. I've found that if I succumb and eat more than one of these snacks a day, I Will Be Hungry Later. Without furter ado, kStyle's List O'Snacks, with Links When Available:

Trader Joe's Fat Free Caramel Popcorn (2 points per 3/4 cup)
3 Musketeers Fun Size Bars (1 point per bar, just enough for that taste)
Barry's Bakery French Twists, Original Flavor (1 pt per 2 twists! So cinnamony!)
And, the Queen of Snacks, the Diva of Decadence...
Scharffen Berger 60% Cacao Chocolate (2 points per 1/2 oz). Can't live without my dark chocolate, and this is rich and full-bodied enough to satisfy with just a taste.

Of doughnut dreams and Thai regrets.

In a perfect world, WW would give women extra PMS Points(TM). I thought of this as I ate my high-fiber toast with PB & J this morning, and my hormones screamed out, Harpy-like: This is not a doughnut! We are not fooled! NOT A DOUGHNUT! Screeeeeeech!

Another thought dawned this morning, as I pored over the WW Dining Out Companion book, looking for Indian foods that I could consume without consuming all my points for the week. As I flipped past the Thai page, the French page, the Greek page, a chill curled down my spine. Most of my extra poundage may well be the gift of a curious palate, a palate that enjoys trying new ethnic cuisines, without stopping to wonder whether the natives are excessively fond of oil, ghee, coconut milk, or cream. Take Thai food. Seems healthy, right? Rice noodles and lots of vegetables! More, please!...You know why Thai vegetables taste so much better than regular old vegetables? They are fried in a shitload of oil and simmered in a groves' worth of coconut milk! Oh, dear! Oh, me! Oh, thigh!

Now I must plan--nay, strategize--before eating out. As for my Indian meal, I'm very grateful that I love tandoori shrimp. It's just 3 points for 3/4 cup.

Body Acceptance Nirvana

I was just telling a friend this story, and I thought--it's pretty interesting! Maybe my blog buddies would like to hear it, too.

I grew up, of course, thinking that my curvalicious figure was too fat. Looking at the flat-tummied waifs on TV and film, I felt dumpy and large.

Then, I took West African dance in college. Our instructor, "Grandma," would tell the girls, "Be beautiful! Be ROUND!" It became clear that she, and the other Africans teaching us, thought the American ideal of womanly beauty way too thin. It's not like morbid obesity is considered attractive in Ghana, either, but they like some meat on women's bones.

I realized then that my body was considered the perfect shape in much of the world. That the proper-size body was nothing more than a cultural construct. And that I would be one hot mama in Africa.

In fact, I did visit Lisbon for five days at the tail end of my study abroad in Greece. At least in 1999, Lisbon had a lot of immigrants from Portugal's former African colonies. I could not walk down the street without being followed by an African man. Sometimes it was a little unnerving, but nonetheless, it verified my thesis.

Since meeting the Ghanaians in college, I've liked my body, not seeing it as too fat, too large, or in any way embarrassing. I think this is overall a good thing. On the other hand, it did keep me from trying to lose weight when I probably should have.

Recently a lovely, very attractive friend confided that she felt upset because she'd gained some weight. I advised her to buy new clothes so that she would feel good about herself.

Comment away!

I've changed the comment settings from "Anyone" to "Registered users only," in an attempt to avert some comment squirrellyness. Let me know how it works for you.

First Weigh-In

I am 4.4 lbs lighter already! Holy crap, I worked super-hard all summer for the exact same loss I just got in 1 week. Suh-weet!

Getting the hang of it.

The first couple days of counting points were distressing. I didn't know what I was doing yet, or how to do it with ease, and so I was both annoyed and hungry much of the time. Since then things have vastly improved, especially since I figured out how to incorporate a daily half-ounce of Schaffen Berger 60% cacao dark chocolate (2 points!).

The magnetic whiteboard on the front of the fridge is now covered with a list of snacks sorted by point values. Come home starving? No problem! I know exactly what we have in the fridge and how much it will cost me.

My scale says I've lost 5 lbs. since my first WW weigh-in, but my scale may be different from the WW scale.

Oh noes

A so-called "stomach bug" made itself known in my system last night. I suppose it should be easier to stick to today's points as a result...

I half-wonder, though, if it's really a matter of eating too many acidic foods yesterday: a grapefruit, Coke Zero, pineapple, salsa...If perhaps my goodwill attempts to drink milk, which has never agreed with my tum, should be abandoned...If it's not a stomach bug so much as my body FREAKING OUT about the higher-fiber, reduced-cal way I've been eating.

Pretty sure it's a bug, though. I do work in schools, with children, after all.

My Body Thinks It's Dying, Which Makes My Mind Irritable.

I ate two salads today. Two! One had grilled chicken and grilled portobello--portobella? which is it?--'shrooms, and it was delicious. I ate steel cut oats made overnight in a crockpot, so that they were ready when I woke up famished. They were also delish. I ate whole wheat pasta shells with nonfat tomato sauce. I had less milk than I was supposed to, but I'm not a milk drinker. I ate 2 oz of pineapple, the better part of an apple, and even a quarter oz of Schaffen Berger. I learned about the minefield that is salad dressing and found a really, really great lemon tarragon one that adds minimal calories. I indulged in one of the world-famous rolls at the restaurant where I had my first salad of the day.

And my body is screaming: EAT MORE! THAT WAS NOT ENOUGH CALORIES!, but alas, I am out of points for the day. However, I may yet snack on the zero-point dubious treat of celery dunked in salsa. We shall see.

I comfort myself that my blood is rich in antioxidants thanks to all the veggies.

I must return my irritable self to sipping my soothing tea. A group of people, myself included, are trying to arrange a carpool to an event in Boston this week. One woman wrote that she thought we could leave at 5:30 rather than 5. I was about to write back, YOU ARE FUCKING BONKERS AND IF EVERYONE DECIDES TO LEAVE AT HALF-PAST I'LL GO BY MY DAMN SELF BECAUSE WE'LL SIT IN RUSH-HOUR TRAFFIC FOR THE REST OF TIME AND NEVER GET ANYWHERE NEAR OUR EVENT, but then I realized that maybe I'd lost a wee bit of perspective because I'm adjusting to eating fewer calories. And it's dark. And winter.

Thus: tea.

Counting Points, Day 1: A Post in List Form

I've made myself some rules to make this process livable:

1. No goddamn skim milk. It's 1% or nothing.
2. No goddamn cottage cheese. EVER. Why would I start eating something I would never, ever touch unless trying to lose weight? I will, however, entertain low-fat versions of other, yummy cheeses. Cabot makes a good 75% reduced-fat cheddar.
3. The point of the egg is the yolk. Any mama chicken or human who likes real food will tell you this. A lifetime of just whites is a prison sentence. Therefore, I will eat either a) one entire egg, or b) one egg plus the whites of another, but there will be yolk.
   (Insert "yolk" pun here.)

I'm feeling optimistic about this process because it seems it will solve the 2 stumbling blocks I encountered when using the Food Guide Pyramid to trim calories this summer.

1. I was always hungry. Therefore, I was irritable for large swathes of my waking hours.
   WW solution: The food guides place little green diamonds next to filling foods!
2. I eventually felt lonely in my efforts and it was too easy to slide as a result.
   WW solution: Weekly meetings, which are basically support groups for foodies. "Here is my tribe," I thought. I was very surprised to realize that everyone at WW seemed to really, really like food. These were not brittle, skinny women who loved cottage cheese and battled with themselves to eat less of it. These were foodies. Gourmands. It will be a good group from which to get healthy food tips, because, again, they ain't eating cottage cheese, either.

Finally, my dalliance with the Food Guide Pyramid is giving me a little boost on the WW new "Healthy Eating Guidelines," which are the Food Pyramid set up in a rectangular chart instead.

Goal: Moderation

One of my goals for the weight loss process if to find a better balance between diet and exercise. There was a time when I was dancing 10-15 hours/week. I could pretty much eat whatever I wanted. Later, when I wasn't dancing as much, if I had overeaten, I'd burn it off with more exercise. I'm starting to realize, after only 8 years in the "real world" (I must be exceptionally swift), that I can't always burn off the extra calories. Between working, commuting, sleeping, hygiene, maintaining interpersonal relationships, and cat care, there is only so much time I can devote to physical activity. Moreover, I feel better when I do activity at a moderate intensity level. I've never been one for X-treme exercise, even when I spent a third of my waking hours whirling and twirling, hopping and tapping.

So, I must control intake. I must.

I wonder if Michael Phelps goes through this when he's not training.

Stretchy, stretchy

I do reckon that my stomach gained some stretch thanks to the holiday gorging. This morning I had my normally perfectly satisfying breakfast of oatmeal, wheat germ, fruit, milk, and a sprinkle of brown sugar. I drank water and tea. Then, still hungry, I munched on brie and crackers. My tummy still asks for more, however. I'm trying to fill up with water, and I'll let myself have an early lunch. I need to retrain my stretch receptors. And eat some protein, I think.

Posturing

I found a Denise Austin DVD, "Power Zone: Mind, Body, Soul," at Ocean State Job Lot for $2.99. The core, so the speak, of the workout is a standing Pilates sequence, which tones and strengthens the abs and back without creating the neck pain of doing floor abs work. I feel energized, graceful, relaxed, and tall at the end of this 40-minute workout. My posture feels long and effortless. It's nice. The set design is absurd and the music poor, but the exercises are great.

First Purchase of 2009

Yesterday I stopped at Walmart for the first time since July 1, 2006* and purchased a hot air corn popper. Walmart is evil; I know this. However, they carry the popper deemed best by Slate.com, and it happened to be on sale for $15.

I love this thing already. The corn comes out lighter and fluffier--not to mention reduced-calorier--than oil-popped, but without the artificial flavor and stench of microwave popcorn. Plus, the popping process makes a lot of satisfying noise.

I'm eager to get some kelp and nutritional yeast to sprinkle on my popcorn. I enjoyed this combination once when living in Santa Fe (a hippie haven), and I'm going to test whether it lives up to my heavenly memories.



*Our wedding date, when I had to pick up underwear for my soon-to-be husband, who had forgotten to pack any. Walmart was the only show in town.

New Year's at the House of Butter

My father-in-law's wonderful, marvelous, fabulous wife is a fantastic cook. Trouble is, she is a high-fat, high-calorie, decadent cook. Her favorite recipes come from the barefoot contessa, aka Ina Garten, a woman who has never put less than three sticks of butter in a recipe. Her food sure is delicious, though.

Anyway, we rung in the New Year with: 10 kinds of homemade cookies, 2 kinds of quiches (both containing bacon!), a ham, and the contessa's sticky buns, among other delicacies. Everything was scrumptious and I ate a ton. I decided just not to count Dec 31, 2008-Jan 1, 2009. I had eaten light and exercised enough from Dec. 29-30 that I should come out even in the weight game. I hope.

Now we are home. We were sent home with a plate of cookies, of course. We placed them straight in the freezer, saving them for our board game night next Friday. Friends will eat them! Not us!

All this decadent cooking has inspired a new year's goal for me: to learn to cook super-fine low-fat recipes. I'm a pretty good cook of regular food, ie, food that is less fatty than the contessa's but more fatty than reduced-fat meals. Can I become a fantastic low-fat, high-fiber cook? I think I can!