Ready, Set, LIVE!

So as many of you Weight Watchers followers know, as of November 28th, they have re-vamped their program to the Points Plus method, taking into account more than just calories to help you make the best food decisions in order to eat healthy.

While I was a little skeptical on the first approach, it really is a great plan because it encourages you to eat less processed foods and more natural foods that will make the most of your meals. Lean proteins and fiber carry more weight than fat and carbohydrates in this revamped plan, but all are taken into account to make up the foods we eat.

On one hand, many of the foods we typically enjoy end up being more points...mainly carbohydrate heavy foods like breads and sweets. And you can't get away with as much as you could on the original points plan with the goodies...On the other hand, it forces you to really pay attention to what you're eating to get the most bang for your Point...

Well, being on week two of the plan, I feel like I'm finally getting it. Even though it is easier to choose the greasy, carb-loaded food when hungry, I have been using this new plan as a springboard to step back towards my health journey.

I reset my weight on eTools and when I weighed in after the long Thanksgiving weekend, I weighed in at exactly 200.0 lbs. It's a sad realization how far off track I am from where I was last year at this time (down in the 180s), but as I said, this Points Plus plan is definitely a refreshing restart to getting back in the game and getting back to basics.

Successes for the week:

• Passed on pizza several times as a meal option--twice being that I skipped a meal that was provided for me at an event! 11 point pizza? NOT WORTH IT!
• Finally made it back to the gym for the first time since the summer...last week was a bit of a slow start and I went only once, but this week I have a better plan and better frame of mind and tonight will be the 2nd time.
• Have discovered new ways of incorporating food with the new plan such as having FF plain greek yogurt mixed with fresh berries and some splenda, or just some honey. YUM.
• Got the starter pack for the new plan with the companion guides for the new points values as well as a 3 month journal to track my progress, meals, exercise etc. I do still track online and it's sort of double duty, but when I don't have access to eTools, it's keeping me honest.
• Actually re-planned meals based on earlier meals to incorporate the healthy guidelines (fruits, veggies, etc) and to stay within my points values.
• Dusted off my food scale to measure my portions!
• In most cases...Stuck to portion sizes!!
  
• Lost 1.4 lbs this week!!!

Though I am definitely still a work in progress, I feel like I'm already starting to re-think how I eat and I'm more determined to stick to the plan than ever to make these changes in my life. I even sat down with my boyfriend after the first meeting to show him how the plan worked so he could help me when I need it (like encouraging me to think about what I want when I say I want dessert or not suggest that I have more helpings).

On a side note, I've missed being a part of the health blogging community and although I can't guarantee the frequency of my posts, I definitely want to reengage myself with this blog since it helped motivate me so much when I was in the swing of things.

Until next time!

Craving high point foods??

Hey folks--well this week's weigh in was a little disappointing. I went up again. I blame it on Mondays, jeans, eating before my meeting and being dehydrated.

Of course I really should blame it on using most of my weekly points and not getting enough exercise...but I won't. It wasn't a bad week food-wise, and I had hoped that it would show on the scale, but towards the end of the week I could have done better.

This week has been just as bad so far. I'm not necessarily over-indulging, but I am eating meals that use up a lot of points. For instance...I've been craving bagels lately. So instead of doing the 6pt bagel, I went to the store and got Peppridge Farm's whole grain bagels. They are 4 pts. And I got Philly reduced fat cream cheese in Onion & Chive. It was delicious. But it was 6pts. For breakfast. And on top of that I had an apple for another point. That didn't leave me much for the rest of the day--and although my lunch wasn't that bad, things kept adding up. And I brought an afternoon snack of yogurt & another apple. And dinner was homemade soup.

By the way I made soup. It was fun. But I'll get back to that in a bit.

And by the time I went through dinner, I was so far beyond my daily points, but everything I ate was healthy! I wasn't snacking on potato chips and chocolate. And today was no better. Breakfast was yogurt, flax seed & banana. Fine. But lunch was soup (3pts), and a darned greek salad. That stuff adds up. And now I only have 7pts left for the rest of the day. I mean, yes, I can have a meal for that, but I have to be careful (especially since I have barely any weeklies left and it's only Wednesday!!)

It's not like I'm not trying, but everything just keeps adding up. I'm not eating large portions, I'm for the most part staying away from junk, but somehow those points just multiply. It's frustrating because I thought I finally on the right track. I have to combat it with exercise I guess.

I did go swing dancing Monday and I finally felt like I was getting a workout! It was fun. Things are picking up :)

Oh right, the soup. I joined my friend in some soupmaking fun last night & we made this fantastic and technically simple root vegetable soup. Potatoes, turnips, yucca, squash...I have no idea what else, but it was really good. And very filling. We also made a Portuguese Cocina which turned out basically like a chicken noodle soup--with chorizo and meatballs (turkey). It was good--felt like it was missing something, but it was pretty simple anyway.

So I'm continuing with my cooking experiments and enjoying every minute of it. I hope to bake another banana bread and maybe a pumpkin bread this weekend in between painting my kitchen. Actually, maybe not such a brilliant idea. Maybe I'll use mom's kitchen :)

Still trying to fit in more exercise...as usual. And I've been feeling very drained. I have been letting these gorgeous fall mornings pass me by without taking advantage of it to be able to sleep in, and when I get home at night, I crash. I did go for a walk today... and added some dancing to that walk, which I'm sure was quite entertaining to passers by. And I'm a little inspired by Rebecca who has been working so hard and got noticed by a Personal Trainer at the gym who was impressed by her progress! Her reaction to her workout being interrupted was priceless. :)

Alright--enough Julia. Let's get to it!

Until next time

Boot Camp Day Eleven

I am so proud of myself for yesterday's run. I did so well. I really pushed myself and then I had boundless energy the rest of the night.

This morning on the other hand...

Anyway, I was out jogging/walking for about 40 minutes, but we went further in our intervals than we usually do and I felt so much stronger. The last push was a killer, but we made it.

I used my nifty new WW pedometer for the first time. Tracks steps, mileage, and even APs for the day or for a specific workout. I got 2 for the run.

Then it was off to my little cousin's house for his b'day party. I stopped at Dunkin Donuts for my favorite Turkey Sausage Egg White Flatbread & an iced coffee. Well that iced coffee kicked in almost immediately because when I got to my cousin's house, I was dancing around and was even coerced into running some more with the kids (after ice cream cake of course). Insane. It was great though.

After all that I went home and had some more of those cherries which actually seem to be getting sweeter.

Today my meals were o-kay...breakfast was cereal again but then I didn't have a prepared lunch and decided to get chili in the cafeteria and some vegetables which was all fine, but my points just disappeared. After a snack of a super sweet kiwi, I have just 2.5 points left for the rest of the evening. That is not good news. Plus I dont' think I'll have time to go for a run before choir tonight.

I'll make the most of it, but I definitely want to keep up this good momentum.

Rain rain go away....

Until next time

Boot Camp Day Ten

Well, I just found out another drawback of losing weight...

Drawbacks? How can there be drawbacks?

They take away my activity points! I now earn less activity points than I did when I was even a few pounds heavier! My 25 minute lunchtime walk no longer earns me 2 points...it's now only one!!!

That blows.

It really just means I have to work harder--and at this point I should be working harder, but I guess I had gotten so used to my routine that when a change like this comes in and makes me rethink and replan...which I don't do all that well in the first place.

Anyway--today's report

Yesterday dinner: Shrimp & chinese vegetables (steamed w/white sauce on side), pretzels
Yesterday nighttime noshes: pretzels, stupid PB & Chocolate wafers-1 pt for one, but 3 pts for 2..., cereal & milk (Sgt wasn't paying attention)
Yesterday exercise: none

Breakfast: Cereal & milk
Lunch: Leftover shrimp & chinese veggies (steamed w/some clear sauce), bite of brownie
Dinner: If time-pasta & arugula w/goat cheese + birthday cake
Exercise: Less effective Lunchtime walk, planned evening run

Boot Camp Days Three, Four, Five

Okay, I've been slacking. The drill sergeant hasn't checked up on me lately & I've been hiding out.

I won't give exact details about the past two days, just a summary...

Wednesday: I as pretty good managing my meals, but didn't plan ahead of time. Went a little over my points in the evening. Not too bad. Only got in 15 minutes of activity--a quick, brisk lunchtime walk. Nothing in the evening.

Thursday: Another unplanned day--not quite as good. Tried to keep points low, but by the end of lunch I had barely gotten any healthy guidelines in. Dinner I craved sushi and I needed veggies. Yum--hit the spot, helped on bulking up my veggie count. Only exercise was walking around a school taking photos and squats to get down to take photos of little kids. Maybe 1 point. Felt really drained all day, especially afternoon. Intended a walk in the evening, but rain (AGAIN!) stopped me and I wimped out of a DVD.

Today: Started good--egg beaters & spinach sandwich at home + coffee. Lunch will be healthy too--half turkey sand & veggies. Dinner is still up in the air. Raining again--no lunchtime walk. Need to get alternative cardio in.

Tales from the scale: Yesterday I decided I needed to go weigh in. I missed last week because of memorial day & then a busy week. I missed this Monday because of my schedule. I know I gained, but I needed to see what the damage was, so I went last night. 2.8 lbs. A little scary, but not as bad as it could have been. (I was expecting anywhere from 2-5 lbs). I needed it so I could assess what I needed to do to bring it down. It would have been a lot worse for me to go to next week's meeting for that surprise. So while I'm not happy about it--I'm taking the opportunity to make an appointment with the drill sergeant and let him whip me back into shape.

Tomorrow's supposed to kick off a great weekend weather-wise, so I'm going to be hitting the trails for a run, and kick my workouts back into gear. Time to get tough.

Until next time

No time, but I still gotta celebrate...

I never thought I'd see this number...certainly not on a scale...1-8-9.

189.

Okay, it's actually 189.6 which is almost 190...but 189!!!!! YAAAAAY!!!!

Honestly I didn't know what to expect at today's WI. I went way over my daily & weekly points last week with a lot of randomly high point foods, and today I ate quite a bit before the WI; but I was also running around a lot for work & probably burning extra calories. Plus the C25k I'm sure helped.

Whatever it was...WAHOO!!!

This week is going to be especially tough for me. With our dinner on Thursday, there's lots to do and little time. Most importantly I'm struggling trying to put together a video for work with my computer which is giving me a hard time saying it doesn't have enough memory to do things...I really just want to push it off a cliff. So until this week is done my routine is going to be anything but normal.

I should have gone out for my jog tonight, but it was so freaking cold & I just was not feeling it. I'm hoping to go out tomorrow morning, but...well, we all know how I do with morning workouts....I don't. On Saturday I graduated to Level 2 of the C25k which was really tough, but I felt very accomplished that I did it. Those 90 second sprints killed me, but damn I felt good. Stronger. Superwoman has got nothin on me. :)

Until next time

Good news Tuesday!

Okay, so it's technically only 1am, so most of this good news came yesterday...but it's a new day.

First off - most importantly, I'm under 200! (Yes, again. But for real this time!)

I arrived late at my meeting again (thanks to chatting with my boss as usual just before I'm about to leave), and when I weighed in, I discovered that after my crazy non-stop eating week, I had managed to LOSE two pounds. TWO pounds! I couldn't lose two pounds if I had starved myself and gone to the gym everyday.

So that brings me back down to where I was the last time I was under 200--but this time it was at the end of the day. The only thing that I might have done was kept my sweater on since I came from work and I figured I'd lose it to make the damage as little as possible. Instead I was donned in my work pants & sleeveless shell. And I hadn't even done my last minute go to the bathroom to get any last minute water weight out.

I wasn't going to stay for the meeting, but since they were talking about preparing to survive the holidays while staying on plan, I figured it would be a good meeting to stay for. It was good. It got me thinking about Thanksgiving and planning for it. But it certainly was making me hungry too.

Another piece of news, somewhat good...somewhat evil, is that now that I'm under 200, my daily points have gone down again. I'm at 25 points per day plus my weekly 35. This might be a little tough because the past few months I've certainly struggled with the 26 points I had. So now to have one less, I'm going to really have to focus on keeping within the range. But on the other hand - this means I've taken another step to being at an all time low (as an adult) with my weight. And it's been four months since the last time I went down a daily food point. So Yay Me!

The other thing I'm excited about is that I got my very own laptop - complete with wireless internet that I installed - which I will be taking with me to the conference. This holds several purposes for me. One, to get work done while I'm away. (At least pretend to). Two, because I want to be able to stay in touch with email and stuff. Three, I can access WW.com and track my points. And four, and as I'm writing this blog, I'm feeling the flow of words, to be able to write my novel. There's something about typing on a laptop and having the freedom to use it anywhere to write my thoughts that just gets my fingers flying across the keyboard with words. Now I could take this to inspire myself to work on writing projects for work, but instead I am inspired to use the opportunity to work on fleshing out my novel for which I have finally come up with a concept. But I'll reveal that as I get further along.

So in a few hours I leave for my road trip and six days of adventure. But since I have this lovely little device to play with, I won't be missing anything.

Until next time

How do teachers do it?

I'm pooped.

I taught a class today for my job & I'm exhausted. I really don't know how teachers do it. It really did feel like exercise. I kind of want to count it. I probably should.

Knowing I was going to need the extra energy, I made sure I grabbed a 6 point Dunkin' Donuts Egg White Flatbread (seriously my breakfast savior...and occasionally lunch...and dinner. Perfect. Held me over & it was so yummy. For lunch I grabbed a slice of pizza with veggies which was about 6 points. So I was doing really well. Plus I was drinking a ton of water.

And then I got back to the office, downed a leftover eggroll (5pts, but no pork), and a kit kat bar (4 points). So within a half hour, I wasted a whole NINE points that I could have saved for a nice dinner. Now I only have four left.

That was a tragic discovery. I knew how many points both of those were, but it wasn't until the reality of logging it that it hit me how little satisfaction I got for those 9 points.

So that's my moment of Zen. Keep away from fried food, keep chocolate to a minimum.

Until next time

The weight of not knowing

Okay-normally I'm not very nervous about my weigh-ins.

But today I'm kind of nervous/excited to see if I've made my goal for the week.

On one hand, I didn't get too much exercise, and I was a little over the top point-wise this weekend...

But on the other hand, I've had a ton of energy all week & have been randomly dancing and doing my rock n' wash every few days...and the rest of the week I've been having an abundance of fruit & veggies and keeping my point values within my daily range.

The biggest reason why I'm kind of worried is my ridiculous crackers/wine/cheese extravaganza on Saturday. With my "book-to-movie" club being just two of us, my friend and I finished off a bottle of Merlot complimented by lots of cheese & crackers as well as an excellent apple-jalapeno jelly/cream cheese dip. Plus more crackers, Milano cookies, lots of pretzels...I couldn't even begin to add up all the points I ate. It was yummy though. Plus yesterday, even though overall I had a pretty healthy group of meals with basically no other snacks in between, a small helping of fries and a large helping of Salmon put me far over my daily points.

So we'll see what happens this evening. I really wont' be able to stay for the meeting because I'm going out to dinner. It all depends on what time I can get my butt out of work. I hope I can sit for the earlier meeting because I know those help keep me excited about the weight-loss process. So we'll see.

But I'm still excited :)

Until next time

Manic Monday?

I so did not want to get up today. But I did. My mind is all over the place, but I'm here ready to start the fresh week.

And speaking of fresh, I finally went food shopping this weekend! Nothing major. Just some basics. I got some apples & bananas to start off my week for fruit, some milk, and some other basics for dinner or snacks to make my life a little easier.

What did not make my life easier though was the insane amount of points I consumed yesterday thanks to Starbucks (did you know a grande white chocolate mocha with skim and no whip is 8 points? 8 POINTS! Freakin A. I should have known better. And let's not even get into the Rice Krispy square), some fries, and a chocolate martini.

At least I was outside walking most of the time.

Even so, I was calculating my points and between that and the rest of the week (the Italian zeppole), I went over my weekly points. And I certainly did not get the exercise I had intended this week. I did take my lunchtime walks, but I am not putting in that extra effort & because I usually go straight from work to rehearsal three nights a week, I am not leaving myself the time to do it. I frustrate myself.

Although on a kind of funny "Julia" moment, I decided to break out the stepper contraption that I had bought back in February that I decided I didn't want, but never returned. I decided to put it in my kitchen to do as I'm washing dishes. It was quite comical. I might have to do a photo shoot of that.

Anyway, this week (once again), I am trying to work in those extra Activity points. And stay AWAY from the bad bad food like fried anything. I really have to cut out all fried food again because once I start having it, it becomes a bad habit once again. (That's what they call a Trigger Food) Or I have to plan to limit myself to once a week or something. And I do track my food, writing it down...but I never go to look back at the week to see what I should be working on & planning ahead. But when in my life have I ever planned ahead?

Anyway--we'll see what tonight's weigh-in looks like. I'm hoping it at least stayed the same. If I lost anything, great...but I really the Manic Monday doesn't turn into a Mopey Moody Monday.

Until next time

Gotta get back in line

So when I wrote yesterday about my weigh-in on Monday, I failed to mention that post disappointment, I went out to dinner with my friends for Greek food.

And I indulged in the mother of all Greek food, the Gyro. Probably a pound of sliced lamb with lettuce, tomato, onions, and tzatziki(?) yogurt sauce, all wrapped in a giant yummy bready pita. Now I don't know exactly how many points the one I ate was, but the online weight watchers menu calculated it at about 15 points. It might very well have been more.

On top of that, yesterday, most disappointed with my food choice, I had a relatively light lunch, but then got hungry and had some Pogos baked potato sticks which weren't that bad, but never really settled well in my stomach. And the fact that I had a ****-load of meat the day before didn't help either. I haven't eaten that much meat in...I can't even remember.

So for dinner I went to Così, a really yummy food chain which I used to indulge in quite often back when I worked in the city. They have these sandwiches with their amazing bread & fresh ingredients, and it was too good to pass up the chicken TBM sandwich. The TBM is Tomato, Basil, Mozzarella. Yum yum yummy. And the only addition was a balsamic vinaigrette dressing.

Okay fine. I could have eaten half of it and either taken the rest home or whatever, but despite my uneasy digestive system, I ate the whole thing. Plus I started a bag of chips which were included. So today I go on the Così website to get the nutritional information for it. Right off the bat I see it is a 10 oz sandwich. I figure there's no way that can be good.

I'm glad I looked, but boy was it painful...the 10oz sandwich has 791 calories, 6 grams of fiber, and 43, yes 43 grams of fat. When I calculated it, it came out to a whopping 19 points! HOLY SMOKES! And the 3 pts for chips on top of that. I went over my daily points by 7.5 points even with the 2 activity points from my lunchtime walk. If I had only half the sandwich, that would have only been 9 points (yes, I know that's not even, that's what WW said), and 9 points is quite reasonable. But 19? You would have thought I would have learned by now.

Oh--and then I felt it necessary to have some (golden) Oreos when I got home to have something a little sweet. Two servings of course. 7.5 points. Holy mother of Nabisco.

Well, today is a new day, and although I could very easily go back into the let's eat bad food & lots of it, but that's not why I'm here. That's not why I've been working this hard. That's not why I'm paying $40 a month to Weight Watchers.

Getting back on the horse. Taking the reins. Riding off into the weight-loss sunset. I HAVE A GOAL TO REACH! C'mon Julia!

Until next time

Oreo madness

The Oreo cookie. A childhood phenomenon involving two crisp chocolate wafers filled with yummy vanilla creme. Perfectly paired with a glass of cold milk, this cookie can provide hours of sweet entertainment as the lucky recipient tries a variety of methods to consume it's chocolaty goodness. Dip it, dunk it, open it, stack it, eat half at a time, eat the entire thing...heavenly indecision.

And then comes WW. For the original cookies, one serving of 3 cookies contains 160 calories, 7 grams of fat, and 1g fiber. That's 4 points. So of course I had 8 cookies. I hadn't had them in so long, and I had a package sitting in my cabinet before I started WW. And they were warm so the creme was all melty and gooey.

For the evening I only had 7.5 points left because I had a big lunch knowing I was not going to eat dinner until I returned home from my sewing class. But of course since I still have not gone food shopping, I had a dismal choice for dinner. Instead of creatively fixing myself a low-points dinner, I finished off the sesame chicken (a lovely 9 points), plus the broccoli (1 pt for sauce), plus a piece of FF cheese (1 pt), followed by the 8 oreos (9.5 pts) bringing my total points for the day to 40.

Good grief. Well--I can only continue moving forward. The weekend is here so I want to get some outdoor activity while I can.

My only red flag this weekend is on Sunday we are celebrating my nephin's 4th birthday at an Italian restaurant. I'm going to have to be really really good, plan ahead and spread out my points.

Hmm--I will have to remember to go for a walk or ride that morning & give myself a few activity points. Then I can eat more! :)

Until next time

La la la la To meeeeeeee

I'm 28 today. That's not as scary as I thought it would be. I've always enjoyed celebrating my birthday. Never hid embarrassingly when someone ordered a song at a restaurant. (Well, maybe in the 13-15 year stage) So I've been looking forward to my birthday since the calendar changed over to my favorite month.

Anyway--the past few days since my WW meeting, I've been having major point issues. I think it's because it's PMS week, so I'm craving either more food or less healthy food. Or I didn't have the right choices to make (/made the wrong choices). I'm not even to Friday and I only have 17 pts left for the week. I can make it through without going over, but I really have to make a good effort to keep my points down and get in more exercise.

Of course that might be a little difficult with Memorial Day weekend being here. And the fact that tonight I'm going out to dinner w/my family so it might be point heavy. I'm checking out the menu right now and it's definitely looking quite...fattening (but oh so good).

Maybe I'll go for a walk after I leave work. No wait...it's raining again. Boo.

Until next time.

They took away a point!!

Damn weight loss...because I started on the cusp of one weight category, I guess I should have calculated that in...but when I weighed in this week online, I was asked to recalculate my points...and because I was in a different category than when I started, I dropped one daily point!!! That blows. And essentially for each 10 lbs I lose...or every time I go under the 10 lb marker, I lose another point! That blows.

I guess the point is that I'm supposed to be eating less as I lose more and am supposed to be less hungry or something. Booo...

So now I'm down to 28 pts. per day.

On the bright side, I have been under my daily values since Monday. Hooray! :) And this won't be a big festive weekend so I might actually get to keep my weekly points. Double hooray! And if I actually get in some more exercise this week, Monday's weigh in could be quite grand. Hooray Hooray Hoooooray!!!!

Maybe I shouldn't hooray too soon...

Until next time

Quick blog

I'm tiiiiiiiiired. I had a long day at a school taking photos and then doing an impromptu teaching session on top of that. I am ready for beddy.

However, I still have plans tonight with my fellow WW bud Robyn who has been on the program with her husband for at least a month or so before I joined. Even before WW, she was one of those people always looking for and finding healthy & great tasting choices of food. And she would get very excited about her finds and share them with everyone. Or at least share them with me. Obsessive-compulsive in a good way :) So we're going out to dinner.

Fortunately I have a lot of points left for the day because I had a very light breakfast/lunch at the school event. Apparently half a serving of a whole wheat veggie wrap is zero points. It filled me up at the time. I'm currently hungry though. But dinner will be soon.

Ciao!