Weigh In Tomorrow

well, i weigh in tomorrow at ww. we'll see what the scale has to say. a few months ago i put my bathroom scale under the bed and it's been living there ever since. i don't miss compulsively weighing myself every day, and it didn't seem to do me much good in any event, so it will stay under the bed until i see fit...no pun intended.

Yesterday's Food

Monday, March 26, 2007Morning
Special K Protein cereal/FF milk - Quick-added foo 3
FF creamer - Quick-added food 2
Midday
1 small apple(s) 1
1/2 cup orange sections 0.5
2 Tbsp fat-free mayonnaise 0.5
2 medium carrot(s) 0.5
deli lean turkey sandwich meat - Quick-added food 2
2 T LF dressing - Quick-added food 1
2 T FF dressing - Quick-added food 1
whole grain bread - Quick-added food 2
3 cup lettuce 0

Evening
curry/rice - Quick-added food 7

Snacks
fiber bar chocolate - Quick-added food 2
1 cup fat-free skim milk 2
popcorn - Quick-added food 0.5
1 oz LF cheese - Quick-added food 2
healthy choice fudge bar - Quick-added food 1

Food POINTS values total used 28
Food POINTS values remaining 0

Up and At 'em!

Morning! Have to rush off to prepare for work, etc. Decided I will post my WW food journal here as well. The numbers following the food are the number of "points" for the item. My current daily ration is 28. As you can see, I'm not starving.
Good: stayed in points, lots of fruit
Bad: no veggies with dinner

Weight Watchers

I've been going to Weight Watchers meetings for 6 weeks. I'd never gone before and was feeling hopeless when I went to the first meeting. I'm not feeling hopeless anymore. I really like the "points" system, feels very livable. I also like the weekly meetings for advice and support, not to mention the weigh ins. To know I'm going to be weighed in just adds a layer of accountability that works for me. They don't do it publicly, thank goodness.

So, my weigh in day is Thursday. I've not missed a meeting since I started. They are only a 1/2 hour and the little pep talk we get from the meeting leader is not as painful as I was fearing - I find them encouraging. So, they work your points out based partly on your weight. Your "base" points are the first two digits of your weight, my current base points are 22 (for 226 pounds). When I hit 219.9 (which sounds really good btw) I'll go down to 21 base points. The lowest base points are 15 I think. Then, you get points added to that based on your age, how much you move (labor work vs. desk work type of thing), your gender and height, etc. So, the amount you eat drops as your body weight drops...makes sense. They also have an online food diary that you can use and it keeps track for you. I dig it.

You also get a set amount of "extra" points you can use however you want through the week. You can use them slowly throughout the week or all in day (or meal if you really tried). I tend to use them on the weekend at social events...happy hour with appetizers really takes the points away.

The first week or so I was hungry a fair amount. Now it actually feels like plenty of food. The neat thing is, if I'm feeling really hungry, I eat lower point items in larger amounts. If I'm not feeling that hungry I'll have some type of "treat" in a smaller amount for the same amount of points. Anyway, I guess the point is, no pun intended, it's working for me.

Okay, enough about Weight Watchers. Funny thing, I haven't really told many people in my life that I'm doing it. While I have said I'm "eating right" again, I usually don't mention WW specifically. I guess I'm a little embarrassed that I haven't been able to do it on my own.

If at first...

It's taken me some time to come back after falling off the proverbial wagon for...well, about a year. I've been 'round this weight loss block a few times and am hoping that I've learned enough to not just get in shape, but to stay in shape. I thought I was heavy as a child because that's what I was told. Who knows if this is where things went south. Here's a picture of me in my pre-teens and I don't seem fat to me.


I'm pretty sure I was a heavy teenager, but then I see pictures like this and wonder.


Then I see a picture like this and think, "yeah, I was fat".


Anyway, I know I was heavy as a young adult. Here I am at age 24 in my cousin's wedding.


At 21 I had moved to Hawaii to go to college. I stayed heavy, as in the above picture, all through college. At about age 25, something clicked and I decided to get in shape. I followed my own plan, making changes one at a time. I started with a plan to do one thing everyday outside of my house that was non-food related (usually I went to the beach after work and journaled). When I was ready (and that was key) I added something new, which was taking a walk on the beach. Then I decided to change my eating habits at home only, I made no changes to my habits outside the home. If I wanted a snickers bar that was fine, as long as I didn't eat it in my home. When I was ready, I added changes to eating outside the home too. Slowly but surely I got in shape and about a year later I'd lost 70 pounds. I was leading an active lifestyle, swimming, biking, hiking, and having a blast. Here's a couple pictures from that time period.

And some from during my post-Hawaii 3 month backpacking trip across Europe...

Of course during that time I was never satisfied, convinced I was "fat" and needed to lose weight.
Later, when I would get out of shape again, I would look back on that time as heaven.

So after Europe I moved back to California. I maintained my weight loss for a total of about 5 years before things slowly started slipping away. That was the longest I'd ever maintained weight loss. I think what I learned from that relapse, if you will, is that I have to stay vigilant. I can't ever stop paying attention to this. Sure, I may be able, one day, to put weight and health on the back burner (maybe) but I have to carefully monitor if it needs to return to the front. Ah heck, it needs to stay on the front burner forever.

So I got fat again...I don't know how much I weighed but in 1999 I got engaged, and was overweight. I lost a bunch of weight for the wedding, and was wearing a size 12 (I think), in summer of 2000. Here's a picture of me from that time.

The weight loss lasted about as long as the marriage, which was not long. By the time I met Miguel in late 2001 (see? short marriage) I was heavy again...



I continued to gain weight for the first several years of our relationship. By July of 2005 I think I weighed about 220 and looked like this:

Desperate for change, in August of 2005 I decided to try Body for Life. I followed the plan fairly closely and lost about 35 pounds of fat in 12 weeks. I had completed 12 weeks of Body for Life (BFL) and pretty much slacked off after that. Of course I gained the weight I'd lost, plus a few extra. I reviewed my old journal entries from BFL and saw the last couple of weeks I was writing about being tired all the time. I might have pushed myself too hard and then had nothing left with which to continue. I'm also too good at making excuses and have a history of being lazy. I also identified that I had no plan as to what to do when the 12 week plan is over. Now, whenever anyone tells me they are doing some time-limited plan I always encourage them to plan for after it's over.

After gaining the weight back after BFL, and then some, I sat on my butt for a couple more years trying to figure out what to do. On February 15th [of 2007] I went to my first weight watchers meeting. I looked like this...


So here I am. Head down in a bit of embarrassment about my situation. I have been eating a healthy diet for 6 weeks and have lost 8 pounds. I was 233.8 pounds when I started 6 weeks ago. I am in the contemplation stage when it comes to exercise. I know I want to start again I just don't know when. I'm getting closer and starting to write on here is part of my move toward taking that step. I am trying to take things slowly so that I can create something that I am able to maintain for the rest of my life. Maintenance is the only reason I'm back.