Round

I lost 4 pounds on Monday, which is a good first week. 

And I’m still doing well, finding the Weight Watchers approach helpful but not overwhelming, structure useful and not constraining.  I ate a chocolate chick today without any worries. 

I had a day yesterday of hotel breakfast, buffet working lunch, and dinner with a colleague all with real ease.  Breakfasts I’m sticking to muesli or oatmeal, and for lunch I try for salad and some protein, whereas dinner last night was broth-based soup w small dumplings, and fish w veggies.  Even the meeting room table - piled high with cookies and chocolates didn’t tempt me (although the fruit did).  Late in the afternoon I opened the last bag of nuts, but after just one mouthful a colleague came in looking for snacks and I gave them to him instead. 

My first week on Weight Watchers Online has gone really well.

I have a lot of challenges - but we all do, and in the end they are just excuses, they are the context of our lives, and we live within that - it’s just the weight we carry in that context that can change.

I was in Munich 4 nights this week, but managed to stop at the grocery store upon arrival, therefore was stocked with healthy breakfast and some dinner options.  We’ve been staying at a terrible hotel (changes in April) but the one advantage of the hotel is that there is a hot plate and a fridge, so minimal cooking can be done.  During a week when I was starting a new diet that was a big help.  I’m in that hotel again this week (again 4 nights) and plan to do pretty much the same thing.

Weekends are almost always hard for me - for one thing I’m not home enough to have good planning and stocking of healthy foods, for others my husband and I love food and are great partners in crime, and the temptations can be multiple - especially living in Paris.

My husband was very supportive of my telling him I was going to diet again and needed his help, and my will is strong, so it’s been pretty smooth sailing. In fact he was a huge help, going to a market near his office on his way home on Friday and stocking us up on fruits and veggies - so since Friday night we’ve been working our way through green beans, broccoli, artichokes, carrots, salad, tomatoes, peppers, raspberries, strawberries, clementines… tonight we’ll devour the asparagus too.

One of the danger meals for me has always been a weekend breakfast full of bread and wonderful French pastries (croissants etc).  But in fact I love my oatmeal too and I’ve learned that if the oatmeal is ready I’m just as satisfied with that as with the richer fare, so I made a point to make some first thing Saturday and it was easy to pass on the baguette, butter and jam.

Another of the weekend dangers is often desserts.  Although I have several lighter recipes for homemade ones, sometimes the homemade ones are not light, and then I’m really tempted (bergamot lemon tart recently, for example…).  So I was less than thrilled when my DH told me he’d seen a recipe he wanted to try in one of the cooking magazines - until I saw that it was a jelly-roll type cake filled with Nutella.  I’ve never been nuts about jelly roll cakes (although those with whipped cream filling can seduce me).  But the real saving factor was the Nutella factor.  Nutella is a chocolate-hazelnut spread that is everywhere in Europe - it exists in the US but it’s no where near as popular as it is here.  Anyway, I have always strongly disliked the taste of hazelnuts, and so Nutella is an automatic turnoff to me.  So I told my husband (and my 9 year old stepson) to go for it.  I helped them make it (my husband is a very good cook but is intuitive and off-the-cuff, which does not work for baking!) but I didn’t even try it.  Maybe I’ll have them do a whole series of Nutella desserts in the coming weeks.  After that they can play with coconut (another dessert flavor I dislike).  Anyway, potential roadblock was easily passed over.

One thing I am liking a lot about the WW plan is the weekly points.  It allows you to have the extras from time to time - I used several of mine last night to go out to Indian food and have a dosa and some biryani in the Indian district, guilt free (and so yummy).  I also was able to go to an excellent Italian restaurant this week with a colleague without stress, knowing I could dip into those points (although there were healthy options making that not necessary in the end).

Weigh in day is tomorrow, but it doesnt even matter to me what the scale says - I feel so much better physically and especially emotionally.

Okay, okay, maybe it’s just the newness, but who cares? I’ve not been upbeat about something for a while so even though it’s just Day 2 I’m celebrating it.

There are lots of small ways this Weight Watchers Online thing is helping me.  Part is the structure, for sure.  I’m using the online food tracker and used it during the day on my BlackBerry too. 

I have no idea of points of anything so I just tried to make the best choices I could at our business lunch.  I made a point to duck out of my dinner meeting tonight and instead hit the grocery store and buy the makings of a nice salad and a fruit and yogurt dessert. 

I also am totally digging this idea of breaking the weight goal into increments of 5%.  Because I am so unhappy with myself for having gone so far ahead of the weight I *used* to be unhappy about (and which is now a LONG way away) I have often just stood looking at the scale in disbelief - I get sick thinking of having dug myself in even deeper into this hole, and I have a hard time waking up to the new reality.  My *old* fat weight is now THREE 5% increments away.  Gosh.  It makes me want to cry.

But there is something do-able about only focusing on that 5% number.  It’s much better (and more productive and realistic) than thinking “I just have to get back to where I was, then I can concentrate on losing weight” which has been the thought lurking in the back of my mind for about 18 months now.  At least with the 5% goals it’s a manageable amount of weight to concentrate on, and it’s making me wake up to the hear and now.

I am feeling so relieved that I’ve taken action.  It’s only one day, but still, it’s a big improvement.

I made many healthy choices all day, despite tough circumstances and temptations galore.

We had 3/4 of a leftover pannettone, I made oatmeal.

We had leftover Indian food, I reheated frozen soup.

We have cookies and candy and crackers and chips, I had an orange.

On the plane they had a choice of “salty or sweet” nibbles and your choice of drink - I had Perrier, with nothing else.

Arriving in Germany I knew I had choices of pizza, pasta, Chinese, Indian & Thai for dinner.  I chose to stop at a grocery store and pick up salad and soup and turkey breast and clementines and muesli for breakfast.

For weeks now I’ve been making the first side of these choices.  One day doesn’t undo it, but on the other hand, one day is a start.

I am amused by the Points thing.  I did WW when I was a teenager with my stepmom and it was before Points existed, it was just exchanges.  I’ve counted calories for years.  But I feel like I’m learning again because Points are new and aren’t just a swap out for calories.

The real reason I chose WW was because I knew I had to do something, and I’d just seen a presentation in a scientific forum of their “method” and was intrigued (both professionally and personally).  It seemed like a sign.  I’ll blog a bit about their behavioral change tools “Tools for living” because that was the real impetus for me to join (I’ve been learning a lot about behavioral change models for work, and obviously present a good case model myself with my weight…)  WW has pretty amazing statistics showing basically that the more involved people are with their program, the better they do.  (And the longer they stay w WW, and thus, the more money WW makes).

I finally did it, I must have visted the site 6 times since I thought about it, but today I finally took the bull by the horns and did it.

I’m starting tomorrow morning (although I’m not doing a food fest today) because Monday morning weigh ins feel best for me.

I’m hoping the online aspect will be okay for me - I seriously debated going with meetings, but Saturdays would be my only option, 2 of the coming 4 Saturdays I’ll be traveling, and this Saturday I ended up having to go to an appointment at the same time as the 2 meetings in my neighborhood.  So meetings might be a future option, but I was just envisioning all this excuse-making due to meetings, and decided I was better off online for now.  And I’m going to use my work-supplied Blackberry for online login when necessary, even though I feel a bit guilty about it, but considering it’s because of work that I can’t track from my French-based iPhone without spending a fortune, I’ll let my company pay for it (until/if I get my wrist slapped).

I also told my DH that I was doing it, and that I needed his support.  This was well-received, he said that he needs to pay attention too (he does) and that in any event with my traveling he has several days of the week to eat the stuff that tempts me that he wants without my being around.

I’m also planning to get to the gym today - although I haven’t made it yet…

I think I’m almost ready to get serious.  It’s been building for a while but it’s starting to solidify. 

I had the opportunity recently to hear the top brass of Weight Watchers give a talk in which they explained the whys of their program (in a professional context, not a selling one) and it was really clear to me that I’ve been deluding myself these past few years that I can go it alone, that I “should” just be able to do it (because I’ve done it in the past, and I “know” what needs to be done).

Of course I do.  Everyone does, don’t they?  Eat less, move more.  Nothing simpler or harder, just plain hard truth that is unbelievably hard to put into place. 

WW has put in place a bunch of behavioral change model tools based on cognitive science that are built into their programs, and hearing about them professionally of course made me realize that I probably should explore them personally…  

I’ve been working a bit with behavioral change tools for work (and will more and more, actually) so I can even delude myself that I’m exploring this for professional reasons, but the real thing that spoke to my heart was the light bulb going off that 1) Everyone needs help in doing this because it’s damn hard to change your own behavior (examples abound - smoking, diet, exercise, drug use, clutter collection, etc) and 2) Validated approaches have been developed.

So, Weight Watchers, save a place for me.  I’m trying to decided between the live meetings in France (which seem weird, and will add another to-do item to my already hectic Saturdays in Paris) or doing it online (from the US site) which is convenient but probably not quite as effective.  Any one having tried the WW Online program would love to have comments…

Starting date either way will be this weekend.

I’m kind of stuck again. 

A lot is going on in my life, and I don’t seem to be able to find the mental bandwith for dieting right now.

Exercise when in Paris went much better in February… if I was home more things would be easier overall.

Thanks for those who’ve come checking in on me - it helps.