Munky's Journey in Progress (Still at it...)

[pigeonsoup]

Bargain hunting! Bargain hunting! Yes!  

[Euthanasia Phase]

You're setting a terrific example for improving one's lifestyle, with the exercise and homecooked meals. I also like how you're spreading your diet out through the day, rather than eating most points (or calories, etc.) in one sitting. The Weight Watchers core plan has always appeared a little intimidating because it takes away the numbers or the "safety net" that tells you you're doing everything perfectly, but it's healthier than simply counting points. Congrats on the progress you've made, and good luck!  

[Munkers]

Hysterisches Zyanid

You're setting a terrific example for improving one's lifestyle, with the exercise and homecooked meals. I also like how you're spreading your diet out through the day, rather than eating most points (or calories, etc.) in one sitting. The Weight Watchers core plan has always appeared a little intimidating because it takes away the numbers or the "safety net" that tells you you're doing everything perfectly, but it's healthier than simply counting points. Congrats on the progress you've made, and good luck!

Keeping things spread out is something I'm still ironing out. A lot of the time I end up eating really light throughout the day and then come evening I find I've got a ton of points left and I really don't want to eat that much at night. Like last night, for example--Kent and I went and watched a movie at a friend's house and picked up some frozen Chinese food. The three of us split a thing of pot stickers, each of us had an egg roll, and I had wonton soup for my meal. I felt pretty full and happy, but when I got home and added up all my points, I found I still had 5 left for the day. I was a little hungry, but not necessarily 5 points worth of hungry. But since I'm supposed to eat them I went ahead and had a Fiber One bar (a treat), a container of yogurt (still trying to be better about my dairy), and some grapes. If I had just been going by my hunger cues, I probably would have just eaten the grapes and been fine.

So yeah, I have really mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, core would make it really hard to just grab a frozen something and eat with friends because I'd probably kill my weekly allowance pretty quick and I want my allowance for bread and tortillas and stuff. But on the other hand, the points don't always jive with my hunger. Granted, they usually don't jive because I ate something like soup which was low points, but really filling so my calories are still where they should be, but I don't want to support my habit of eating when I'm not truly hungry.

What I'm leaning toward is a sorta in-between plan where I try to focus on core foods, but still count points for them, and rely less on the processed stuff like my FiberOne bars. Which I guess that's the way you're "supposed" to do the Flex plan, but yeah... I've also thought a little bit about the Turnaround plan which, from what I've heard, lets you switch between Core and Flex as often as weekly if that's what you want to do. That could make the social outing stuff easier, but we tend to see people every week so again I don't know if it would help.

I'm really proud of myself for relaxing some of my self-imposed food rules though. Used to be that I wouldn't drink anything that was a non-zero point drink except for the occasional latte (and only that because a latte is filling), but I've been allowing myself real juice and the occasional sugared soft drink for awhile now and not stressing that I was spending two to three points on it. I'm also eating whole eggs more often which I wouldn't do before because I didn't feel that a whole egg was worth the 2pts. Now I'll eat two of them for breakfast.  

[Munkers]

Yesterday's intake
Brunch: Two scrambled eggs with tomato, turkey smoked sausage
Snack: Reduced fat Nilla Wafers
Dinner: Wonton soup, eggroll, pot stickers
Snack: Sugar free yogurt, Fiber One bar, grapes

21/21 points

Today's intake
Brunch: Two Arby's Jr. Deluxe sandwiches minus the mayo and without buns. Added Horsey sauce
Snack: Edamame, lightly salted (new addiction)
Dinner: Two sandwich thins with roast beef, Laughing Cow, mustard, and mixed greens. Grapes
Snack/Dessert: Twix bar

21/21 points  

[Munkers]

Decisions, whining, and some rambling

I'm still waffling on this. My weight is still just going up and down and up and down and I'm so aggravated. Can I call it a plateau yet? I still don't like how much weight I'm carrying on my stomach and thighs, but I can't bring myself to put forth the effort if I'm not going to see results. Which just adds to me feeling gross and ugly when I don't have my clothes on.

My eating was pretty alright today. Helped that I had soup for lunch. Maybe having soup or a salad for one meal each day would help me keep the calories in check. I did some half-assed tracking today and apparently still have points to "spend" but I don't feel too god awful ravenous. Might need a snack before bed, but that's it.

I think that I've legitimately regained a pound. Even though my weight had been going up, my body fat percentage stayed the same, but as of this morning it's up. I know my scale isn't completely accurate and that it can be affected by hydration levels and such, but it was still depressing. I probably do just really need a break from this, but I don't know how to give myself the mental break that I need without undoing my progress. (Not that I could actually undo all my progress, but the thought of undoing any of it upsets me.)

I still want to try P90 or P90X, but I'm afraid of making our downstairs neighbor hate me with the plyometrics and I don't like the idea of being a nuisance to people. Glancing at P90 it looks like I might not be doing quite as much jumping around so maybe it'd be a more workable solution for being on the second floor. Still a slight space issue in the living room, but I can figure out something I guess. I'm just tired of being jiggly. I've lost fifty (that's five-zero, not one-five) pounds and I'm still jiggly. This is crap.

I've pretty much resigned myself to the idea that I'll be getting some lipo done on my thighs whenever I have the disposal income. With the way my genetics like to shape my body, I'm fairly certain that I'd wind up looking skeletal up top before I finally got significant bulk off of my thighs and that's just not what I'm after. If I had a flatter tummy, my body would pretty much be exactly how I want it from the waist up. There's a vague suggestion of where my ribs are, but you can't count them unless I stretch and reeeeeeeeeally arch my back.

Mostly I'm just mad that my thighs make my butt look small in comparison. I love my butt, I really do. It's curvy and the perfect size for my figure. But my thighs detract from that. There should be (well, I want there to be) more of a curve where the two meet and the flabbiness is disrupting that line.

But oh well.

I kind of have a migraine now so I guess I'll ponder these things more after some sleep and whenever my head doesn't hurt so ******** bad.  

[pigeonsoup]

For what it's worth, I think you look awesome. And I'm still jiggly too, at freaking 100.8 lbs. So I know how it feels. Being naked is like "don't look down don't look down don't look- I LOOKED DOWN" and you see chub and you're like wanting to tear it off your body. >.> Maybe that was a little over dramatic but still.

Anyways if there's still not enough space in the living room even with the air mattress propped up, I'm sure we can still figure something out. Maybe now that it's starting to cool down we can figure out an outside thing for working out.  

[Munkers]

Part of me really, really wishes that I could just pull off the thigh-chub like you would a fat suit or something. It just feels like that isn't me and it's not supposed to be there. I feel like that about my low abs too sometimes, but not as... intensely.

I need to at least skim-watch the videos at some point to see how much room I'll need. Maybe it'll be like the 30 Day Shred routine where all I need is enough room to extend my arms and lay down.

And I've totally thought about working out outside in the grassy areas or something. Wonder what the neighbors would think. >.>  

[pigeonsoup]

Haha I know how you feel.

Hopefully you won't need too much room. At the very least you can just fast forward through the parts that require space if there aren't too many. And then just go jog around to make up for it or something.

And lmao. Working out in front of people is so awkward ;-; I'd feel like they're all watching from the windows sweatdrop  

[Munkers]

Post Birthday Update

My birthday was on Saturday and I pretty much threw caution to the wind with my eating. TONS of birthday cake and I ordered whatever I felt like when we went out. Granted, I saved about a third of my meal for lunch the next day, but I still don't think I did myself any favors.

I weighed myself yesterday and I was up to 147.6. Not happy about that number, but I was honestly expecting to see more like 150. So, for now, I'm about five pounds heavier than my low weight, but at least a few of that water weight since I'm back at 147.0 this morning and actual fat doesn't come off that fast.

I'm aiming to make use of a few flex points every day this week. My daily target is 21 points normally, but I'm planning on eating around 24 or 25 because I'm a little afraid of shocking my system by dropping that low after so much gluttony. We'll see what happens over the next few days.  

[Munkers]

Getting back on the wagon

It's been awhile since I've updated this because it's been awhile since I've been on the wagon. I did South Beach for a bit, got back on Weight Watchers for awhile, started doing the Power 90 workouts, but didn't really stick with any of it. My weight crept back up to 152 pounds. I'm still in the same size jeans, but I'm squishier and don't like the number on the scale. I'm much happier in the mid to low 40's. Not my ideal, but it was something I could live with.

A week or two ago Weight Watchers debuted their new PointsPlus program. Instead of just calories, fat, and fiber, the new program takes into consideration the foods total carbohydrates, fiber, fat, and protein. Daily point budgets have been increased (I went from 21 to 29), weekly flex points are up to 49, and all fruit is now free, including bananas and mangoes. (Mangoes! Free mangoes!)

I signed on for a free trial to get my new daily budget and explore the program a bit and while I'm struggling with not knowing values off the top of my head and not being able to calculate them on the spot with just a nutritional label, I am liking things so far. On the old plan, protein had been an issue for me. I found myself limiting meat especially since the points added up pretty quick. Then, when I was hungry, I was snacking on high carb things like granola bars or high fiber bread. Not anymore though!

With the new stuff, carb-heavy items are worth more points, but lean proteins seem about the same (~1 point per ounce) and with a higher budget, I can get more meat in my diet. Four ounces of ground turkey is still 4 points, but brown rice has gone from 3 points per cup to 5. My Fiber One granola bars have gone from 2 points to 4. So now there's a built-in bonus for making good choices because you're not going to have the "chocolate bar and chicken breast are equal in points" scenario as often. There's still room for treats like always, but easier to get in the meat and you're not encouraged to consume as many carbs.

I'm relearning what to order when we go out (my Taco Bell favorites have different point values now), but in the meantime I'm going to make use of this free fruit deal. Breakfast this morning was a full cup of nonfat yogurt, a half serving of regular, full-fat granola, and an entire chopped apple. HUGE bowl of food for 6 points and I've barely made a dent in my day. I'll probably have a handful of almonds for a snack (something I NEVER did on the old plan) and then I'll only be down by one third of my daily points. I might start shopping with a calculator in my hand, but I'm still really excited for this.

First weigh-in is on Sunday. Not quite a whole week on the program by then, but I'm still looking forward to it.  

[A Touch of Evil]

That's really cool! I want to check out this new free trial.  

[Munkers]

You can get to it at www.weightwatchers.com/freetrial

You do have to enter your credit card information, but nothing is charged up front so just make sure you cancel before your seven day trial is up.

Wikipedia has the points calculation formula which I've been double checking against the website and so far everything matches up. I also used the activity tools to figure out Activity Points for the exercises I do so now I have notes for myself on earning APs in the future. I kinda like the website and might actually get myself a subscription once we have more money to spare, but for now I'll go back to my spread sheet.  

[Munkers]

First Weigh-in

Okay so I climbed back on the wagon on Wednesday. That makes four days being on the plan before my first weigh-in which was this morning. The results?

Drumroll please...


I'm down two and a half pounds! I know it's all water, but I don't even care! I went from 152 to 149.6! I'm back in the forties!

If you couldn't tell, I'm pretty darn excited.

My goal for this week is to start earning more activity points. I'm planning to just take the pups for longer walks and maybe I'll get my tail in gear and go walk on the treadmill or go back to doing Couch to 5k. Another big goal to work on this week is to try to get in at least one serving of dairy every day. I'm not a milk drinker (lactose intolerant) so getting in my recommended two to three has been a struggle especially since I don't eat as much cheese as I used to.

Weekly goals:
10 Activity Points earned
One or more daily servings of dairy  

[A Touch of Evil]

Wow, thats awesome! Good job! My boyfriend barely found out about the new plan and got really excited. It'd be so cool if me and him dieted together.  

[Munkers]

Kent did South Beach with me way back when I first started to lose weight, but we were long distance at the time. I set him up on Weight Watchers under the old program, but he hated the tracking. He told me that he'd do it if I would keep track of his spreadsheet for him, but he would just bring me a list of foods without portion sizes and it was impossible to do anything with it. He did South Beach with me again this latest time, but that's been the extent of his active efforts. He's been losing weight slowly for awhile now, but isn't really doing much in terms of actively following a weight loss plan or anything like that.