Dec 22: Merry Catmas to all!

Hey there Christmas Cats!

Just checking in before taking awff. For those of you who must know: lost a pound this week. Three week total: 6.5 pounds (kicking and screaming). My scale attempted to foil me this morning and at first it said I'd only lost half a pound. I persisted, and eventually won out. After a half pound week last week and THIRTY NINE (ah, ha, ha, haaaaaaaa) ACTIVITY POINTS EARNED this week, I was not taking anything less than a pound of weight loss. My scale fears me, as well it should.

So I hope you've all been burning tons of fat with all this godforsaken bullshitting fuckmaking Christmas shopping assiness. And of course peace on earth. I swear, I might as well wrap myself in Saran Wrap before heading out into the madness. Or so it feels like, anyway.

Last week's triumph
On Friday we had our office Christmas party. It was the first fun one ever on record. Nice going, Cancer! I am very pleased to report that, although booze and cupcakes were served, I partook of neither. I danced vigorously (gave myself two Activity Points) and stuck primly to four pieces of vegetarian sushi. THEN I went to my workout with Derek! THEN I walked up the hill to the pub to meet SuperBarb and the Boyz and stuck primly to salad w/ grilled chicken and white wine. Okay, six glasses. Still though. It was good to be righteously shitfaced. Then on Saturday I didn't even stuff my face with greasy hangover carbs because alas, I had used up all my flex points for the week already. THE STEELY DETERMINATION! (It helps if you don't get up til noon - less eating time to avoid.)

The week ahead
Alright, it's Christmas. The office is full of Point-y delicioush crap. And then I'm going home for a long weekend of festivussing. This is my pledge to you: I will stick within my points, and if I go over, I will earn them back in Activity Points. (Normally I try not to swap my Activity Points for food if I can help it.) Mostly I just want to not gain weight.

I want to thank you all for sticking with me this past year and always being so supportive and empathetic. I hope you all have a warm, happy, functional holiday with the people you love. With portion-appropriate servings of delicioushnesh!

xo,
Lindsay

Dec 17: Vintage!

Heya folks!

Quick update: lost only half a pound this week. Which bugs me, but this time around I am already prepared to accept the fact that my body really, sincerely, genuinely loves fat and is very reluctant to let it go. I am practicing compassion for my hips, thighs, boobs, arms... change is never easy.

Now on to business: I have a very special treat for you today! Tremendous thanks to SuperBarb for sending me the link!

For you career dieters out there, I know you've done the Dub Dub before. Can you remember what the program looked like when you first signed up? My first time was back in 1984. I wish I still had the materials. I can visualize them still. Instead of the POINTS system, the program referred to food "exchanges". You were allowed a certain number of exchanges per day from each food category: fruits (I think veggies were probably still "free" back then?), meats, dairy, starches and fats. So it was a little bit stricter and probably slightly more nutritious because the program was based on recommended daily allowances for each food group. With the POINTS system, you can eat chocolate or a Big Mac or whatever, so long as you track the number of points in it. It's basically a fancy way of counting calories.

Well anyway. I am curious to hear your thoughts on previous iterations of the Weight Watchers program. But that's an aside. The reason I got to thinking about such things is because Barb sent me a link to this HI-larious website featuring scans of Dub Dub recipe cards from 1974! Outrageous gross and fantastic, all at once!

The site is the work of Wendy McClure, a Chicago area writer who discovered these cards in her parents' basement. You have to read her comments alongside each of the recipe cards. Holy shit they're hysterical! She even wrote a book about them! Holiday gift ideas, anyone?

Thanks again to Barb. Fan-friggin-TAStic find!

Dec 10: The Count LOVES to count POINTS!

Greetings blogren,

Business first: lost 5 pounds after my first week of clean living on the DubDub Online plan. Sweet.

Okay, so, I'm sure lots of you are familiar with the Weight Watchers POINTS® system. For those of you who aren't, a quick description:

Instead of counting calories, or "exchanges" as in days of yore, you count points. The number of points you're allowed to eat per day depends on your weight. I am permitted 21 points per day. Points are calculated based on calories, fat content and fibre content. Generally speaking, a point is about 50 calories. But foods that are packed with lots of fibre and are low in fat can have more calories in them.

Okay, so, you're reading that, doing rough calculations in your head and thinking to yourself, 50 calories x 21 points = 1050...? Is Weight Watchers trying to starve you?! No, see this is the fun part. In addition to your daily allotment of points, you get 35 flex points to use throughout the week, however you want to spread them out. So if you're going to a big party, you can blow a wad and eat cake or whatever. Or you can just add an extra 5 points per day to your regular allotment. It's up to you. I love that, because psychologically, it lets me feel free to binge on occasion. I'm sure that there are some who think this is probably a flaw, in terms of encouraging or enabling that behaviour. Personally I feel that allowing myself the occasional opportunity to go a little crazy is the only thing that's going to keep me on what I would otherwise think of as Austerity Measures.

But that's not all! In addition to the 35 flex points, you can earn more points through the week through activity and exercise. I'm not exactly sure, but my feeling is that you earn 1 activity point for every 100 calories burned, more or less. There's a little calculator that looks at duration and intensity.

I am a person who loves to count. I'm not in it for this healthy lifestyle crap. Please. Pounds! Inches! Calories! Or, in the gym, reps! Minutes! Weights! Calories burned! So, with the online DubDub program, you get this cute little tracker that allows you to plug in all your points consumed, earned, saved, etc. Oh it's a counting bonanza all day long! I must say, I have been far more diligent about walking to work since starting up with the DubDub last week. It's about a 20-25 minute walk each way, so if I walk to and from work, I save money on subway fare and I earn TWO! TWO Activity Points, ah, ha ha haaaaaaa!

Good times.

Dec 7: Confession and shopping: both good for soul

Fwiends!

Man am I ever glad I came back. Wow. Your responses on both Facebook and here to my last post were just so heartening, I can't even tell you. It is hard, facing yourself, admitting your failure(s)(ssss). Turns out it is way harder to face yourself than it is to face your friends. When are we ever gonna learn that? (Perhaps I speak out of turn and you folks already know that. In which case, why didn't you TELL me?! Oh, you did. Nevermind.)

Well anyway, my mood has really been on the upward swing, which is such a relief to report. I decided I needed to get myself some new clothes, to continue (or, begin) this trend of feeling good about myself at any weight. As Stacy and Clinton always say, you've got to dress the body you have, not the body you want. Being close to my all-time weight high, I don't have a lot of clothes right now that fit. Getting dressed every day is a constant reminder of my unhappiness with my body. But going shopping... UGH. Let's just say I'm no Carrie Bradshaw. I speculate that Carrie Bradshaw might not be as much of a Carrie Bradshaw if she was dressing a size 14-16 on her 5'2" frame as opposed to a 2, but then again, there are plenty of larger size women out there who enjoy shopping and looking good, so I don't know maybe it's just me.

I will say that deciding to go for a wardrobe refresh on the 3rd Saturday before Christmas is maybe not the best timing. And for you folks reading in the upper parts of the US and across Canada, you understand the torture of mall shopping in a winter coat, especially when you're trying a lot of stuff on. I had to steal myself against it before I left my apartment.

The Miaouw has been adorable and supportive, as usual. Before I left to face the crowds, the chaos and most of all, the mirrors, he reviewed with me what I should be looking for. Apparently he sometimes pays attention when I'm watching What Not To Wear. We decided my rules should include looking for tops that gather in at my narrowest point and then flow out from there, and bottoms with straight legs, etc. We did stop short of the pointy toed shoe since I think that any illusion of length they may give is negated by the fact they also make me look like a ruler of a geographic domain of Oz. (Although I'm sure they look great on y'all.)

Well anyway, I blew a wad and three hours later I walked home (extra Activity Points!) with all my crap and the upshot is, getting dressed today was actually fun. Onward, ho!

Dec 4: RE-WEIGHTED

Uuuuugggghhh.

Well, I'm back. Including the 15 pounds I'd lost earlier in the year. Plus some new pounds to keep the others company. (What a party those guys are having! The fun never stops.) September and October were really bad months for me. November improved slightly with the arrival of my Miaouw, but times were still kinda dark. I don't know what triggered it, but I was in a very long-lasting depressive cycle and I gave in to it fully. And of course, the more I gave in to it -> the fatter I got -> the more I wanted to hide -> the more depressed I got... you get the idea.

So yeah. My weight is 169. Just 2 pounds shy of my all time high. I shake my head at myself as I write this. I couldn't face the scale while I was in the midst of the depression. A couple of times I made half-hearted attempts to pull myself out and get back on the wagon of good eating and regular exercise. But I avoided the scale, and my blog. All I have been good for is dutifully going to work and then going home to the cocoon of fattitude. Almost all of my clothes no longer fit. I've been wearing a sports bra for the last month because it's the only one that fits, and because my boobs have become gigantic flabsacks. Ugh, it's disgusting.

However! I am approaching the light at the end of this long, dark, autumnal tunnel. I did face the scale. It sucked, but it's over now and I survived. My shame is no longer a deep, unnamed fear. It is concrete and actually not so very shameful - here I am sharing it with all of you, after all.

I joined Weight Watchers online on Tuesday. For the past month or two I have been trying to figure out what I can do to kickstart me out of this depressive cycle. I thought about joining Overeaters Anonymous, which would be a new thing for me. Also free. But I got hung up on the notion of a 12 step program with quasi-religious undertones. I almost gave in and re-upped with Jenny Craig, but that felt like a step backwards. I do need something to be accountable to. With DubDub Online, I am still only accountable to myself, but there's a structure that involves checking in every day, tracking my food intake and my exercise. Mind, I've tried it before and ultimately abandoned it. But I felt like I had to do something and this seemed the least intrusive. Or something.

This weekend I'm going clothes shopping. I need to feel like less of a schlep. I'm going to be this weight, or in this general area, for awhile, and I won't be motivated to get out of it if every time I look at myself in the mirror I hate what looks back.

So, welcome back. I know many of you reading this can relate. I invite you all to forgive yourselves and hop back on the party wagon with me!