Apr 14: #spinning

Greetings rock stars from Mars avec Adonis DNA!

Great news! I gained .8 this week. Gah, jeez, right? Well I am okay with it. I mean, I don’t get it, but I’m okay with it. I stuck with the plan and I worked out 3 times. Okay, yes, there was that incident Friday night with the three quarters of a litre of TOLL HOUSE Cookie Dough with Brownie Chunks LOADED Frozen Dessert. Yikes they can’t even call it ice cream. Anyway, yes, I ate a lot of it. But I calculated my points and it was within the plan.

So, you know… eh. Sometimes you do everything you’re supposed to do and your body just doesn’t respond the way you expect or hope it will. I was saying to a friend yesterday that it’s like long term investments. You can’t let a bad week freak you out. If you stick with the plan, you’ll eventually see gains in your portfolio. Holy crap that metaphor just triggered a huge dividend in the irony stock. (FYI, I had to spend about ten minutes on Wikipedia figuring out how to phrase that joke. I’m putting everything into irony derivatives. Maybe?)

Anyway, when you have a week like this, you have to find your win somewhere other than the scale. Spin doctoring is an important skill in life and is transferable across pretty much every plane of existence. So the great news from this week was my ever-improving fitness. The night before the weigh-in, (the same day I posted the workout music blog), I went to the gym and ran for a full hour, the longest I’ve run in probably a year. Distance was 4.5 miles or around 7k. This is awesome work on my part and I am very encouraged by my progress. And that’s how you spin a .8 gain into a major victory!

Oh sure there will people who earnestly say “this is not spin doctoring, you really did win! It’s not about the scale, it’s about changing your life and being healthier and loving yourself and putting Post Its on every mirror in your house telling you how fantastic you are”. Bless them! These sweet, well-meaning people are champion spinners and I tip my hat to them as they are #winning the life game, unquestionably! I think I would need to offload a huge chunk of my blue chip irony and dispense with my cynicism treasuries altogether to make that investment worthwhile.

Apr 7: Slow and starving wins the weigh-in

Well hello there, waist-wasters!

How’s everything going? I mean seriously. Would it kill you to call? The only person I hear from anymore is my friggin cat, and she just comes on here to post links to bizarre non sequitur youtubes. (Which are awesome.)

Alright, I’m done begging. So, I had an excellent week on the scales: lost 2.2 pounds this week. That’s like, a month’s worth of work at my current rate of progress. Guess I can just rest on my laurels for the rest of April now.

The thing is, I weighed myself on my wretched home scale yesterday morning and was utterly deflated to see that my weight had gone up this week. UP! I mean, okay, I said I was going to run (yog) 3-4 times this week and I only ended up going twice. But those times I went, I really gave’r, and I watched my fucking points (sorry mom) and there’s just no reason why I should have gained weight. And okay, if this were a blip, a one-time thing, I could perhaps be a little more relaxed and a little less italicized, but MY BODY WILL NOT LET GO OF THE FAT.

So, I was pissed. I decided desperate measures were called for: I dressed in my least weighty outfit (a t-shirt and my featherweight skirt), which is a pain in the arse when I walk to work because it’s so light that it rides up my thighs and I’m constantly pulling it down self-consciously. I could have taken the subway but I was looking to make up extra activity wherever I could. At work, I decided to forego any food or drink until post-weigh-in. I know, I know. It’s stupid, to put so much stock in a number that you have to use artificial means to manipulate. What can I say. I was desperate for good news, or at least not bad news.

So all morning I was sluggish and depressed. Anticipating another shitty result, plus no caffeine, plus I’m getting tired of the project I’ve been managing at work for six months. So noon comes round and I trudge off to the DubDub meeting with L-Mac², confessing my silly antics to her, which she laughed about in a very supportive and understanding fashion. Get on the scale and… WHAT THE! Down 2.2 pounds?! Wow. Who knew breakfast and a DDP weighs 2 pounds? (The other .2 was obviously taken care of with my nearly-naked wardrobe stylings, plus a half hour walk to work, I’m sure.)

Okay, as the warlocks say, "duh", this is obviously not a result based on skipping breakfast. I’m saying, my scale, she done me wrong. Maybe I shaved an extra half pound off with my morning neuroses, possibly a pound. Whatever, I’ll take it. Of course this introduces next week’s big dilemma: do I repeat this ridiculousness to ensure an accurate measurement from one week to the next? Or do I grow up and stop pulling stupid desperate acts of starvation and crankiness towards my co-workers and the world in general?

Wow, what a cliffhanger. For sure you’ll be tuning in next week to find out.

Jan 18: The new DubDub

Hello pudge-busters!

So, as I said last week, I am back on the Weight Watchers bandwagon and so far I am very pleased. They've done some tinkering with their program and the changes are great. If you are unfamiliar with the ways of the DubDub, I gave a quick rundown of it last year. Foods are assigned a point value. You get X number of points per day, depending on your current weight. Points used to be calculated based on calories, fibre and fat content of a food. One point was around 50 calories, but if it had higher fibre and/or lower fat, the caloric value could be a little higher.

With the revamp, points are calculated differently. Calories don't figure in to the equation at all; instead, you enter grams of protein, carbohydrates, fat and fibre to calculate the point value. Foods that are higher in protein/fibre and lower in carbs/fat tend tend to have a lower point value. The thinking is, two items may have the same calories before you ingest them, but the amount of those calories your body uses to digest the food will vary depending on their nutritional value. Some foods are far more efficient.

I think this is fantastic for a few reasons:

1. Calories, and the need to count (some might say obsess, but I don't judge) are removed from the the equation. While counting calories may be effective, there is no incentive to eat foods with more nutritional value. It's a subtle way to shift the way I think about food, not thinking about calories all the time.
   
   (Having said that, it's a hard habit to break, and I usually keep a mental tab on how many calories I've ingested on any given day. As you know, I love to count.)
   
   
2. In the past, the strength of DubDub's points system, its flexibility, was also its weakness. If you wanted a Big Mac, you could eat a Big Mac. You couldn't eat anything else that day, but the option was always there. With this revision, the flexibility is still there, but I feel like I am being encouraged, almost pushed (in a good way), to make healthier choices.

Okay, those are kind of the same reason, stated twice. Whatever, you get the idea.

The other thing that totally ROCKS is the advent of free fruit. Even though they contain carbohydrates, fruits are no longer assigned any points. So if I've eaten all my points in a day and I'm craving a little somethin-somethin, I eat frozen grapes. LOVE the frozen grapes! And I add a banana (formerly 2 precious points of my daily allotted 23) to my cottage cheese breakfast in the morning with impunity! When I want something decadentish, I go to the store and buy fresh pineapple chunks. SO! GOOD! The result is that I am eating far more fruits and vegetables than ever before. I think free fruit is a revolutionary idea in the world of dieting and I am ALL for it.

Since the point value of many foods has gone up with the new calculation, the daily allotment of points (and the weekly allotment of "flex" points, to be used for special occasions or to bump up your daily points allowance if you need it) has gone up. It used to be 23 daily plus 35 for the week, and now it's 29 daily and 45 for the week. Now that fruit is free, I feel like I have more points than I know what to do with! It's awesome! (This is another reason why I count my calories at the end of the day - just to check in on how much I'm actually eating. FYI, the amount of calories I ingest in a day of eating 29 points and a couple of free fruits is around 1200-1300 a day, which is pretty standard on a healthy weight loss diet.)

So the changes are not so much about how much you eat (you get the same amount of calories each day, more or less), but about how you think and feel about the food you are eating, and about the choices you are making. I'll make a stir fry and eat it without rice and I'm satisfied. (If I'm not, I'll eat some FREE FROZEN GRAPES!)

So, thumbs up to the new DubDub. So far, so good.

Jan 12: Deferred damage report

Good Soldiers of the Fat Wars!

Sorry for the lengthy hiatus. I reckon yer used to it by now.

So, where were we? Ah, yes – my holiday 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.

Pffffffffffftttttttt! Okay, obviously I had to say that. I think I am to be admired for telling myself it was a possibility. Or... something.

Well anyway, it was Christmas Eve and the Miaouw and I were driving to Kingston to fellowship with my family on this most cherished of consumer occasions. We fought, he called me a See You Next Thursday, I bawled like a baby and would have insisted he pull over except we were driving on a 4 lane highway at the time, so instead I just cry-shuddered til we got to town and then got him to stop at a gas station where I attempted to clean myself up. He was contrite, but the damage was done. I said, "Let the stress eating BEGIN!" and I never looked back.

And so it was, that the week between Christmas and New Years, plus the weekend following New Years, I was once again OhTeeDub: off the wagon. By the end of the 10 day stretch, my jeans were feeling depressingly snug at the waist again. FOOOOOCCCKK!!! You GUYS! GAH! Well anyway, I didn't weigh myself last week, but I got back to the business at hand, and this morning when I did my Tuesday weigh-in, I find that I am up just 1 pound from my pre-Christmas weight, so all in all, I'm feeling okay.

I am re-committing myself to my night-time running. I ran three miles on Saturday - it took me 37:40 to do it, which is well off my best time, but at least I did it. The other thing I am experimenting with, for as long as I can take it, is not eating my 35 weekly WW flex points (review of the WW Points system) or my Activity Points. So far so good, but if the austerity measures get to feeling too tough and I'm in danger of chucking the whole thing, I will have something to fall back on.

I note with amusement that a year has passed since I started this blog, and my weight is 2 pounds less than it was then. How v. Bridget Jones.

Love to you all and let's love ourselves a little bit more than we did before this year!

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