Day 15: x minus 5

Miraculously, this week’s weigh-in listed me in at 5 lbs less than I weighed last week. Woot!! I’m trying to figure out how the shit I managed to do that so I can keep on keeping on. Here it goes. (Note: I was on flex that week)

1. I ate way more during the day than I would normally consume, saving less points for dinner. I’d have breakfast (usually cereal + fruit and a tea) before work; a yogurt for elevenses; lunch around 12:00 to 12:30 (generally a salad with some sort of protein on top or a whole wheat pita full of veggies and some chicken); some sort of snack/second lunch anytime between 2:00 and 4:00pm (veggies, a granola bar, clementines, or even a veggie-based soup on vball days); and then an appropriately portioned dinner. I kind of felt like I was constantly eating. Or more accurately, like I had taken on the eating habits of hobbits, who, when possible, consume 7 meals a day not including snacks.

Anyways, this seemed to give me way more energy to go on a run or play volleyball after work, stopped me from snacking on crap in the afternoon, and made it so I wasn’t ravenously hungry by the time lunch rolled around, or I got home from work for dinner (which would have formerly resulted in the gluttonous-in-magnitude consumption of A LOT of gloriously delicious pesto-laden pasta. Man, I love pasta.).

2. I had 2 volleyball games, went for 2 runs and 1 (long) walk, and played in a volleyball tournament on Saturday.

Apparently, exercise is good for you, boosting your metabolism, and – more importantly – allowing you to boost your points and eat more. Swwwwwwwwweeeet. I had committed to doing 3 runs, but unfortunately, I didn’t warm up enough/the gym I was playing in the other night was cold and I totally pulled a muscle in my back. (Really badly, I somehow have a bruise the length of my forearm on it and everything.) The back injury thing makes me feel kind of old…like I should drink prune juice or something. BUT I am so not wasting points on that for at least a few more decades. Anyways, vigorous exercise and sports are out for me for a week, so I think I am going to up the amount of walks I go on and hope that’ll suffice.

3. I drank A LOT of water.

It wasn’t ridiculous enough to require me to have a bed pan in my office or anything, but I definitely made a point to be up on my water consumption – especially if I had recently had something salty. I heard a rumour that salt makes you retain water, which is weight that need not be counted on weigh-in day.

4. Smartish snack choices

When I did get the urge to snack on something that wasn’t worth 0 points, I had Cheerios Snack Mix, Crispy Minis, or those Baked Lays. I’d get individual sized stuff where possible, or put it in a bowl to avoid mindlessly eating more than I was allowing for. Granted, these aren’t the awesomest of snack choices, but they are better than eating an entire can of Pringles. Mmm entire can of Pringles.

This week I commit to:

• Flex
• Going for (at least) 3 Walks
• Avoiding the stairs on the off chance I get back spasms and cannot go on

day 8: the love of my life

I’m in love. Dewy-eyed, smile-ridden and all that nonsense. It started this morning, and I’ve found myself thinking about it over and over again all day at work with this ear-to-ear grin pasted on my face. We’ve been having this on-and-off relationship thing for about as long as I can remember. For awhile there it was just too much for me to handle; it really was NOT healthy, you know? Like, I would crave spooning it, even at night, when I should really have just left it alone. But yesterday I decided we can totally allow for this – in a healthy way. So this morning at breakfast I spread 3 points of peanut butter on 1 point of weight watchers bread, topped it off with 2 points of banana, and fucking relished in my reunion with peanut butter, l’amour de ma vie.

This week I commit to:

• FLEX
• Going for (at least) 3 runs

WW recipe idea: Mango Multiplicity

Here’s an idea for a meal that can work as a salad, or as a hot rice or couscous dish. Enjoy!

 

Mango Multiplicity

Combine the following in a bowl:

1 cup of mango (2 points)

½ – 1 cup raw red onion (0 points)

1 red pepper (0 points)

Tips…

• best if left overnight
• add curry powder or saffron if you want to add flava
• can be served hot (add 1 point for cooking the onion)

 

­­­Option 1: Serve on a bed of…

Spinach leaves (0 points)

& alfalfa sprouts (0 points)

 

­­…Or, for a heartier meal

Option 2: Serve hot on a bed of…

1 cup brown rice (4 points)

OR

1 cup whole wheat couscous (3 points)

Tips…

• add saffron or cracked chilli peppers to the rice or couscous whilst it cooks for enhanced deliciousness

 

Due for some protein? Add…

3 oz boneless, skinless chicken breast (3 points)

OR

3 oz. low fat tofu (1 point)

OR

1 oz (14) cashews (4 points)

Tips…

• cook chicken or tofu in curry powder for more flavour
• serve chicken or tofu hot or cold atop salad, or hot with rice or couscous

day 7: getting to know me (on my first day of reckoning)

A good friend (the best, actually) once described getting to know me like adopting an old cat: I take a long time to get to know/warm up to you, but once I do you’re stuck with a best friend for life. Maybe that’s why it has taken me a week to say anything real about myself on this here blog.

I’m a 24-year-old science fiction, fantasy, comicbook and all-other-types-of-book lover, who enjoys tea, dancing in the kitchen to 90s music like nobody’s watching, movies (the good and also the bad), ridiculousness, Heroes and Grey’s Anatomy. I’ve always been “one of the guys,” which probably has something to do with growing up with 2 (awesome) brothers. I play a lot of volleyball – court in the fall/winter, and beach as soon as the weather allows. I enjoy running, but tend to only do it in periodic spurts – I’ll run like 3 times a week for two weeks, fuck the dog for a month, then take it up again: a vicious cycle. I have this intrinsic ability (almost super-power-like in magnitude) to (varyingly) unintentionally force entire groups of people fall into awkward silence in social situations, especially at parties. I’m sarcastic about 97% of the time, but people only recognize that sarcasm about 34% of the time. I’m OK with this disconnect. I’m nearing the conclusion of my Master’s degree, which I would be able to finish if I could go ahead and remove my head from my ass. I spend (all too many of) my 9-5 weekday-type hours in the public service, and am morally opposed to bringing work home with me.

I think that is the most I have ever said about myself in one sitting, and couldn’t manage it without occasionally leaning on a humour crutch.

I joined weight watchers one week ago today and officially weighed-in this morning at 1.5 lbs less than I weighed last week. I went to a new “sunrise” meeting this morning because the “express” lunchtime one I had attended last week was populated by like 20+ people (which is not the way I roll). Despite the small numbers and excellent facilitation efforts of the leader at the meeting I attended this week I found myself unable to speak up, yet. In a month’s time they’ll have difficulty shutting me up. But that’s just me.

day 6: taste

THE YEAR BEGAN with lunch.

We have always found that New Year’s Eve, with its eleventh-hour excesses and doomed resolutions, is a dismal occasion for all the forced jollity and midnight toasts and kisses. And so, when we heard that over in the village of Lacoste, a few miles away, the proprietor of Le Simiane was offering a six-course lunch with pink champagne to his amiable clientele, it seemed like a much more cheerful way to start the next twelve months.

By 12:30 the little stone-walled restaurant was full. There were some serious stomachs to be seen – entire families with the embonpoint that comes from spending two or three diligent hours every day at the table, eyes down and conversation postponed in the observance of France’s favorite ritual. The proprietor of the restaurant, a man who had somehow perfected the art of hovering despite his considerable size, was dressed for the day in a velvet smoking jacket and bow tie. His mustache, sleek with pomade, quivered with enthusiasm as he rhapsodized over the menu: foie gras, lobster mousse, beef en croûte, salads dressed in virgin oil, hand-picked cheeses, desserts of a miraculous lightness, digestifs. It was a gastronomic aria which he performed at each table, kissing the tips of his fingers so often that he must have blistered his lips.

The final “bon appetite” died away and a companionable near-silence descended on the restaurant as the food received its due attention. While we ate, my wife and I thought of previous New Year’s Days, most of them spent under impenetrable cloud in England. It was hard to associate the sunshine and dense blue sky outside with the first of January but, as everyone kept telling us, it was quite normal. After all, we were in Provence.

- Peter Mayle, A Year in Provence

Gag.

I was strongarmed into joining a book club at work about 2 months ago, and today we got together for the inaugural meeting, having had the (dis)pleasure of reading the book from whence the above excerpt came. A monument to pretentiosity, this book of France and Food was dull, with a few (fleeting) moments of hilarity drowning in a sea of condescension. I can see how people could find it “delightful,” but I wouldn’t want to hang out with those people. It really wasn’t my cup of tea. And I straight up love tea.

We met for lunch at a French Café – my first adventure in eating out on weight watchers. Apparently French food is crazy high in fat and also dairy products: even the grilled vegetable sandwich was full of cheeses and pesto; I was really unsure of what to order – something I forsee happening again and again when I attempt eating out in the future. Confused and hungry, I ended up going with a smoked salmon panini thing which came with a vegetable soup. It totally isn’t sitting well, and was NOT worth the points I allowed for it. I am currently sitting in my office surrounded by my own terrible gas waiting for the stomach cramps to subside, hoping no co-workers have the unfortunate experience of walking into this haze of flatulence, made all the more irritating by the knowledge I spent 3 hours of my life reading that piece of crap, later forced to discuss it over food which will take considerably less time to race its way through my system.

Fucking rich food.
And I’m still hungry, somehow.

So today I discovered I prefer consuming anglicized food (and teen fantasy fiction) to those literary and culinary creations which attempt to encompass all things provençal.

day 4: pounding the pavement

Note: the following is probably only amazing to people who have met me, and have thus experienced the zeitgeist of scatterbrainedness that is me.

Do you ever surprise yourself by discovering something where you thought you left it – without like ransacking your entire 1 bedroom apartment and storage space just in case? I found my gym membership and lock within like 2 minutes of looking yesterday – how crazy is that?? (And remembered the combination! I have had literally 4 locks cut off my storage space because I never remember what the fuck the numbers are. In fact, it is unlocked right now, and it is possible someone has stolen my bike at this point. Little do they know that the breaks are broken. Twahaha.) Anyways, the point is I have started running again. I had forgotten how much I actually enjoy running… now I just have to find the right time of day for me to do up. Optimally, I should be running in the morning cause I can’t eat before I pound the pavement without getting incredibly nauseated, and I drag ass if I run after work. BUT, I heart sleeping-in to the max. So we’ll see what the deuce happens with this situation.

day 2: difficulty adjusting or, the importance of your afternoon delight

Ohmygod.

Musteatfuckingsaladimmediatelyorwillsurelyconsumeentiretyof

bluemenupizzaassoonasitemergesfromthedepthsoftheoven. Not enough points left to “allow” for that. Plus the whole scalded mouth thing seems like it would be uncomfortable.

Faaaaaack. Totally got home from work late and hadn’t thought to pack a snack this morning.

Never again.

day 1: “ouch.”

What’s up with your stomach having to take like 20 minutes to tell your brain: “Yo! We’re full!”? (An obvious design flaw.) And who the shit decides to diet/change eating habits the week of her fucking period when, by all rights, she should be having rage-induced, cornicopic-in-magnitude feasts consisting of Big Macs, chocolate ice cream, straight up chocolate and Pringles for dinner??!

Hello. And welcome to my blog. Here I will transcribe my weight watching efforts as well as my musings about life and food.

This week I commit to:

• FLEX
• taking the stairs
• eating more vegetables

DAY 1

So I run to save this ball that is going way out-of-bounds. I stop, arch my back so my back-bump won’t hit the ceiling, make a glorious pass – and then fall hard onto my ass. This (of course) was followed by considerable difficulty getting back up, and complete disorientation and inability to be remotely useful when I made my way back to my position at the net.

You’d think day 1 would be glorious – feeding off that high of finally making and acting on the choice to eat better, and taking ownership of my weight. Instead, I totally under-ate, misjudging how to space out food throughout the day and ended up hungry and useless on the volleyball court.