The first week after my last update I made some mistakes.  First it was the Mother’s Day dinner at our favorite vegan Thai restaurant.  I haven’t eaten there since my birthday last July, so it was high time.  But I definitely blew my points there.  Later in the week there was a buffet breakfast, a yummy but high fat raw meal with Matt Monarch and Angela Stokes, and then a raw potluck.  You should have seen me at the potluck, though.  I think I was the only person who had white space on her plate.  35 people came, and so did about 25 dishes!  I took 2 nori rolls that we brought, some corn salad, fruit salad, and thai slaw.  And I had a piece of raw chocolate pie.  If I wasn’t watching what I was doing, I could have easily eaten 3 times that amount, but I really reigned myself in.  At the end of that first week I weighed 197.2!  A week later I was at 195.6, so I know I had a really good second week.

I’m very comfortable with the Weight Watcher point plan now.  I’ve found a lot of things to eat that are low in points but provide high satiety.  Here’s an example of a typical day for me.

Breakfast:
3 slices of veggie bacon = 1.5 points
Apple (or other piece of fruit) = 1.5 point

Mid Morning Snack:
Carrot = 0 points

Lunch:
Amy’s Tamale Verde meal (black bean tamale and Spanish rice) = 6.5 points
2 low- fat, low-calorie vegan chocolate chip cookie = 1 points

4pm Snack:
4 vegan chicken nuggets with bbq sauce = 4 points
Cherries  = 1 point

Dinner:
Vegan BBQ Beef sandwich = 5 points
Corn Creole = 1.5 points

Dessert:
Fat free berry sorbet = 2 points

Total for the day: 24 points

I’ve found a wide variety of foods that work well for me.  Vegan hot dogs are only 1 point each.  The vegan bacon is only a half a point for one slice.  Fruit works well for snacks. And I found these fantastic vegan cookies from a local café that contain fruit puree instead of fat and sugar and they are amazing and extremely low in points.  I’m trying to incorporate more vegetables into the diet, and I’ve been doing more cooking, but I have quite a bit of room for improvement there.

I’m finally over my cough so I started going back to the gym.  I’ve been doing the elliptical machine for 30 minutes.  I have to start the weight training again.  For some reason I don’t want to, even though I remember how much I was enjoying it.  Maybe I feel like I’d have to start all over again after losing 4 weeks to illness.

On Weight Watchers you can get some extra food points for exercising, but I don’t take them because sometimes during the day I grab a few crackers or chips on my way back to my office, so I figure I’m using up my activity points with BLT’s (bite, lick, tastes) of random foods.

So, overall I’m happy, and I’m just going to keep right on going.  I’ll update again in 2 weeks.

Last Tuesday I decided to do a Weight Watcher’s style of calorie counting where I basically use their Points system to monitor my food intake.  The first time I did the Weight Watchers program I lost 20 pounds steadily and fairly easily, but I had to stop the program when I found out I was pregnant with Kyle.  I tried going back after he was born but they give 10 extra points to breastfeeding mamas, and I found I wasn’t losing any weight with those extra points.

So, using some information I found online and correlating it with my gender, current weight, and activity levels, I calculated my daily points to be 24.  Weight Watchers uses a formula to derive a food’s point value.  Steve programmed the formula into his calculator and now I can get a very accurate measure of the point value of foods.  Roughly every 50 calories is a point, 12 grams of fat adds a point, and 4 grams of fiber subtracts .8 points, so you want to find foods that are low in fat and high in fiber, and of course low in calories.  I spent a couple of hours making a spreadsheet of foods and their point values.  I weigh and measure my food, use Calorieking.com to find the calories, fat, and fiber, and mark it in my food journal.  It’s vital, in my opinion, to use a food journal so you can see what you’re really up to.  Any time of day someone could ask me how many points I’m at and I’ll know.  That awareness is vital in my opinion.

You’ll note that 24 points equals roughly 1200 calories, which is a little on the low side.  That’s because you also get 35 flex points to use during the week if you want to, and you should still lose weight even if you use them.  If I used all 35 flex points in a week that would make my daily average 1450 calories, which will still result in weight loss for me.   I can use 7 flex points per day or I can bank them and use them all at once, like if I know I’m going to a luncheon or out with friends, or I just have to have something.

I started last Tuesday and weighed 199.2 pounds.  This morning (Sunday) I weighed 196.2 pounds, for a loss of 3 pounds this week.  I intend to use Sundays as my weigh-in day so I can write my blog entries on Sunday and have them post early Monday mornings.  This is thrilling for me because I feel I’ve found something that will work for me.  What I love most is that technically I can have any food I want, I just have to account for it.  Knowing this, I am careful to consume less points at a meal if I know that later I’ll want to eat something that’s higher in points.  Some days I plan out what I’m going to eat in advance, so I don’t just grab something that looks good and end up going over my points. 

I try to keep my breakfasts on the small side because I’m not terribly hungry in the morning, and I prefer to do readings on a nearly empty stomach.

By the end of lunch I like to have eaten 10-12 points, leaving half or more of my points for the second half of the day.  At 4pm I eat a snack that’s usually 2-4 points, so for dinner I like to get about 8-10 points.

I haven’t had any problems with hunger, though by 4pm I do find that I need that 4 point snack.  All in all, the points are working out well.  I’ve only used 6 of my flex points this week.

Another great aspect to the Weight Watcher plan is that you do get activity points.  So when I make it to the gym (I’ve had a cough and cold this entire past week so I didn’t go to the gym) if you burn off 300 calories you get a few extra points during the day to eat, if you want to, otherwise you just lose the weight faster.

You can also eat a ton of veggies that don’t cost any points.  On some days I was eating a carrot around 10am which gave my stomach something to digest while waiting for lunch around noon.  This week I plan to up my intake of raw veggies.

 I’m also learning that margarine and oil just aren’t worth it.  And salad dressing… forget about it!  The ranch dressing I used for my broccoli costs 3.5 points for 2 tablespoons!  I used only 1 tablespoon but gee whiz, it just ain’t worth it.  This week I also ate a piece of rye toast but put a teaspoon of jam on it instead of slathering it with margarine.

I know the Weight Watchers plan isn’t for everyone.  But it works for me and I like the results.  I’m happy eating what I’m eating, and I don’t feel deprived in any way.

I find that I’m still getting 6-8 servings of fruit and vegetables per day.  That’s important to me because of the vitamins and minerals in those foods.  I should be back at the gym sometime this week, so we’ll see what happens with the addition of exercise.  But so far, so good.  I’ll update again in 2 weeks.

Thank you to everyone for your continued support and encouragement, and a special thanks to those who are dreaming of me being thin.  Keep it up.