I’m on Weight Watchers, following the Core plan this time. In the Core plan, you only have to count “points” that are outside the Core food list. Most of the things on the Core list are: whole fruits and veggies (not dried or juice), fat-free dairy products, soy dairy, lean meats, and whole grains. And by whole grains, I mean I have bags of barley in my cupboard now. Whole wheat pasta once a day (maximum), and brown rice once a day (no white rice). No added sugar on anything. I get 35 “Flex” points each week, which I can use on whatever foods I want to eat.
No bread. I love bread. No real cheese, either. Those who know me know my preferred diet is cheese melted onto bread in some combination or another.
I’ve been on this kind of diet before and I know it’s not sustainable in the long-term, at least not for me, but it does help me lose weight, and with Weight Watchers I can switch to the other plan when I get fatigued with this one.
The only thing that helps on the Core plan is that John is also on a health food kick, so while there are things on my Core diet that aren’t on his (he counts artificial additives and “bad foods” like high fructose corn syrup for his “points”), and there are things on his plan that aren’t on mine (like regular mayonnaise), we overlap enough to eat three square meals a day.
Breakfasts are actually the easiest meal of the day. We have many choices, between eggs, organic cereal, bananas or other fruit, yogurt, fat free milk, and oatmeal. And coffee. I would be devastated without coffee. It helps that my coffee preferences are either black coffee with nothing in it but coffee, and non-fat lattes, both of which are on Core.
This morning, I chose to mix things up a bit. We have some new bread in the house– super-dense whole grain bread from Germany. We got it at Cost Plus World Market. It’s one point per slice, and each slice is about the same dimensions as a normal, albeit small, piece of other bread. Most bread is 1-2 points per slice, so when you make a sandwich, you’re eating 4 points, right there, without anything extra in the mix. If I spread out my points evenly throughout the week, I get 5 points a day, so a sandwich is a big deal.
This morning, John had his healthy 9-grain bread with non-hydrogenated organic margerine, organic blackberry jam, orange juice, and a scrambled (organic) egg. His points: 0. If I had eaten that, it would have cost me 6 or 7 points. I have 35 each week, and I’ve used 33 for this week (my week re-starts at 6 tonight).
I, on the other hand, had a “Healthy McMuffin” with the whole grain bread, scrambled eggs, soy cheese (”American cheese flavored slices”), and Canadian bacon. To drink, I had fat free milk and coffee. My Core points cost: 1 point.
My breakfast would have been better without the cheese, in my opinion. On the other hand, I have now discovered where McDonald’s gets theirs, because it had the same stale-plastic flavor as a McDonald’s Egg McMuffin. If John had eaten my breakfast, it would have also cost him 0 points.
Breakfasts are easy. Lunches are really hard– I often want a sandwich, and spending 35 minutes boiling bulgar over the stove is not my favorite activity. Nonetheless, I do it if I must, because in two weeks I think I’ve lost a little over 5 lbs. (I weigh in today and will know then the precise amount).
Incidentally, I’ve been on this diet for 2 weeks. Last night, I dreamed I was eating a pizza. And I didn’t even realize it. I kept thinking that I was doing well on the diet, but my brain was blocking out the fact that I was munching on this big, greasy pizza the whole time. I didn’t even understand when people said I should count the points, because I didn’t think I’d eaten anything off Core.
That’s one of my biggest fears in dieting. I’m an unconscious eater. I’ll eat without thinking about it, without hardly tasting my food. I can’t help it– I even go on “benders” where I’ll spend 3 or 4 months eating very rich and fatty foods. I have no balance when it comes to food, taste, and nutrition. I am trying– it’s a lifelong struggle at this point. But the fact is, I’m genetically predisposed to being fat, and my whole life I have used food as a means for comfort. It’s not even that I’m particularly unhappy in my life or unfulfilled. People always say “look and see what you’re really hungry for.” Well, that’s not really the case, here. You wouldn’t tell an alcoholic to “just go figure out what makes you drink.” Addicts don’t need a reason– they’re addicts.
I hate being a food addict. I hate being fat, but I hate even more the fact that, when I’m thin, I censure fat people, something I despise in myself.
Here is what I would love to do, but can’t do for a living: I would love to make camping clothes and equipment for fat people. I don’t know what I’d call it, but we short fat chicks need good sleeping bags that don’t make us feel like sausages. We need camping pants that are lightweight but fit. We need backpacks with hip belts that actually go all the way around comfortably. We tend to have bad backs, so we need to have everything be ultra-lightweight so we can carry it all. We need camping and backpacking food that is healthy and not super-caloric, because on an overnight camping trip, we don’t actually need an extra 600 calories to make up for the calories we’ve burned while hiking. We need hiking poles that can withstand over 220 lbs. of weight put on them. Hammocks that can hold our weight without collapsing. We need hiking shoes that fit and can hold up to the extra 20-100 lbs. that we’re carrying around. Basically, we need a system that fits into the “hiking for weight loss” philosophy.
