Fat Rant - (Content warning for ED discussion)

Those who have been reading for some time now (not that I've had anything much to say lately) will know that a few years back I lost about 65 lbs on the Weight Watchers program.  At the time, it felt right for me, as I was in a very low place, self-image wise.

To keep a long story short, I eventually quit.  Aside from rampant corporatism that left a bitter taste in my mouth, I also grew irritated with the constant measuring, portioning, counting points and so forth.  When I found myself in Canadian Tire contemplating the purchase of a kitchen scale so I could measure my portions to the very gram, I took pause.

"Holy Shit! This is ridiculous," I thought to myself and decided from there on, I would make a contining effort to make sure I included enough nutritious food in my day-to-day (which I do, most of the time) and I would remain active (which I have) but this counting calories-points-whathaveyou was a large steaming piling of bullshit that I would no longer have any part of.

I began reading up on Health At Every Size and fat activism and decided I was going to do what I could to love my body, regardless of what shape it decides to be.  As long as I was feeling good, feeling healthy then that would be it and I was NOT going to let a number on a scale or in my pants tell me different.

Why, because life is too fucking short to spend every minute of the day obsessing over every tiny tidbit that goes into my mouth and going "Oh dear, have I gone over my Points?  Fail, Fail, Fail." and generally beating myself up when the scale doesn't show me what I want it to.  That's disordered thinking, folks.  Psychological health is important as well as physical health and preoccupation with food and weight is damaging.

Here's the problem:

I've since, in the last three years, gained back about 25 lbs as one is wont to do when they spend a number of years fastidiously restricting their food intake and that is fucking with my head a bit.  I'm trying really, really hard not to get all down on myself for this and keeping perspective.  I still eat pretty well.. much, much better than I used to.  I still Kick box, take walks weather permitting and this past summer The Well Travelled One and I went on a bunch of 2 and 3 hour hikes and plan to do more this summer.

But my pants don't fit.  And that sucks.  Because I'm cheap.  Instead of being reasonable and logical and maybe buying some new fucking pants that fit, little stupid jerkbrain starts telling me that I'm gross and sloppy and look packed in and if I just lost 10 lbs or 20 I'd look soooo much better.  and I feel bad about myself.

I shouldn't.  But I do.

32 years of societal programming is hard to undo, y'all.

A Final MFP Monday. Well, probably.

I haven't done an MFP Monday post in a while so I thought I'd let y'all know that since the beginning of the new year things have been going well.  I'm down about 8.5 lbs as of today and I've been sticking pretty well to my daily totals and getting a lot of walking and dancing and kick-boxing in.  I went to a friend's place this weekend and we had a great time.  I indulged a bit, but on the whole stayed fairly on track.  Even though I was dead-ass tired and so was she, Tess came over last night to play Just Dance for our Sunday night workout.  That's some dedication right there.

However, this will probably be my last update here as far as the weight-loss efforts go.  Those who want to know how I'm faring can come check out a new group blog I'm writing with a number of awesome ladies called Different Paths, Same Destination.  We just launched today and B has her introductory post up now, so I advise you to go check it out.  I'm really excited to see how this goes.  We'll basically be posting our progress, thoughts, trials, tribulations as we work towards our individual goals.

So it's likely that all my weight-loss stuff will be going on over there, and this will blog will continue to be its usual mishmash of fangirlishness, airing of grievances, social commentary, day-to-day life and random weird shit my kids say.

A rare MFP Monday post

So not much to report on the MFP front.  Progress, as previously mentioned, has been slow going.

This week I decided to try something new.  In the years I was in Weight Watchers, I refused to weigh more often than once a week.  Even if I had to go to the doctors office, if they wanted my weight they got what I had recorded at that week's meetings.  I also didn't own a scale at the time so it was easy to stick to.  I always figured that it was better than weighing every day, as daily fluctuations would drive me nuts.  Since roughly Tuesday, I HAVE been weighing in every morning. And it's been good. I have recorded at least some loss every day this week, up until this morning. I actually have a number on my ticker again!  This morning's gain was a mere 0.6 lbs.  Manageable, definitely not worth melting down over.

For gains (which fortunately there haven't been any, but this IS the weekend) I figure this.. It may be less frustrating to have a good day and record a gain of 0.2 or 0.3 lbs than to go a whole week and find I'm up 1 or 1.5 or even 2 lbs. A fraction of a pound is easier to deal with, psychologically, and in the course of a day it is easier to pinpoint what may have been the weak point of the day. When it comes to my period (which always results in a major fluctuation) I may be able to 'head it off at the pass' as it were, as I'll notice the gain earlier as it starts to come on.

I'm also finding that it fits in with the 'one day at a time' and 'every little bit counts' philosophies. I wake up, weigh-in and see where my day is going to go from there.

HEAS Rhetoric: Understanding how weight =/= health

Cross-posted at MyFitnessPal.com

In response to a blog post I recently read from Balancing Jane, I wanted to hash out how to reconcile the idea of the "Healthy At Every Size" (HEAS) philosophy by reframing how we look at weight loss in relation to health.

Many have pointed out that the correlation between weight and health is not as direct as the media would have us believe. Being overweight is not always an indicator of poor health, just as being average or underweight is not an indicator of good health.

In my comments on the post I proposed a simple change in framing to kind of articulate how the rhetoric around weight loss can be reconciled with the HEAS principles by focusing not on size but on choices.

For example, one might say something to the effect of:

"My friend recently lost 100 lbs. As a result, her blood pressure and insulin levels have evened out."

This phrasing indicates a direct correlation between weight loss and health and implies that it was the loss of 100 lbs that directly contributed to an increase in the friend's health.

Now, what if we worded it as the following:

"My friend recently started making changes in her eating habits. She's been watching her portions and choosing more fruits and vegetables and less processed junk. As a result, her blood pressure and insulin levels have evened out. She's also lost 100 lbs."

In this phrasing, the change in the friend's health is not correlated with her weight, but with her food choices and activity level. The weight loss is treated as an additional benefit of her choices rather than the causal factor. If we left out the last sentence, and did not mention the weight loss, one could reasonably argue that by changing habits one could achieve better overall health, without weight playing into it.

Holding myself accountable.. that's what this is about, right?

So, I haven't done an MFP monday (formerly WWWednesday) post in a while.  Mainly because I figured that after a few weeks of "Gained xxx number of lbs." or "Stayed the same.  I don't want to talk about it." would get old after a while.

The progress has been slow going, to say the least.  Although my ticker says I'm down 2lbs, as of two or three days ago, I was pretty much where I started.  I've just not been tracking gains, only losses.  Once I'm down below my recorded weight, I'll start updating again.  It just got so frustrating seeing that 0 on my ticker.

I had a week that I thought I did well, and stayed the same.  Then I had a pretty good week but fell apart on the weekend and ended up gaining two pounds.  Then I kind of went off the rails and said 'fuck it!' for a few days.  As you may guess, this was pretty easy considering it was halloween and I had all sorts of candy and chips at my disposal.  However I think hormones played into my fluctuations because then I was down 4lbs.. then up 2 and so on..

So now I'm thinking of weighing in tomorrow morning but I know I'm going to be frustrated as fuck if there is no happy change in the numbers. How the hell did I deal with all this the first time around?  I had so much more to lose then, but it seemed to come off much easier, then.

Oh well.

In other news, my NaNoWriMo progress is.. well.. stilted I guess.  I'm up to 2600ish words and at this point I think I'm supposed to be somewhere in five digits.  But every time I sit down to write I find I'd rather write here.  The story I'm writing is semi-autobiographical and through it I'm trying to work out a lot of shit in my head, mainly regarding some past relationships.

I'm getting in the mood to be crafty again, even in spite of the sewing machine disaster of this past weekend.  Through Freecycle I was able to procure some old cuckoo clocks and parts which means lots of GEARS and SPRINGS!! I plan to try and play around with some Steampunk type stuff.. frames and such.

The downside of these clocks is that they smell like they've spent the last 20 years in an unventilated room with someone who insisted on chain-smoking and exhaling directly into the box where they were being stored.  I think I'll be sure to avoid offerings from this user in the future.  Should be pretty easy, his emails were covered in crucifix images and Biblical verses.  I won't miss that.

The girls want me to fix one of them up as an actual clock.  I may try it.  There's one that has the yodelling guys that come out and walk around in a circle and then go back into the clock again.

I tried to take some pictures with my phone, but it's a loaner that I got from Rogers while they fix mine and I'm having trouble figuring out how to send pics.  Oh and the kids broke MY camera.  So y'all may have to just use your imagination on this one.

Little freakin' heathens.

I'm gonna blame technology for this one.

Weighed in on my new digital scale this morning.

190.4 lbs.

Feck.  (basically, I'm back where I started two weeks ago)

I'm gonna put the blame on the old scale for this one, and call this a fresh start.

I mean, yesterday was bad, but not THAT bad.

Ugh.

Sustainable lifestyle changes through the pursuit of pleasure

Cross posted at MyFitnessPal.com

I was going to start out talking about The Biggest Loser, but I realized that, having never really watched more than one or two episodes I'd kind of be talking out of my ass.

However, I do want to expand on a point that one commenter on another person's blog (I REALLY should take note of these things) said in relation to the sustainability of lifestyle changes. Changes that feel like chores are not sustainable.

In making a real lifestyle change, whether it is to eat better, or be more active, it is so important to adjust your attitude and take pleasure out of these changes. I see a lot of people who seem to seek self-punishment in the form of grueling exercise in the name of making an end, and while in the short term, I can find this admirable I have to question if it is sustainable. Maybe that is why I never got involved in things like Crossfit, bootcamps and the like. To me, these things don't seem like fun, they seem like self-punishment. Part of my success laid in finding activities that got me moving but were still FUN. Baseball, belly-dancing and kickboxing were all things I joined because I never felt like I was just exercising for the sake of exercising but I was having fun, or learning a skill. Losing weight was always a bonus, whereas the ends were to get good at a new skill - some better accomplished than others.

Finding pleasure in food is another area that I feel is needed in order to be sustainable. Many people on here claim that a love for food has been the root of their weight issues. Mine, I would say, has actually been a contempt for food - that is to say up until the age of oh, say, 23 contempt for any food that wasn't hot dogs, Kraft dinner or canned spagetti, or plainly speaking, junk.

I didn't really like much else. It took forcing myself to really alter the way I thought about 'healthy' food versus 'treats', to frame healthy food in such a way that it was appetizing. To revisit all those foods that I had turned my nose up at ten zillion times before.
It started with a single piece of sushi in a mall with a friend. "Just try one" my friend urged me. I tried it. At first, my instinct was to spit it out, but I forced myself to really taste it, to savour it. The next few times I tried it, it was easier, and eventually I was hooked.
I started trying salads (a thing I hated in all it's forms.. I'm still not fond of mayo-based salads). Mayonaise in small doses. I was like a mother sneaking vegetables into her child's food, only it was my own. I brought a Ceasar wrap to work one day and found myself drooling over lettuce.. drooling over the thought of it's crispy refreshing crunch, and the warm bread and the chicken. Those things that were once abhorrent to me, and that I had only struggled through in order to have dessert, I began craving. And those things, the hot dogs, the KD, I found I didn't enjoy as much and I would ask myself "Why am I eating this if I'm not really enjoying it?"

(In fairness though, sometimes I DO still really enjoy a big bowl of KD and ketchup)

A lot of weight loss systems have used the adage "Nothing is as good as thin feels" up until recently. It's fallen of in popularity, due to it's potential for ED triggering.
MY favorite philosophy, however, comes from the movie Ratatouille. In the scene where Linguine faces off with restaurant critic Anton Ego, they have the following exchange:

Source

Ego: You're slow for someone in the fast lane
Linguine: and you're thin for someone who likes food.
Ego: I don't like food. I love it. And if I don't love it, I don't swallow.

I think this could be a philosophy that would help a lot of people, and doesn't frame food as the enemy.. food is NOT the enemy - actually, food is like that friend we all take for granted, but don't really realize how lucky we are to have it, and we should appreciate it.
... eat for pleasure, not merely for fuel. Pay attention to quality, taste, really savouring a meal or a snack, rather than mindlessly filling the gullet because it's there. If we (and by we, I mean those of us for whom boredom eating is a problem) start to really pay attention to not just the quantity of what we eat, but the quality, then we stand to be more choosy in our habits.

Week one, it's where we've begun...

So, I guess I have to create a new label for weight-loss updates, since neither Weight Watchers or Wednesday is accurate now?  MFP Mondays? I suppose that works.

Did my first weigh-in this morning and I'm down 3 (possibly 4) pounds.  It's hard to tell with the analog scale I have, so I'm going to err on the side of caution and say it was only 3.  I'm going to try and get my hands on a digital scale so readings will be more accurate.

I've been blogging at the My Fitness Pal site, rather than flood this blog with diet-and-excercise related posts, but I'll link to my posts there when I do my updates.  I'm not sure if you can comment there without being a member, so maybe I'll say eff it and cross-post here as well.  I just don't want to bore people with menus and complaints about lack of progress and such.  That's not all I'm posting, however.  I also plan to blog about fat acceptance and conversely, fat-hate and shaming in society.

Here are the posts from this week:

Book Review: All of Me: A Voluptuous Tale

"Honesty is the Best Policy" and other myths

The Weekend Trap

Everybody is Stuffed On Turkey But Me.  I Had a Sandwich.

So I need opinions... should I cross post here and not worry about this becoming a 'diet blog' or just do like this and post links so as not to clutter up the people's feeds?

Everyone is stuffed on Turkey but me. I had a sandwich.

First weigh in is tomorrow, first thing. I've always heard that the best time to weigh is first thing in the morning, naked, after your first pee of the day. Needless to say I was never able to do this when I was with WW.

I did try once.

I'm not allowed to shop at the RCSS anymore.

JUST KIDDING.

I'm thinking I'm going to try to stick to my regular daily totals and disregard any earned calories from exercise because I'm really not sure I trust the totals.

So I think I'll stick to the regular daily total and use the earned calories in emergencies.
Kind of anxious to see what the end of my first week brings. Kind of wishing I had a digital scale as well. Analog ones are so hard to read.

The Weekend Trap

Happy Thanksgiving to my fellow Canuckians!

Had a bit of a fall apart last night. First, the large caesar salad I had for dinner last night from a local deli, once I added all the ingredients up, ended up being like 17 billion calories and roughly 563 grams of fat.

Give or take, of course.

I take solace in the fact that at least the crapload of lettuce means I got some veggies in today, but holy hell, as far as the calorie/fat count, I might have been better having pizza or a burger. For serious. Which is sad, because I love this place's caesar salad like a fat kid loves cupcakes.

As a former 'fat kid' who loved cupcakes, I'm totally allowed to say that.

Second, I went out for a drink and to watch some live music and made the mistake of order a premium draft instead of the regular light bottled beer I'm accustomed to. And then another. Then when I asked the waitress, she confirmed that the draft is served in 16 oz glasses, not 12 oz which was the impression I was laboring under.

I did, however, manage to avoid ordering some of the nachos that my friends had ordered, since I was not actually hungry. (On a side note, the entertainment, a fellow by the name of Brett Caswell, put on a lovely show).

Thirdly, I came home and had two pieces of processed cheese and a slice of chicken bologna when I really should have just gone to bed.

I toyed with the idea of just letting them slide, but after a night's sleep I got up and decided to add them to yesterday's tally, because one of my biggest issues is keeping myself accountable.

Now I am here and it's another day, and I'm glad I have a ton of stuff to do to keep myself
busy, as weekends are the worst time for mindless snacking, especially when the kiddies aren't here. The days I work are easy-peasy compared to weekends, as my days are much more structured and I can meal-plan more easily. Weekends tend to be less structured and if I'm at home, I have a habit of grazing, and if I'm on the run I end up eating out a lot, and drinking - gotta love those liquid calories - and meeting for coffee and such.

My family, for better or worse, doesn't do much for thanksgiving. We're pretty close, it's not a dysfunction thing, it's just that Thanksgiving is not a high-priority holiday. I may celebrate with a turkey sandwhich at some point this weekend. I think I have some cajun turkey breast.

Mmmm.. cajun turkey breast. Gobble Gobble, folks!

Book Review - All Of Me: A Voluptuous Tale

My mom recently lent me the book All of Me: A Voluptuous Tale by Venise Berry. The cover puts me in mind of something that would be on Oprah's book club. Upon recommending it to me, she told me that the main character reminded her a lot of me.

I had a bit of a"Gee, thanks mom" moment when I began reading as it starts with the main character, Serpentine Williamson, in a psychiatric hospital after a suicide attempt. However, this is not what she was getting at. Serpentine is a black woman who has struggled with her weight all of her life, and recounts the events in her life that led up to her suicide attempt. She deals with fat-shaming from her family, her lovers, her workplace and from society around her.

This book pissed me off to no end, but in the way I think the author intended. I was angry FOR Serpentine and I could understand her frustration at the world around her for treating her like she was a less worthy human being for being fat.

The book also deals with the issue of not only being a fat woman, but a fat black woman. It was an interesting perspective for me to read, being white, since it's my understanding that there can be some significant differences between white women and black women's experiences with fat-shaming and body acceptance. These issues stem a lot from privilege, society's ownership of women's bodies, access to healthy food and activity, and media representation.

I related to Serpentine in her personal life - feeling less than worthy, feeling insecure and jealous of the thin, pretty girls (although in some cases the 'thin girls' were not too far off from me - when I lost the first chunk of weight, I had a few friends point out that we were almost the same size, even though I still felt like the fat girl of the group). I always felt incredulous when someone professed to be attracted to me.

The message of the book focuses a lot of being healthy. While being aware of all the external factors that have affected her, Serpentine also acknowledges her own responsibility in getting where she is, and uses her experiences to better herself and live a healthier life.

It was an enjoyable read. I recommend picking it up.

When I say 'back on the horse' I am in no way referring to smack.

What is this horse I speak of?  It's metaphorical, don't think on it too much.

So I broke down. Kind of. As some of you already know, about four and a half years ago I made the decision to join Weight Watchers and managed to lose myself somewhere in the area of 60-65 lbs. Without getting all long and drawn out about it, I left the program this past winter after they rolled out a new program that rendered pretty much all their previous program materials obsolete. It seemed like a money grab to me (especially since part of your start up was paying 15 bucks for an electronic calculator), especially in light of the fact that they were still selling the old calculators up to a mere couple of weeks before the new program got rolled out.

So that was that. I tried to follow on my own, but granted, I didn't try very hard and I've fallen back into a lot of my old habits. Snacking at night, snacking out of boredom, afternoon Tim Hortons' visits etc. And here I am, 10 months later and I have gained back 20 of the 60ish I had lost.

It's go time, people.

My pants have been rebelling for a few months now. I'm down to one pair of work pants and 2-3 pairs of jeans that fit comfortably. I've been wearing a lot of skirts and dresses to hide the fact that well.. my pants don't fit.

This is what it's about. Pants. Pants and feeling comfortable in my own skin. And pants.

I'll stop saying pants now.

So today I signed myself up at myfitnesspal.com because I can't bring myself to go back to Weight Watchers. I'm still hurt and angry. Irrational? Oh, probably. But is it?

I've always been able to see through the diet industry for the sham it is, which is in part what lead me to my gain later in life. I didn't yo-yo so much as I climbed steadily. But it is. A sham. There are no easy answers. The diet industry builds up these miracle cures in our diseased conciousness and sets us up for failure. The more we "fail" the more desperate we become in our efforts and the industry keeps racking in the cash.

I cannot say it clearly enough: THERE ARE NO EASY ANSWERS.

Hell, for some of us, thin may not even be an option, because not all of our bodies are built that way. We can only, realistically, aim for good health. That means so much more than our food intake, and our activity levels... it means managing our stress levels, removing or at least minimizing our exposure to those toxic people in our lives.

Ugh. I'm rambling. I'm sure I'll have more to say on the subject as time goes on. I know it won't be easy, but I've done it before. I can do it again.

If you don't have anything worth saying..

... well screw it.  Make something up.

I'm hungover (well, a little) and doing laundry today.  It's one of those beautiful, crisp fall days where the sun is warm but the air is brisk.  The kind where a coat is a suggestion, but not necessarily a requirement.

Being a responsible drunk, my plans for the day include a very long walk to go and pick up my car from last night's resting place.  If I bring my iPod, and pace myself, it should be a rather pleasant walk.  I may take the Tay trail.

I have an earworm that has been burrowing itself into my brain for the last 48 hours.  I must have listened to it a dozen times since I first heard it at my sister's place Friday night.



Yesterday was full of music and self-loathing.  So good and bad.  I've put some weight back on and I'm trying not to beat myself up over it and just pay more attention to my habits and make sure I'm making healthy decisions.  In the meantime, my pants have turned against me so I was not feeling my awesomest yesterday.

The music, however... well, the music is good.  Three bands in one day.  I'd call that a win.

Inducing rage on your Tuesday morning.

Quick post.

Last week, I posted about what I considered the best feminist children's book ever.

This week I'm taking you in the opposite direction, as I have caught wind of what could possibly be the worst book to get your little girl (or boy).  It's called Maggie Goes On A Diet.  It's about a little fat girl who goes on a diet to fit into a pretty pink dress and becomes popular and plays some soccer.

Can we get a big, collective, face palm right now?

It's about a 14-year-old girl, but the book is aimed at the 4-7 age bracket.  BRING EM YOUNG.  Let's look at some of the problematic messages:

Thinness is the ticket to popularity.
Only thin people are athletic.
You are valued for your appearance.

The comments and tags that are going up on the Amazon site for this page are heartening though.  It looks like people are getting that this is a craptacular lesson to be sending  to little kids.  I somehow think this book isn't going to be doing any great amount of sales.

I don't mind saying, for anyone who does buy this for their kids, I hope something very large and pointy falls on them from a great height.

Myself?  I wouldn't be caught dead.  I'd rather read my kids "Go The Fuck to Sleep"

It'd be less damaging in the long run.

Numbers are just so.. Arbitrary.

I have a new weight loss goal.

So some may not know, but over the last four years I've lost about 60 lbs through Weight Watchers, and just better eating habits and more exercise. 

I stopped going to Weight Watchers this past January because I got pissed off with yet another corporate giant milking consumers for all they are worth.

Since then, I've been attempting to at least maintain, but some of my clothes are telling me I've not been doing a bang-up job on that front.  Mostly everything still fits, but a couple of things aren't looking as nice as they did a month or two ago.  Not owning a bathroom scale, I'd wager a guess I've put on maybe 5-10 lbs tops.

I intend to go back to tracking and attending meetings at a local group that costs a dollar a week rather than the 15 that weight watchers gouges you for.

As mentioned, I also have a new goal, one far less arbitrary than a silly number on a scale (which was, by the way 150 lbs.. at my lowest I was still 20 away from that). 

awesome

The coolest fucking pants on the planet.  I'd say universe because aliens may have the technology to make pants more fantastic than these, but if they do, I don't need to know about it.  I found them today at the Salvation Army for seven dollars.  Never worn.

So yeah.  My goal is to fit into these pants.  Numbers be damned.  Okay not totally damned, some numbering is involved.  These are a size 11.. I'm currently hovering around 12-13.  I think getting to a point where I can fit the most fucking spectacular awesome size 11 plaid pants is an admirable, yet reasonable goal.

So here we are, week 1.

I see London, I see France...

I haven't decided on weekly, bi-weekly or monthly updates yet.

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In other news, last night was the final Midland production of the Vagina Monologues.  The show went over fantastically and we sold around 400 tickets which means a lovely wad of cash for our local women's shelter.  Great show, great ladies, great cause.  I'm both sad and glad to see it done, because although I get my life back now, it really was a lot of fun and I met so many awesome people.

***********************************

Chloe's plumbing is all gone, finally got her spayed.  Still dealing with evil demon kitties I currently have, but at least it's without threat of more to come.  She looks truly pathetic right now though.

Hiding under the table as the boys still don't understand "Closed for Business"

Coming soon.. Tsunamis, Fangirlishness and Rape Culture (in unrelated posts, of course).

WWWednesday - or not.

So you may (because I like to pretend more people care what I write than probably do) have noticed a dearth of WWWednesday posts.  This is because I haven't actually been to weigh in since they changed the program and I'm really struggling with whether I want to go back or not.  I'm afraid of backsliding but I really have a bad taste in my mouth as far as the rampant corporatism goes.  Sigh.

I made banana bread tonight but I think I may have under cooked it.  It's a bit mushy.  I made a pretty cool comic-themed headband which will not be going on the Etsy store - no, this one will be for my own personal use.

jealous?  *nods knowingly* You're jealous.

Taking a cue from Saskatchewan's sexiest blogger, Tyler, I've had this song stuck in my head all day:



Apparently this is the song the Scott Pilgrim books and subsequently the film Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World film was named after. I can't tell if she's saying "I've liked you for a thousand years" or "I've liked you for a dozen years".

A quick Google search tells me it's thousand. This is comforting. I hate to think I've been singing it wrong. all. day. long.

WWWednesday - has been pre-empted

WWWednesday will not be seen this week.  The pinkeye has kept me from the meeting, plus I'm still iffy on this whole PointsPlus thing.  No, I'm annoyed, honestly.

Oh.  And I'm pretty sure I've eaten about a million cookies this week... so it's better that I don't know.

Rough week.

WWWednesday - A corporation is a corporation...

.. is a corporation.

Oh yeah.  Down 1 lb this week.  *slow clap*

I'm feeling disillusioned with the program this week, but on a scale much grander than my usual "This is hard, wahhhhh" type disillusionment.

So Weight Watchers rolled out their new Points Plus program this week.  The difference here is supposed to be where the old Points program assigned foods a points value based on a food's fibre, calories and fat contents, the new system also incorporates protein and carbohydrate contents into the points value.  As a result some foods, such as fruits, go down in value and some go up.

I mean, in theory it makes sense, right?  Sure.

Here's what irks me.  In the four years I've been with this program, I have been witness to no less than four program roll-outs.  I have paid enough money (not even including recipe books and guides) into the program that I could probably bank roll the education of all of Fluorine Mark's children and still had enough for a nice dinner.  Myself, being the el cheapo I am, haven't bothered much with the peripherals of the program.. the measuring spoons, the fancy journals, the walking tapes, the fancy electronic points calculators.. no, aside from the initial food guides the first year I joined and 2-3 recipe books, I pretty much pay my weekly fees and that's it.

Boy sometimes I'm glad to be a tightwad.

Back to the reason for my aggravation.  Basically, this new points system renders all the old books, accessories, trackers, calculators absolutely moot and irrelevant.  And if there is one thing that gets my plus-sized panties in a bunch, it's planned fucking obsolescence.

So those people who did shell out for the fancy calculators, the food guides, and all that fun stuff, have got to do it again.  With the old program, you could get the fancy calculator or you could use the paper sliding graph that was provided with your WW package.  Now because of all the variables involved, they couldn't effectively design a paper slider, so you pretty much HAVE to buy the fancy electronic calculator.  They were marked down from $15 to $5 as a promotion for the opening week.  I bought one, but I was NOT happy about it.

 

An early version of the paper points finder.

Fancy pants electronic calculator.  Yes, I totally stole this pic from Amazon.  That's what the little camera means.

Frankly, the whole thing seems like a money-grab to me, and I said this to the ladies at the meeting today.  Let's change the whole program around, and bring in all new tools and materials.

Let's face it, although it touts itself as a lifestyle, and a support group, it's foolish to forget that above all Weight Watchers is a giant money-making machine, a corporation.  Sure it looks good on paper, in all reality, no matter what your mission statement may be, we know in the corporate world that the real mission is getting as much money out of the little guy (or the bigger gal) as humanly possible.

I've got some thinking to do.

WWWednesday - No big surprises here.

Up 3.5 lbs this week.  Yeah, yeah, I know.  I can explain.

After last week's disappointment and subsquent breakdown, I decided I was going to take a much needed break.  A break from counting points, looking at nutrion labels, measuring stuff etc.  A break from meal planning.  A break from constantly thinking and being aware of every last thing that goes into my mouth.

I basically decided eff it, I'm going to eat what I want, when I want, for one week.  Wine.  Pizza.  McDonalds.  Pop.  Chips.  (there was some healthy stuff too.. I made fajitas one night..  pork chops and veggies another night - really my days weren't too far off, it was more the evenings where I had let loose)

Yeah. This pretty much sums up my week.
It was AWESOME.

Yeah, I basically spent a week polluting myself.  And I'm paying for it.  But I tell ya, a gain after a week like this is a lot easier to take than busting my ass for a week and gaining.   I feel like I've earned this one.  YEah, it's gonna take like three weeks to lose this again, but I REGRET NOTHING.

What this has helped me realize is that this is why I need to stick with my program.  Because if I say screw it and go back to all my old habits, it's not going to be long at all before I'm back up to my old, unhealthy weight.  So I shall struggle on.  

It also made me aware of the changes in my body and appetite.  The night we went to McDonalds, I had a double-cheese burger and a small order of french fries and found myself stuffed to the point where I really was feeling uncomfortable and it occurred to me that where four years ago I'd still be hungry at that point, now I could have probably survived with just the burger.  Same goes with pizza.  I used to be able to eat 4-5 slices of a medium or large pizza and now I'm good, if not too full, after two.

So with these realizations in hand, I'm ready to get back on the program again.  Word has it that next week they're starting a new program and points values are also going to incorporate protein and carbohydrates and the like into the points values, which means a lot of things like fruit are going to have a zero value.  I'm not sure how i feel about it as it seems kind of arbitrary, but I'll give it a shot.

Until next week.. (okay, well obviously I'm going to post in between, but you know what i mean)

WWWednesday - Two Steps Forward, One soul-killing step back.

Up 1.5 lbs this week.

I am frustrated.  Seriously.  I tracked up until Monday night, then lost track.  Thinking over what I actually ate between Monday and Today though, I don't think I was way too off.

Frankly, I'm frustrated as all hell with this "journey" right now.  I hate the fact that if I even go a little bit off, I seem to lose progress.

I'm sick to death of having to be aware of what I'm eating and why I'm eating.  It's a pain in the ass having to stop and ask myself  "Am I hungry, or just bored or just stressed out?"  I hate writing shit down.  I hate counting points.  I hate measuring stuff.  I hate nutrition labels.  Seriously, I fucking hate it. I hate having to be hyper-aware of every goddamned morsel that goes in my mouth. This kind of crap is how eating disorders get started.

I've been at this for almost four years now.  This last 20 is friggin' killing me.  I can't handle one more person telling me that muscle weighs more than fat.  Big effin' deal.  Muscle means I'm still plunking down 60 bucks a month to stay in this bloody program.  But I've tried following it on my own before, and I need that accountability.  If no one else is paying attention, then neither will I.  Sounds shallow, I know, but it's a support thing too.

The ladies at the meeting have even suggesting because I've been on this fucking desolate tundra of a plateau for so long now that I get a note from my doctor so I can set a goal weight outside of the 'normal' range for my height.  But you know what?  I set a goal (and a reasonable one) and I intend to stick to it.  To suddenly knock 15 or 20 lbs off my ultimate goal seems like a cop-out.   Basically, if I do that, I'm going to know that I didn't do what I set out to do, and I'll feel like a con.  *sigh*  And by knowing secretly that I did cop out, then I lose the motivation to maintain what progress I did make.  I'm so close.  At this point it's not even about the scale, or my ass, or a number.. It's that I set a goal, a reasonable one, even, and I'm going to fucking DO IT.  Not backing down.

I know, and am fully aware of all the benefits that I've gained from coming this far.  I'm med-free, I'm in the best shape I've been in years (if not ever).  I'm starting to feel really good about myself (although I see myself still as an overweight woman.. funny how body dysmorphia screws with you) and I know I'm making good choices.  I know I've come a long way.  And it's one thing when I know I've not been keeping to the plan as well as I can.. if I skip tracking for a week, or don't excercise then I know it's nobody's fault buy my own whne i don't make progress.  It's just fucking irritating as hell when I bust my ass, but then slip a bit and end up paying for it.

One of the things I liked about this program was the idea that yes, once in a while you can indulge yourself.. but it feels like when I do that, then I lose progress.  And I don't mean indulging by taking a day where I totally pig out.. I mean I might have a donut and a beer or something and then it shows up. THAT'S ANNOYING.  I don't even dip into the allowance points when I'm tracking because it seems to show up and impede my progress.

Those of you with naturally good eating habits, active lifestyles and good metabolism, be thankful for these things.. because feeling like you have to police yourself is such a pain in the ass. 

*anyone who might be overly concerned reading this, I'm just venting here just so you know*