[emmalish]

Carrots used to be free, but now they're 1pt for a cup. Probably because people were eating nothing but carrots to fill up.

It always amazes me that after doing WW for awhile, the days I feel like I totally overeat? I'm still eating waaaaay less than I did before. Good luck!

[Darienne]

All the replies are so useful. Popcorn as a snack. Cooked chicken on hand. Just reading the posts is encouraging.

I must admit my goal is two-fold. The sensible goal is to change my eating habits for good. I waver between optimism that I finally can and pessimism that I never will. Yo-yo is the name of my game. Like Oprah Winfrey, although never so high or so low. My DH did that years ago. He changed his eating habits decades ago and has stuck to it forever. He does have an iron will...except for PB. That's his big food obsession. Not mine.

The other goal is to shed the weight more quickly than is sensible to lessen the pain factor. That's assuming that I can even do that, especially given that I am now totally sedentary. I am looking into a few things that one of my friends has told me about.

Thanks, guys

This post has been edited by Darienne: 09 November 2009 - 06:06 AM

[emmalish]

I have a bad habit of forgetting to eat on the weekends, especially if I'm out running errands (I'm off work today, so it counts as a weekend ). I had a couple bran muffins with peanut butter for breakfast, and then I went out and didn't eat anything else until I got home at 5. I snarfed a few teddy grahams to tide me over (bad!) and then made lentil stew with mashed potatoes for dinner. Mmmm. I made the potatoes with just a bit of low fat buttermilk (lots of flavour) – it ended up being only 1.5 points per 100 grams. 200g is a LOT of mashed potatoes for only 3 pts. The lentil stew is next to nothing. The vegetables are almost all free, and the lentils are only 3 pts for 1 cup – I think I'm being generous by counting a serving as 3 pts. So this humongous dish of yummy food is only 6 points. Unfortunately, I still have a LOT of points to use up today. Oops.

(excuse the crappy camera phone shot)

This post has been edited by emmalish: 12 November 2009 - 08:36 PM

[prasantrin]

If you tell me the exact proportions of your ingredients, I can figure it out for you.

I managed to lose 3 pounds last week, but this week I went a bit overboard, and I've probably gained it back. Oops. I'm going to start counting points on Sunday. This week was still a mindful eating week, but I still haven't started counting.

About the free point foods--one thing I found with NYC is that no foods are really free, but some are very low and since WW rounds up or down, it seems as though some foods are zero points. Lettuce is practically free (3 cups is still only 0.1 points), but 3 cups of carrots is one point. Still not a lot (and who eats 3 cups of carrots in one sitting?), but those little points do add up over a day, week, or month.

The same goes for exercise points.

[emmalish]

I don't have exact measurements for the lentil stew – just kinda made it up as I went along. But I know there was only 1 tsp of oil, and 1 cup of dry lentils (so I'm guessing 2 cups total in the finished dish). Vegetables are onions, carrots, celery and tomato. I had 1/3 of the dish, so I counted 2 points for the lentils and then threw in another point for whatever the vegetables might have added up to (celery is actually negative points!). The potatoes I weighed so I know what they were points-wise.

I'm okay with a rough amount – I'm still working with a range of points so as long as I aim for the middle, I've got a few points leeway so I figure I'm okay.

My official weigh-in is Sunday, but so far it looks like I'm down another couple pounds this week.

[KitchenMom]

Sounds like you are doing great. I wish I ever had the problem of not finishing my points. According to the WW literature, you never have to court non-starchy vegetables, even though they do have some calories. I have lost my weight while eating copious amounts of veggies, so I'm going to stick with that model.

Last night I made home-made potato chips in the microwave--sliced extremely thinly (w/the food processor), tossed w/a small amount of olive oil, seasoned and microwaved in a single layer. They were really good, and very low in points. The whole family loved them.

[emmalish]

Home made microwave potato chips? Oh, I wish you hadn't told me that...

As for living on high quantities of veggies? I think I have the advantage here in that I'm already a vegetarian. And I loooove veggies.

[emmalish]

Just baked some bran muffins, loaded with both cranberries and blueberries. Only 4 pts each.

[emmalish]

I just discovered the recipe calculator on SparkPeople. It's awesome! Thank you to everyone who recommended it.

[prasantrin]

I started counting points yesterda, and I went waaaaaaayyyyy over! McDonald's is evil!!! So is ramen!!! (It was fresh ramen, not instant, but I'm using instant ramen points for the calculation).

Today was a healthful breakfast of 1 1/2 cups of oatmeal with 1% milk and 1 tablespoon of coco sugar (aka dry palm sugar). About 6 points in all.

Lunch will be 1/2 cup rice, 3 oz salmon, and some cauliflower. Haven't figure out the points, yet, but I can't imagine it will be more than 6.

A student gave me a present of some really good madeleines, though, so I had to eat one! It ws a gift, after all! I'm guessing 3 points for that.

Note about cauliflower--I know it's a great substitute for potatoes, and it's practically free in points. I do like roasted cauliflower, and I don't mind cauliflower soup at all. But how do you get rid of the stink? My apartment smelled like fart this morning!

(According to Now You're Cooking, based on my current measurements and weight, I really only need to lose about 8kg in order to hit an ideal body fat percentage of 22%. That's not nearly as bad as I thought it would be, so now I have a wee bit more motivation--it seemed so difficult before, bt 8kg is definitely do-able. I'm a bit sad that I was almost there three years ago--like maybe 1 kg away, but I let all my work go to waste!)

[emmalish]

McDonalds!?? Nooooooo!!! Fast food is the devil.

I agree about the cauliflower being stinky. I made some last week and I swear I can still smell it. I love eating it tho.

It's cold and rainy in Vancouver, so I'm about to make some vegetarian chili for my lunch this week. According to the calculator, it should be about 8 pts for a large serving, and only 5 for a small.

[emmalish]

Today was a bit of a challenge for me. Breakfast and lunch were planned for and were fine. And I have lots of good food at home for dinner. But work was a bit insane and several of us ended up staying quite late. So someone ran out for snacks (chips, twizzlers, chocolates, sour gums) and then we ordered out for pizza for dinner. Not good.

I held tight though and kept telling myself that I'd be able to go home soon and have a late dinner instead of filling up with junk. So here it is just after 9:00 and I'm settling down with a salad. Phew!

I'd had some yogurt in the fridge that I could have had in a pinch, but I wanted to have some real food. I think I need to think about an emergency stash for those times I have to stay late (because it will happen again).

[CaliPoutine]

We're doing well too. Robin has lost 12lbs in 2 weeks( wow) and I've lost 8. I fully expect that to taper off since so far this week I've lost nothing. I do count the calories for all fruits and veggies. I know on WW I didnt have to do that for veg, so that is kinda throwing me off. I even counted the sliced cucumber on my subway turkey sandwich.

I feel really hungry today, could be because I'm baking 3 dozen regular fattening muffins for an order and they smell so good.

Rona, remeber I made that flax pizza crust awhile back? Its a looney spoon recipe, but you asked about it. I found it on Sparkpeople recipes. I believe it has 114 calories for 1 serving( 8 per recipe). I made the dough, divided in 3 and made pizza. The serving was huge and extremely filling. I used PC organic canned mushrooms( grown in Canada) and a trader joes chicken sausage, along with 1/4c of sargento light italian cheese.

Saturday we went to Ruby Tuesday in MI for lunch. I looked at the online menu before we went and based on that chose the turkey mini burgers and salad bar. I was extremely careful with what I put on my salad. I did have about 10 fries too. Later on that afternoon, I felt so incredibly full and bloated, so much so that I skipped dinner. Its amazing what eating one restaurant meal after eating clean for a week can do. I dont want to feel that way again.

[emmalish]

12 lbs in 2 weeks? Wow indeed. That's fantastic. And 8 lbs in 2 weeks is nothing to sneeze at either. Don't worry about not losing anything yet this week – I find I can hold steady for several days, or even go up a bit, and then suddenly drop down a couple lbs by the end of the week.

Isn't it amazing how a "normal" meal can make you feel like crap after eating healthy for such a short time?

And on that note, I just had a big bowl of popcorn for dinner! That's healthy, right? I just used 1 tbsp of oil to pop it so points-wise it wasn't too bad. I just really felt like something snacky.

This post has been edited by emmalish: 17 November 2009 - 09:06 PM

[prasantrin]

I love snacky things for dinner. That's actually my waterloo--snacking.

For desk "dinners", I keep rye crackers (Ryvita) and peanut butter in one of my drawers at work, and sometimes I keep a couple of onsen tamago in the fridge. That way I have carbs and protein, so it's usually enough to keep me satisfied for a few hours until I can get home and have a real dinner. And the crunch of the crackers helps satisfy me mentally since I'm actually chewing on something (plus I love crunchy food--potato chips and fried chicken skins are my favourite snacks! That sort of explains why I'm doing ww. . . ).

Yesterday I walked through the grocery store telling myself, "I do not need Doritos. I do not need Doritos. I do not need Doritos" and I actually managed not to put some in my cart. Ah, will-power. I had forgotten I had any.

[emmalish]

prasantrin, on 17 November 2009 - 08:55 PM, said:

Yesterday I walked through the grocery store telling myself, "I do not need Doritos. I do not need Doritos. I do not need Doritos" and I actually managed not to put some in my cart. Ah, will-power. I had forgotten I had any.

I actually had both crackers and low fat peanut butter in my drawer too. Completely forgot about them. Oh well. I think I need to stock up on a few emergency cans of soup.

[KitchenMom]

Seems like everyone is doing great. I'm just focused on maintaining by sticking to only my daily points between all the big eating occasions I have this month. I managed to maintain last week despite two restaurant meals at home and a day trip to NYC, which inevitably inovlved pastrami.

I hate those days when unexpected work events affect my plan. I also keep a desk stach--some low point soup (either Progresso or Trader Joe's boxed creamy tomato, which is delicious), and some low point bars. There are a number of good, satsifying two-point bars. Lately I'm enamored of the Kashi chocolate and coconut bars--they have protein, fiber, satisfying crunch, and feel like you are eating a treat. The Fiber One oats and chocolate bars and Chex bars are also pretty decent.

[emmalish]

I'm going to look into those bars. The chocolate-coconut kashi sounds really good.

We have 2 birthdays in our office this week and there will be cake today. Since one of the birthdays is mine ( ) I will be having some. I'm not even going to worry about the points. One of the weight watchers leaders from years ago had a great analogy – look at weight loss like a long car journey. Sometimes you're going to make great time and cover a lot of distance, but some days you're going to want to pull over to a scenic rest stop for a break. That doesn't mean you have to stop altogether or turn around and go back home. Once you've enjoyed the scenery (or the cake), just get back in the car and keep on heading for your destination. There will be a few rest stops along the way – but sometimes those are just necessary to your sanity.

[KitchenMom]

That's a great way of thinking about it. My philosophy is very similar. I have come to realize that if I am not constantly vigilant, I can all too easily slip back into eating way too much way too often and before I know it, will be unhealthily overweight again. I have resigned myself to the idea of counting points for life (at least this is how it seems now). That said, along the journey I have taken a few points-counting vacations, usually when travelling, and anticipate I will do so again. I just realized that the first week in December I will be eating out at three fantastic restaurants three days in a row. I'll likely have a gain that week, but will go right back to counting points. I still want to lose 7-10 more pounds, but I'm ok if it doesn't happen quickly. The reason I have come to love weight watchers is that they make it so easy to jump back in and get on-plan. Each day starts over with a new allotment of points, so any day is a good day to start again.

[emmalish]

I agree with everything you said. And personally, I need to be able to take those little vacations from it occasionally, but with the knowledge that I'll get right back into it once the vacation is over, or the meal is over.

I've heard so many people who are trying to diet getting upset after having a bad day and "slipping", and they get frustrated and just quit altogether. I know that one big meal a week isn't going to undermine all my efforts, like one slice of cake today likely won't make any difference at all in the long run, as long as I'm sticking with my points every other day of the week.

[prasantrin]

So. . . I'm nearing the end of my first counting week, and it's been a real struggle! If I were to be true to my WW points, I'd only be able to eat 8 points tomorrow! And that's accounting for the extra 35 points you get to play with!

I'm recalling now that I did so well the first time because I exercised a lot more back then. This week I've only got 5 exercise points so far, and back then, I'd have at least 20 by the end of the week, usually more. Those extra points sure do help a lot when you've only got 20 to begin with.

This week I'm stocking up on soups of different varieties. I'm doing spinach, chicken, and maybe some kind of chickpea things. I'd like to make falafel, too, but I'd want to fry them, so perhaps that would not be a very good idea right now. This past week I only made kabocha soup, and I got sick of it after the first couple of servings. Variety is important!

I've got a wedding to go to on Sunday. It sort of sucks starting out a week with mega-points, but I'm going to enjoy myself, for sure!

[emmalish]

I find the first week of switching my eating habits is hell. The 2nd is still hard but getting a bit easier. The third is much easier. Hang in there!

It's looking like I might have bounced up a bit this week, but I still have a couple days before weigh-in. Other than that wee bit of cake the other day, I've been good, so I'm going to blame that time of the month (stupid hormones) and not worry about it.