7ToF: Weight Watchers edition

Obviously I don't have much to say these days since I missed posting on Tuesday again this week. Not sure when I'll get back to it. Sometimes when I'm driving around I think of half a dozen post ideas, other times my brain is a barren desert. I'm headed to Texas in a couple of weeks for my mom's 80th birthday, maybe that will get me back in writing mode.

The rest of this is about Weight Watchers, now that I've been going for a month. You've been warned. If you're new, you missed all the posts in my old blog about my objections to our culture's obsession with thin-ness, and my absolute conviction that no one except you can tell whether or not your weight is healthy for your body and your life.

I won't re-hash all that right now, I just wanted to make it clear that I'm only doing this because a) I want to be able to keep up with my active family, and b) I'm starting to have some joint problems that I suspect will clear up if I lose a bit of weight. If I hit my goal, I will still be well above the culturally deemed acceptable weight for my height--no worries that I'm going to be fashionably thin, because that's never happening again.

OK. Now that we've got that out of the way.

1. The first question people ask me when I tell them I joined Weight Watchers is if I have to eat their food all the time. The short answer is no. I think you can buy various different snacks that are Weight Watchers brand, but I've never tried any of them. I fix my own food and look things up when I'm at a restaurant.

2. Do I go to the meetings? Yes, I do. The meetings are a mixed bag. On the plus side, they're probably the main reason why I stuck with the plan when I wanted to quit early on. Even though no one would know if I utterly screwed up one week (there is a weigh-in, but it's not public and no one looks at what you ate), still the embarrassment factor of quitting so soon after I started kept me from throwing in the towel. Our leader is upbeat and positive, even a little snarky occasionally, without being overly cheerleader-ish. I have to confess that the meetings can be kind of fun. There's lots of laughter and friendliness and you learn some good tips.

On the negative side, though, it is 45 minutes of listening to talk about food and weight loss and dieting, which is really difficult for me to sit through sometimes. Some of the members are absurdly enthusiastic, which makes me roll my eyes. But in their defense, WW has given them a program that works and some have lost vast quantities of weight using it. I would probably be a bit of a fanatic, too.

3. How does the point system work? You get a certain number of points per day based on your height and weight and how much you want to lose. You also get a set number of weekly points, which you can use for extras. You can divide up the weekly points to get a few extra points each day, or you can save them up and use them to splurge. One woman said that she uses her weekly points for a nightly glass of wine.

You could be extra exemplary and never use your weekly points--apparently that's what a lot of people do-- but that's never going to be me. The second week when I was about to quit, I still had most of my weekly points, so I went to a bakery and bought two 4" peanut butter chocolate chip cookies and ate them both sitting in the car (they were fabulous). I had enough points to do it, it kept me sane, and I still lost a pound that week. That's what keeps me going -- if I keep within my points, so far the system has worked, even if I use my points for stuff that is not at all diet-ish.

4. The good parts about the points system: Pretty much all fruits and vegetables--eaten without added sugar or fat-- are zero points. So if you get hungry, you can have a banana or an apple or a handful of sugar snap peas (or all three) and it doesn't count. The only exception I know of is avocados, which are crazy high points. (Disappointing, because I love avocados.) After a few weeks, you become adept at knowing a handful of low-point foods that work for you so you're rarely without something you can eat, even if you're down to one or two points at the end of the day.

5. The bad part about the points system: You end up chasing after foods that are low points rather than figuring out what you want to eat or what is healthy to eat. For example, there's a powdered de-fatted peanut butter called PB2 that I've been using in smoothies for couple of years now, but I would never have eaten it by itself (you add water to make it into a peanut butter-ish substance). But I do now, because PB2 is 1 point for two tablespoons, and real peanut butter is three points for one tablespoon. Also, many of my favorite go-to quick foods (Kind bars! I miss you, Kind bars!) are off-limits for now because they're so many points. You start choosing your food based on the points rather than any other consideration.

6. But you know what? A few weeks in, once you get the hang of it, you realize that the points sort of make sense. They're based on total calories, with points added for sugar and saturated fat, and points reduced for protein. If you stick to your points, you lose weight. I suppose the literal truth is that for the most part, things are low points because they are low calorie, but while I'm absolutely opposed to counting calories, for some reason this doesn't bother me so much. Maybe because of the freebie fruits and veggies-- there's always something you can eat.

7. The best advice I received (thanks, Mary!) before I joined: when you register, don't set a huge weight-loss goal. First of all, you'll hit your goal sooner, and when you do, you become a "lifetime" member and Weight Watchers is free thereafter. Secondly, the higher the number of pounds you want to lose, the lower your daily points total (I think. I haven't actually researched that, it's just my impression from listening to the talk around me at meetings.) Oprah made a big deal this past week saying that she had lost 26 lbs while eating bread every day, which surprised me. I've eaten bread every day, too, and it never occurred to me that I couldn't, but maybe I have a fairly high points allowance.

So there you go. After only a month, I'm hardly an expert, but I'm starting to feel a tiny bit confident that I can reach my goal, and I was completely demoralized by my weight before I started. That's a plus.

p.s. The point system was completely overhauled a couple of months ago, and many of the people who have been in WW for a long time hate the new system. I can't compare them because I joined after the new system started. The new system is working for me.

7ToF: you were never serious about the craft

1. We had no phone for eight days, and the last three of those, we had no internet service. Major pain. But we seem to be up and running again, even though our DSL still occasionally becomes unbearably slow. I did have a post written for Tuesday, but I decided it needed some more work, and since that was the night our DSL died, it would have required a trip to a coffee shop to write another. So it didn't happen.

2. I would give you the weather update, but you know, it's January. Nothing newsworthy here.

3. I read an article a couple of months ago talking about how stupid recycling is. I was surprised, because to me, recycling just makes sense, like picking up after yourself. But the article made some interesting claims about the relative expense of recycling vs. landfill management, so I've been digging around and doing a little more research. The original article turned out to be a little biased in some of its claims, but still, it's a far more complex topic than I realized. I didn't learn anything that convinced me to stop recycling, but I came away from my research convinced that the best thing is to reduce our consumption of disposable stuff. Which is harder to do than it sounds around here (maybe anywhere), but I'm working on it.

4. One thing everyone agrees on: recycling aluminum is worth it-- it's far cheaper to recycle aluminum than to mine the new stuff. (For the record, paper and cardboard can also be effectively recycled; plastic and glass, not so much.) The main thing we buy in glass containers is beer. I've never been much of a wine drinker-- migraines, you know-- but I do love a good microbrew. Those smart people at our local and regional microbreweries must have been reading the same info about recycling that I did, because suddenly microbrews are available in cans. Until recently, canned beer was the stuff that tasted like piss. But now you can get Fat Tire, Blue Moon, Alaskan Amber and a whole bunch of other good beers in cans. Nice move, microbreweries.

5. I was never a dedicated David Bowie fan, although his music was some of the iconic music of my college years. But I've been listening to his Best of Bowie album some this week, and there are way more songs than I realized that I pretty much know by heart. RIP, Bowie. RIP also to Glenn Frey, although I'm just slightly too young to be as devastated about that as some other people I've heard calling into our local classic rock station. Nice to know I'm too young for something, anyway.

6. But Alan Rickman, *sniff.* I've always had a not-so-secret crush on Alan Rickman. He was just perfect in everything he did, and he was in some of my favorite movies-- Galaxy Quest ("I see you managed to get your shirt off"), Sense and Sensibility (sigh), and who else could have played Snape? ("Unless you wish to poison Potter - and I assure you, I would have the greatest sympathy if you did - I cannot help you." in that snooty, disdainful tone of voice that he had down.) Loved him, and even more after reading these quotations, which I'd never heard before.

7. Weight Watchers update (click away now, all ye who have no interest): The first week I was just floundering around trying to figure out what to eat. The second week I had a terrible time not throwing in the towel--it wasn't all that awful but I hate not being able to eat whatever I want. But I kept reminding myself that a) it's only temporary; b) I'm trying to learn new habits because I failed on my own; and c) I really am eating better food now. There are certain things about the weight watchers system that I'm never going to agree with--maybe I'll write more about that another time--but now that I'm getting used to it, it's doable. This week is going much better. And I am losing weight at the same time that I'm figuring out a plan for maintaining once I'm done, so there you go. Three weeks in, I'm at least willing to say I'll stick with it for another week. ;-)

So....I joined weight watchers.

I wasn't going to tell you about joining weight watchers until after I'd been through the first month, but let's face it-- it's January and I haven't read a good book in a couple of months and if I don't write about this, I have nothing to write about.

I joined online Sunday night after New Year's, and went to my first meeting that Wednesday. I've never been a huge fan of New Year's resolutions, but I had given myself until the end of December to find a way to lose the weight on my own. Which didn't happen.

I thought maybe I should just take another blogging break rather than subject you to my musings/thoughts/rants about points and food tracking. But I finally decided, as I always do, that you don't have to read it. I put "weight watchers" right up there in the post title so you can click away if it's not a topic that interests you. I'd probably do the same if our positions were reversed.

I've thought for several years now that if I couldn't manage my weight loss on my own, I'd try Weight Watchers. Mainly because I know several people who have had good success with it (some of whom read here). But two things kept me from signing up: one, I was so sure I could manage it on my own; and two, I hate tracking what I eat. 

The first thing--I was so sure I could lose the weight myself-- has proven to be abundantly false. I have more or less figured out how to maintain, to stop the upward creep, but I have not managed to lose more than 2-3 pounds on my own. (For those of you who are new, I gained about 20 pounds a few years ago when I was in grad school and went through menopause at about the same time, on top of already being a bit on the plump side.)

The second thing--that I hate tracking what I eat-- is trickier. I've done it (tracking) several times before, and although I start out with enthusiasm, in a couple of weeks I'm playing all kinds of mind games with it and it completely backfires. I end up mentally arguing with the tracking, and losing touch with the idea of developing better eating habits. If there were mind games at the Olympics, I would win the gold medal in a flash. I am terrific at mind games.

But that ended up being a non-issue because WW has a new plan that doesn't require food tracking. I haven't tried it yet--I can manage the tracking for the first couple of weeks, so I thought I'd try the "Smart Points" plan for awhile until I adjust to the new eating style. But I'll probably switch over to the no-tracking system eventually.

I'm not saying anything about the results, maybe never will, because TMI. But I'm hoping the fact that I pre-paid three months will mean I stick with it at least that long. Stay tuned.

the middle way, again

I've been reading a book by British theologian N.T. Wright called Surprised by Hope. I'm never very good at reading non-fiction, but his discussion of beauty and art at the very end of the book interested me. He identifies a trend in contemporary art that we've talked about before: "[contemporary art] responds to ugliness with more ugliness....a kind of brutalism that under the guise of realism simply expresses futility and boredom."

That is so true. Under the guise of realism, contemporary art is often about unrelieved ugliness, brutality, and futility. I'm reading short stories again in preparation for teaching a short story class, and when you read some of these stories, you'd be hard pressed to believe that there is one single honest, responsible, or compassionate person on the planet. Everything's a mess.

And it is. You don't have to watch the news for long to realize that on a large scale, everything's a mess. But to counter that, every day I see people who are kind and compassionate and taking care of their kids and not taking drugs and shouldering their responsibilities in the face of bad odds.

Who's being unrealistic? The person concentrating only on the absolute worst that life can be, or the person concentrating only on the best?

Of course, truly realistic art would hold both these poles in tension with each other, interacting with each other, playing off each other. Despair, futility, and boredom (it is perhaps Wright's most profound moment in this discussion that he includes boredom) would be tempered by the equally realistic knowledge that the world abounds with hope and beauty, and that human beings can be and often are kind and compassionate.

Wright casts this discussion in specifically Christian terms of redemption and resurrection, but I'm more and more convinced that it's a wider discussion than that. I'm not enough of a theologian to delve into that here, but it's an interesting thing to think about. Good book, if it's a topic that interests you--although the discussion about art is only a small part at the end.

that's not how the force works

I was a Star Wars nerd. The first Star Wars movie, the real one, the one they now call Episode IV, came out my sophomore year in high school. I still remember the first time I saw it, sitting white-knuckled at the end, watching anxiously to see if Luke would hit the two-meter target (not much bigger than a wamp rat back on Tatooine). I remember breaking into wild applause when he did, to the consternation of my friend watching with me, who didn't like the movie at all because the Bible says that there is only intelligent life on Earth, not anywhere else (not kidding).