It’s Friday already? This was a challenging week for me and I gained back one pound. The only saving grace (aka, the thing keeping me from saying “screw it” and hitting the McDonald’s drive-thru) is the fact I can see where I went wrong and, in fact, anticipated not having a happy weight check.
We haven’t had a lot of snow—heck, we’ve barely had winter—so last weekend my husband finally went snowmobiling, which I’d been dreading since starting this endeavor. Husband away equals fast food for lunch and his least favorite restaurants for dinner. Like Uno’s. I’d been promising the short kid Uno’s for two months, but they make my favorite dish in the whole world. Deep dish macaroni and cheese. *cue the diet funeral dirge* They have their nutritional info on their site, so I sat and made a plan before we left since the macaroni and cheese, as served to you, is 56 points. Fifty. Six. (I get 32 for the whole day, for those not familiar with points.) Many of Uno’s menu items have nutritional info for two servings, so what’s on your plate is twice the numbers. Tricky. I had the steak tips, which aren’t super fabulous, but aren’t fifty-six points, either. Mashed instead of fries. Broccolli instead of double fries. Over the course of the weekend, I only dipped into my weekly points a bit and I weighed myself on Monday morning just to see if I’d gained over the weekend. I hadn’t. I stayed the same, which was a victory for me. Big hurdle…hurdled.
The weekdays, though, bit me in the butt. I fell back into my regular habit of not eating breakfast. And my teen had mid-terms which meant he could leave at 12:30 every day. I’d pick him up and we’d go out to lunch but, because I hadn’t had breakfast, I was starving by the time I ordered. And I wanted comfort food. Badly, which was probably a combination of stuff going on for me, plus my body saying “Wait…what? You mean this salad thing wasn’t temporary? We want a cheeseburger!“. And I had to guess the points for a lot of what I ate this week, cobbling meals together from “kinda-close” items in the WW database, which I’m probably not very good at.
So I had to take a pretty glass stone out of my Pounds Lost jar and put it back in the Pounds To Lose jar, which made me incredibly sad.
This week: 1) Don’t let this discourage me as I head into the weekend and 2) eat breakfast and remember to snack on fruit so I don’t hit 1pm ravenous and looking to carbo-load because I am not putting glass stones back in the Pounds To Lose jar next Friday.
How are you all doing?
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I think you did GREAT. You tracked. You faced regular life challenges and dealt with it the best you could. That’s what this is all about in the end. If it were already a perfect world of no stress, etc. then we’d already be at goal weight!
Personally, if it’s a special or favorite dish that I only rarely have, I’ll still order that favorite. That’s what weeklies are for and you don’t want to deprive yourself of the special events and foods because that leads (me) to resentment, which then leads to falling off the wagon completely. Have that mac & cheese (sounds heavenly by the way) and only eat half. Split it with someone, or order it and have them split it in the kitchen for you, putting half in a to-go box. Most restaurants will do so gladly.
Great work, Shannon! I love your glass jars and marbles – I might have to do that myself!
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I gained 2 pounds back last week. I too know where I went wrong and am working to fix it. I now have the added issue of having to remove certain foods from my diet to see if I can get my stomach issues to settle down. As of today I am no longer having dairy, caffeine, or artificial sweeteners in my diet. Makes it really hard point wise to stick with that third one, since sugar will add points.
I love your glass jars and marbles too, and might have to copy you too.
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Joely is right on. You need to find a way to avoid resentment for the process, and that means planning to include your favorites.
You did great with planning the trip to Uno’s by the way — you made some good choices there, and I hope you enjoyed the food. You tracked. You made an effort to learn good choices. It’s a challenge to work your way through the WW database and find what matches with what you’re eating. Once you get things saved as favorites, it gets a little easier, but it can still be clunky.
I, too, love your glass jars and marbles and wonder why I didn’t think of something so elegantly simple and visually pleasing. But I can fix that!
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First – DO NOT beat yourself up. Life is too short. You will not be on your deathbed wishing you’d weighed less.
Second – don’t be concerned about your weight. Be concerned about your health. That’s what matters.
Third – I love your jar and marbles! Your idea?
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Thanks, guys! Rather than being too bummed, I’m trying to see this as a success—rather than giving up, which I’ve done in the past, I’m going to use the regained pound as incentive this week, which will be a victory in its own way.
And I love love love the jars. Not my idea, though. I saw a few different ones on Pinterest and thought it might help. Those were, of course, fabulous works of hand-painted art, but I don’t roll that way. I hit the Walmart craft aisles, got two glass jars and a couple packages of letter stickers and a bag of glass stones.
I think it’ll help on three levels:
1) I have the jars on my kitchen window sill, which I look at a lot because I have many miscellaneous treasures on it. (Which is why I had to slide a piece of white paper under/behind the jars to get a decent shot.) It’s a pretty reminder.
2) Fifty-four is a number and the impact of a number changes with your moods and whatnot. “Fifty-four’s not bad. It’s doable” versus “Ohmigod, how did I ever think I could lose fifty-four pounds?” The visual representation of the number is concrete and, when I look at it, I think it’s not impossible to move those glass stones from one jar to the other, a couple at a time.
3) As I learned today, moving a glass stone back to the “Pounds To Lose” jar isn’t just a shrug and whatever. It’s not a punishment because if the jars make me feel crappy I’ll ignore them and eventually throw them away, but it makes each pound a real thing. Does that make sense? That was a real pound and I lost it and now it’s back. But the other glass stones are still in the “lost” jar. After I remove that one stone I gained back, there are still five stones in the “lost” jar, which are five pounds I’ve lost and didn’t gain back.
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I really need to make those jars. And get back on a diet. Any diet at this point.
I think you did really well! I’m not sure I could have withstood the temptation of deep dish mac and cheese.
Do you have a single-serve blender type of thing? When I was doing WW my magic bullet saved me. For a really easy 1 point smoothie I just made sure I kept unsweetened vanilla almond breeze milk on hand and frozen fruit. Then I could blend 1 cup of the almond milk (1 point) with a banana and whatever frozen fruit I happened to have on hand. Usually strawberries or blueberries. They taste really good, they’re filling, and they’re low points. Plus they’re really easy to make! You could probably throw in some non-fat Greek yogurt for added protein but I hate yogurt and it would just up the points.
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Oh, that sounds awesome, Louise! I’m going to try that.
The other thing I did was set a daily alarm on my iPhone to remind me to have breakfast. Sad, but apparently necessary for me.
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I love the tangibility of the stones–and it works both ways. You see what you have accomplished so far and you see what you set out to do. Great idea!
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I am SOOO BAD at eating breakfast. Like you, I’m home all day, and I’ve never been able to eat right when I get up. Takes me about 2 hours before I can eat. So I get up, get dressed, start doing stuff, and the next thing I know…Hey, look! It’s 3:00. Maybe I should eat breakfast.
SOOOO not good if you’re trying to lose weight.
I’ve found I have to set an alarm for myself, too. Otherwise I won’t eat.
I like the weight watchers chocolate shakes. I make mine with milk, just mixed, not blended or anything, and it’s pretty filling. Plus…chocolate. Yum. LOL. I hear the vanilla mix is good with fruits and some ice in a blender. Haven’t tried that yet, as I don’t know that I own a blender. LOL
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I maintained. Better than nothin’, but still makes me >.< faced.
Mostly via sloppy calorie tracking, using what calories I do have on carbs, and not weighing & measuring my food.
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I am a visual learner, so I really like the glass jars you have. I may have to visit Wal-Mart this weekend to make my own!
Keep up the good work–part of the battle is finding where we slipped up and fixing it the next week!
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I weighed myself for the first time in a while on Sunday, so I’m not due for a weigh-in for a couple of days. I’m still sorting out the nutrition part of what I’m doing (I refuse to call it dieting as I’ve got a lot of baggage with that mindset), but I’ve started doing Just Dance 3’s “Just Sweat” module. I’ve promised myself that I will be doing it every day that I am home through at least February, with the exception of Tuesdays. And that’s only because I’m out the door around 8:30 am and home around 11:30 pm because that’s Trivia Night. I’ve got my jars all set and ready to go and hope to get at least a couple of stones moved over to the “lost” jar on Sunday.
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After a day with a gained-back pound, I think the jars are even more of a good idea than I did before. It really does help keep the focus on the five pounds still in the “lost” jar instead of the one gained, which helped me stay motivated on what could have been a depressing day.
Next week, I will get the treadmill unburied.
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You DIDN’t eat the macaroni. Points for you. I’d call it a good week:)