Annie: Treadmill

We bought a new treadmill a couple of weeks ago (smokin' deal at Canadian Tire), but it took us until this week to get a plastic runner to go under it. (The faithful Mo had advised it was a good idea to avoid putting a treadmill directly on carpet, which I have in my basement - the little fibres get sucked into it and can clog up the works over time.)

So today was my first activity points session on it - and I have to say, it was far, far more enjoyable than the same 35 minutes on my bike. I don't know whether it's because it's all new, but I actually enjoyed it!

I started out doing 3.5 mph, and quickly realized that wasn't going to be sustainable for 35 minutes, so slowed it down to 3.2, then back up gradually to 3.4, where I spent about 15 minutes before slowing down again.

My bad knee is quite stiff tonight - not great. But the good news is I was able to get booked for a cortisone shot just before Christmas, so hopefully that'll make the knee a little more cooperative for another few months.

It was satisfying to know I was sustaining a pace. That was one of the things that bugged me about the bike - every once in a while I'd catch myself slacking a bit, and would wonder how long I'd been doing that. This way, I'll at least be able to hold myself accountable for every session.

I hate calling it a "workout," it seems so lame. What's a better thing to call it, that doesn't make me think of the hairy spandex-clad ape-men at the Gold's Gym I attended for a very brief time in Montreal in the late 80s?

I have 8 points left for today, but am scared to eat them because they'll show up on the scale in the morning. But I left points on the table yesterday, too (story will follow, with my weigh-in tomorrow), so that's not a good idea.

Hmmm. What to eat?

Nighty-night, blog.

Annie: Double Down.

(Photo from KFC website)

Haha, panic not! I didn't eat one!

Mainstream media and Twitter alike have been a-twitter with accounts of ordinary Canadians' encounters with KFC's new, sodium-and-fat-laced "sandwich" featuring bacon and cheese between two deep-fried pieces of chicken. College kids are making trips to KFC and positioning the meal as a test of strength and endurance. It's a lot of hype, all centered around how bad this thing is for you.

But how bad is it, really? It depends on what you count.

KFC Canada's nutritional information site gives the following stats for the Double Down:

Calories: 540
Total Fat (g): 30
Fibre: 0

... which puts it at 13 points -- or the same as a Big Mac.  So, bad, for sure, but not suicide in a paper wrapper. At least, not immediate suicide.

Not to defend the Double Down, but it did get me thinking. Does it deserve the super-bad rap? A recent story in the London Free Press talked about how a single egg yolk has more cholesterol than a KFC Double Down - a fact that surprised me.

So I spent a little time on my beloved Dotti's app (which I posted about here, in case you missed it), and found some restaurant food points values that surprised me... and maybe put the Double Down in a bit of perspective. According to Dotti:

Tim Hortons: wheat carrot muffin - 9

[Really? A wheat carrot muffin is almost 3/4 of the way, points-wise, to a Double-Down? What else could surprise me?]

Things which you'd think were better than a KFC Double Down but are, in fact, worse (according to Dotti's calculations, at least)

Earls:
Roasted chicken quesadilla - 16.5
Hunan Kung Pao with shrimp - 26
Hot chicken caesar salad - 28

Boston Pizza
Ciabatta chicken sandwich with garden greens - 21.5
Pad Thai with chicken - 42

Now, this is just counting calories, fat and fibre to calculate points: KFC's Original Recipe Double Down also contains 1380 mg of sodium. (Hello, blood pressure meds!)

If you want to go the "healthy" route, you can order the Grilled Double Down instead, for only 11 points... but it has even more sodium, at 1430 mg.

Ahem, to be clear.

I'm not suggesting by any means that the KFC Double Down is a reasonable food choice (incidentally, and fortunately for me, I find the idea repulsive. Who'd want a sandwich without the bread, for goodness sakes, haha!).

But I do think it's a good argument for paying very close attention to nutritional guides, ingredient lists, and measurements wherever you can, because clearly the "bad guys" on the menu can be in disguise.

Imagine turning down a 16-point slice of pizza (or two!) in favour of the more dietarily righteous Pad Thai, only to discover later that you'd blown your day's points, the flex bank was empty, and you owed 90 minutes on the bike before you were allowed to go to bed!

Yeesh.

Annie: Weigh-in week 2

Yes, Mae's party featured some very, very delicious finger foods -- which, I'd have to say, are my most dangerous of danger foods. I could eat cheese, crackers, little sandwiches, hors d'oeuvres, etc etc all day long and never feel like I'd eaten anything! 

Mae, if you did go over by a few points yesterday, I'd be willing to bet you'd find yourself down another pound if you weighed yourself in a day or two. Not that I'm saying you should -- but without getting gross about it, sometimes the weight of the food we've eaten shows up on the scale even if said food will, er, be eliminated a few hours later.

I was lucky to be able to leave Mae's house of temptation and come home to the land of shrimp and vegetables, haha!

Weigh day rituals

As I showered this morning, I thought about the ladies who used to attend my Saturday morning meetings, and the rituals they all admitted to following on weigh day. The idea was to get rid of anything that might possibly weigh you down at the scale. So:

• nothing to eat or drink all morning, of course (water is heavy!)
• legs and underarms shaved
• eyebrows plucked
• cuticles trimmed
• teeth flossed
• a trip to the bathroom immediately before getting in line for the scale
• shoes, jackets, sweaters, earrings off

So funny! There was even a woman who had first come to WW in the summertime, so her initial weigh-in had been in shorts and a t-shirt. She was so terrified of seeing that number go up as heavier winter clothes became required (jeans weigh up to 5 lbs, I'm told?) that she would come in dressed like a normal person in sub-zero weather, then change into her shorts and t-shirt to get weighed, then change back before heading back out. I'm not judging: you've got to do what you've got to do.

Lost this week: 2
Lost so far: 7
Still remaining: 93
Weeks to go: 50

I am going to be really happy when that "still remaining" number starts with an 8.

And next Thanksgiving I will read that last sentence and realize how far I've come... I hope.

Annie: APP NEWS!!

Yes, those caps and exclamation marks are called for!

A few posts back, Mae talked about an excellent mobile app called iWatchr, which contains a points calculator, a food/points log and a weight tracker (and some other stuff, but these are the things I use). I use it all the time - I'm well known to wander up and down the food aisles in the grocery store, iPhone in hand, calculating whether or not to buy products.  (Someday, there'll be an app that uses the camera to scan product barcodes and list points values!).  I love it.  Weight Watchers doesn't have an app available in Canada yet, so until they do, this is my go-to app. For $0.99 in the iTunes store, I don't think you can go wrong.

At lunchtime, as I stood in the line at Tim Hortons wishing I'd checked Dotti's Weight Loss Zone for the points before going out, I pulled out my iPhone and went to the site using the browser.  And lo and behold, what did I find? There's a brand new Dotti's app!

If you didn't know about Dotti's site (note: link is to the Canadian Restaurant page, but you can connect back to the US restaurant page from there too), let me tell you a bit about it.  Dotti is a woman who lost more than a hundred pounds using Weight Watchers, and who has, together with her online collaborators, collected menus and nutritional information from loads of restaurants. The site is a bit busy, but it is full of great information and resources; you can look up restaurants by name, and it provides nutritional info and points values for their menu items.

She launched it about a month ago, and for this month only, is selling it for $2.99 in the iTunes store (it'll be $9.99 next month). I downloaded it immediately and was really impressed: when I called up Tim Hortons Canada (she offers points lists for both Canadian and US restaurants, even when they're international chains), it was organized by menu item type (donuts, bagels, muffins, sandwiches, beverages, etc.). It's well-organized and and easy to use; she says it contains all the information from her site.

If you are on WW and you tend to eat out, I'd highly recommend picking up the Dotti's app.