Annie: what happens now

I promise, I do intend to post the second half of my "figuring it out" blog -- I just have to get myself out of a little time crunch I'm currently in.  But in the meantime, I wanted to just touch base with my handful of loyal readers about where this blog will go from here.

As you may have noticed, my posts have gotten pretty thin in recent months... truthfully, I haven't found that much new to say every week.

While I've crossed the 100-pound line (in fact, 103 pounds as of yesterday morning!), I don't feel like I'm quite done: now that I know what my body looks like/how it behaves at this weight, I think I'd like to try to lose another 10.  But I'm not going to keep posting results every Monday - I fully expect I'll keep following the plateau 3 weeks/lose 1 or 2 pattern, and it would be as boring for me to write as it would be for you to read!

Sometime in the next month or so, I'm also going to hit a Weight Watchers meeting to find out how maintenance works on the new program, as it may have changed since my last go-round. I'll likely post about that, whenever I find the time to fit the meeting in!

I promise, though, to complete the narrative of this blog, with a final post after the 10K race on Thanksgiving weekend. It's only a month away, and I can't wait!

Annie: weigh-in week 47

Had a little cry this morning.

Loss this week: 3.1 
Lost so far: 100.6 
Still remaining: 0
Activity points earned this week: 36
Weeks to go: 5

Annie: weigh-in week 41

As expected, this week's weigh-in reflects a re-settling of the water stores. Interestingly (to me), I was even down another 2 lbs for a few days last week, before re-gaining them (and the additional 0.6) for weigh-in yesterday. What a strange system.

Could the wee gain also be partially related to the TWO movies I attended over the weekend, at EACH of which I consumed a small bag of movie popcorn, at about a kajillion milligrams of sodium apiece? Possibly! Worth it? As my idol Sarah Palin would say, "you betcha!"

[Permission to commence flaming in the comments.]

I had the Points headroom for the popcorn, so I just entered it and enjoyed it. If the sodium did actually contribute to water gain, it'll be gone by next week. It's surprising how OK I've become with that.

A few notes from this week.

1. As much as I'm a blowhard about all this here, hidden by my blog, I'm still humiliated by this whole thing.

I've only revealed this blog to people I trust not to judge me.

It's a funny thing - anyone who looked at me a year ago (and even a few months ago) could have told you I had an unhealthy approach to feeding myself. It was no secret, it was visible to the naked eye. So why is it so humiliating to admit to?

You might say: people will be supportive of your efforts to deal with your problem.
I might say: yes, but they'll still be thinking of me as a person with a weakness they don't have, and will judge me for it.

You might say: people think about your weight far less than you think they do.
I might say: probably true, but that has absolutely no impact on how I feel about anything.

You might say: but you've lost almost 100 pounds! You're not that person anymore!
I would definitely say: I am exactly that same person; I just wear smaller clothes now.

It's a long, long road to being OK with all this... which leads me to note #2.


2. Say what you will about Oprah, she is very brave when it comes to her struggles with food, and deserves a huge amount of respect. 

I don't watch Oprah as a rule, but I saw ads for yesterday's show last week and wasn't going to miss it: it was 100 of her viewers who've each lost more than 100 lbs, having been inspired by something they saw on her show.

She kicked off the show with a retrospective about her own struggle with her weight and with food addiction, in a way that I appreciated for its candour. Given my hang-ups about admitting to my weight, my weight problem, and my food issues, especially given that I don't have an entire industry of tabloid "journalists" and comedians making it their careers to publicly ridicule me for my failings, I can't imagine what balls it must take for her to talk openly about it. Wow.

But then...

3. I wish Oprah would change her language about weight.

As she described her guests' struggles with their weight, Oprah used language like "her weight ballooned to...". I would have expected Oprah to understand how words can hurt. Or maybe I'm just too sensitive.

4. I don't see my weight loss the way other "big losers" seem to.

In that same show, Oprah talked with selected guests about their own weight losses, and each time, showed their "before" pictures. As she discussed their accomplishments and journeys, she asked them what they would tell that person in the "before" picture, and most said something along the lines of "if you don't deal with this, you're going to die."

That's not what I'd tell 90-pounds-ago me, though it's very possibly true.

I'd tell the smiling woman in my "before" pictures "you feel alone, but you're not."  Though I have always been surrounded by people who love and support and value me, being that big was the loneliest feeling I've ever had.

Nowadays, I don't feel that way as much - I think I "blend in" better with the rest of the population... visually, at least. But I'm not really one of them: I still struggle with food every single day, regardless of my size.

I am a very fat girl in a less-fat body.  Will that ever change? I've no idea.

Time will tell, I guess.

GAIN this week: 0.6
Lost so far: 89.2
Still remaining: 10.8
Activity points earned this week: 38
Weeks to go: 11

Annie: weigh-in week 39

Trust the program.
Trust the program.
Trust the program.

This was my mantra for the latter part of this week, as I found on returning home from my fabulous runs and austerity eating at the farm that my weight still hadn't budged an ounce. I was pissed off, quite frankly - and actually forced myself to go back a few weeks to the post after my last plateau, in which I talked about how you need to trust the program and the loss will follow.

Past me lectured current (at the time) me, which enabled future me (at the time, now known as today me) to actually achieve a loss, rather than the gain that would inevitably have followed eating my frustration in french fries.

Thanks, past me!   :)

I took Child to Kelsey's tonight for dinner (making good on a promise, following a bout of unusually good behaviour!), and was faced once again with a challenging menu. Luckily, Kelsey's posts its nutritional information online; unluckily, there's not much there for folks who are watching what they're doing from a weight-management perspective.

In the past, I've had the fajitas - which are quite yummy, but when consumed with the tortillas (as if they wouldn't be?) they amount to 22 PointsPlus... a bit rich for my blood.  While the salads look pretty good, they are also fat-laden - they all seem to sport bacon or guacamole or a creamy dressing.

So tonight, I tried the vegetarian pizza. The good news is that it really is delicious - tomatoes, spinach, onions on a nice crust with generous cheese (next time I'll ask them to go light on the cheese - I think it could have half as much and still be good); the bad news is it's 25 PointsPlus. But it's also quite big (I'm going to say a foot in diameter?), so I ate half for supper and will have the other half for lunch tomorrow. Ran today and will again tomorrow, so I'll have an extra Activity Points cushion.

I'm not normally a "box it up and take the rest home" person - it's unusual for me not to finish a meal in a restaurant, no matter how big the portion. But this is so big that I was able to do that and still feel satisfied. Thanks, Kelsey's!

I'm surprised at the number of major restaurant chains that don't post their nutritional info (I'm looking at you, Moxie's!). While doing so does expose the unhealthy truth, it also allows we counters to count. If I can't count it I won't eat it... so a formerly fairly regular customer at Moxie's hasn't been there in 9 months. I'm sure they don't miss me... but imagine how many of us there are out there, eating at Kelsey's because they publish the info!

There's my rant. Pray for another loss next week - this plateau for 3, lose for 1 pattern is getting to me!

Loss this week: 2.0
Lost so far: 85
Still remaining: 15
Activity points earned this week: 41
Weeks to go: 13

Annie: weigh-in week 37 and new food finds

A word for the scale: pfft.

I left ALL my bonus points on the table this week, and only ate 2/3 of my activity points... and was up on the scale this morning. I've been weighing myself every morning because my new running log wants me to (yes, I'm that type A), and while they say you shouldn't do that if you're trying to lose weight, it helps me on days like today. From last Wednesday until yesterday, I was down 0.7 - and then this morning, I was up. Was it water retention after the fabulously salty Baked Cheetos I enjoyed last night? Probably, but it doesn't matter. I know I'm following my program, I'm getting loads of exercise, I'm drinking my water etc etc etc... so it'll come off. Next week, or the week after... I just have to not focus on the scale.

I've made a few new food discoveries lately I figured I should share - this blog has picked up a few new readers I know who are undertaking their own fitness projects (hello!), so I thought I should share these.

1) Janet and Greta's Gourmet Chicken Burgers

I picked these up at Costco last weekend on a whim, and I think they are fantastic.

I must begin by stating that I am generally not a big fan of burgers that aren't beef. (OK, Mae, I'm ready for you: let me have it!) I love turkey and chicken, but not when they are disguised as something else (like, for instance, turkey bacon: I'd just as soon have ham for the same points). The one exception is Hormel turkey pepperoni, which kicks ass, but I think I've blogged about that before. (If not, try it: I've only seen it in America to date, but it's worth carrying across the border for pizza cravings.)

At any rate, these chicken burgers are great. They're from the Podleski sisters of Eat, Shrink & Be Merry fame (so The Faithful Mo will likely like them!), they're only 5 PP each -- and they're a pretty decent size. They're fully cooked, so you just warm them however you want: I had one done on the BBQ last weekend, and then took them, cold, in hamburger buns to work this week and they were great. Nicely seasoned, yummy. In Husband's words, a "definite do-again!"

2)  Bolthouse Farms Light salad dressings

These, I found at Safeway, in the refrigerated salad stuff department. They're yogurt-based, and I have both the "Classic Ranch" and the "Caesar Parmigiano" - they're both really, really good. They don't have that weird "pop" in the mouth many light salad dressings give you (I don't know what that is, but it's mildly disturbing) - I actually find they taste like they're made with sour cream as opposed to yogurt. Husband likes the caesar one so much he's requested it on all our caesar salads from now on (as opposed to my having this one and the rest of the family having a yummy PP-laden one, like the Renee's caesar dressing we've been using forever).

At ONE point per tablespoon, you can't go wrong!

Mae and I took a quick trip to America on Saturday, and I stocked up on all kinds of great WW-friendly foods we can't get here: a wide assortment of Weight Watchers and Lean Cuisine entrees we can't get (I almost always have one of these for lunch at work); fat-free cheese and Laughing Cow light wedge cheeses in a variety of flavours not available here; Hormel turkey pepperoni; Hebrew National 97% fat free beef franks; Fiber One yogurt; and, of course, 2-point 100 Grand bars, haha!  Also stocked up on 2-point Baby Ruths for The Faithful Mo.  :)

GAIN this week: 0.6
Lost so far: 82.4
Still remaining: 17.6
Activity points earned this week: 39
Weeks to go: 15

Annie: weigh-in week 36

My "pounds to go" number is so close to my "weeks to go" number! Thought I'd crossed the line this week at first, but my math was off, haha.

As suspected, this week the loss I've been earning over the last couple of weeks turned up on the scale. The big lesson here is for someone just starting out on a weight-loss project: they tell you not to focus too much on the scale, and they're right (though, let's admit it, it's just about impossible not to, to a degree).

Over the course of this project I've had big losses in weeks I wouldn't have expected them, and plateaus (yes, Mo, I checked! My dictionary accepts both eaus and eaux!) where I didn't think I deserved them. As The Faithful Mo said in a comment way, way back when this blog began: think of your weight loss as a marathon, not a sprint. Focus on what you have to do to reach the finish line, and trust your program... the loss will take care of itself. I'm living proof!

Here's the graph of my loss since the beginning of The Thanksgiving Project, as generated by the Weight Watchers eTools.

You can see the little blips and flatter parts, but the downward slope tells the story. The plateaus aren't even that long... they just seem that way when you're in one.

So this week's lesson? Keep your eye on the prize!

Loss this week: 3.5
Lost so far: 83
Still remaining: 17
Activity points earned this week: 30
Weeks to go: 16

Annie: George Eliot

I watched the season finale of Brothers & Sisters this week, and was struck by Nora Walker's quote from George Eliot at the end: "It is never too late to be what you might have been."

"Was" vs. "might have been"

I was "fat" in my mind long before my body was overweight.

I look at pictures from high school, and my heart breaks to see a girl embarrassed to have her picture taken because her size 12 dress is so embarrassingly huge.

It became a self-fulfilling prophecy: the less I believed in myself, the less I took care of myself. I hated my appearance and battled my weight throughout my teens, twenties, thirties (except for about a month after I lost the 70 lbs in 2003), and the first couple of years of my forties.

Then, after years of gentle support, The Faithful Mo broke through.

Not that Mo was responsible for this Thanksgiving Project - that was my own, latest "big idea" to get myself together. (It followed far too many other unsuccessful "big ideas" to even mention.) With that said, when I floated the idea with her (you have to realize this was likely the 50th "big idea" she'd had to listen to, and might well have expected to suffer the same fate as all the others), she was enthusiastic and promised to be a faithful reader (which, as you might have noticed from our comments, she is!).

But the difference between this time and all the other times is that this time, I'm actually liking my body.

Not how it looks naked - frankly, I don't know if that will ever happen! Had I gotten my act together in my 20s, maybe... But how it works, and what it can do. And that's where Mo gets the credit.

In 2003, I lost the weight, fine. But it was all about food, even then. I counted carefully, I journaled faithfully... until I stopped doing those things. And then everything was back to "normal" - I ate huge volumes of garbage, I didn't exercise, and I gained it all back.

Now, though the food remains a struggle (and always will), I am actually enjoying exercise, for the first time in my life.

As a kid I played hours and hours of tennis, and loved it - but not because it was exercise, because it was fun. Getting older, I didn't have all day and all night to play, and I moved away from my tennis-playing friends and family... and my body didn't cooperate the way it had before. While I had never been a particularly good tennis player, the playing had come easily (physically). Now, it no longer did.

So for decades now, I'd been hating all forms of exercise - until I started to run.

I won't say that running is "fun" for me, or even that I exactly enjoy doing it. But I love the feeling of having done it each and every time I go out -- and I love the feeling that I can do it. I never believed I could, but I can.

Mo, and her husband, and our brother and sister-in-law, and my own husband, all runners, told me I could run if I wanted to -- but for years I simply didn't believe them. My body had let me down in so many ways for so many years - orthopedic problems, arthritis, miscarriages, etc etc... I just had no faith that it could do anything beyond simple survival. Mo tried again and again, gently, to encourage me, but my faith in my own body was so low that I never even tried, until now.

Thanksgiving Project + Mo's 5K training program = the key

Today, I sat outside on the front step and changed out the laces on my running shoes to new special ones I bought at The Running Room (they apparently won't come untied while you're running - a big problem for me for some reason!). As I laced them up, I found myself excited for tomorrow morning's run, to try them out.

Me, excited to go out tomorrow morning and try out new shoelaces.

I still kind of can't believe it, and I don't think about it too much, because I'm afraid somehow the spell will break. After all, it's only been a couple of months, after more than 20 years of hating my body and having no faith in it.

But that Eliot line struck something in me, and somehow gave me permission to accept that maybe I can be a runner, and maybe I can be comfortable with my body, however it ends up looking.

I'm 42 now, and I'm angry to think of how my "good" years (beauty-wise!) were wasted in this vicious food battle. But, with luck, 42 isn't the end of the line, and if that's how long it took me to find my stride, then I should just be thankful that it didn't take me until 52. Or 62. Or, terrifyingly, until it was too late.

It's never too late to be what you might have been.

I have faith, and I feel good, starting now.

Thanks Mo.   :)

Annie: weigh-in week 26

Wow - it's been half a year.

I had a lovely afternoon yesterday with an old friend who is planning a WW adventure of her own in the next little while - we talked about food, and the program, and running, on top of all the usual topics. (The "usual topics" are what our kids were up to, on their play date happening at all points in my house!)

Over tea, we chatted about our challenges. She seems inspired by the success I've been having, and I am inspired that she's motivated to get healthier, even though she's currently just over my GOAL weight! Smart people get in control before things get so bad that they have 100 lbs to lose - I get that now, and admire her for it.  :o)

I know more about the WW program, but she knows more about running, so we'll be in good position to support each other as she gets underway!

It's funny to think about how I'm only halfway through the year, but a fair bit beyond the half-way mark on the weight loss goal I had set for The Thanksgiving Project. It's a good thing it's worked out this way, because I know the early pounds go much more quickly than the later ones... it's good to know I have a bit of progress in-hand for when the next plateau comes.

What else is funny, is that I feel like I'm almost there. I mean, I know I'm not: I still have 35 pounds to go, and that's a lot. And even then, my goal weight is a goal weight set by my doctor given my body shape, and well above the recommended "healthy" BMI for my height.  So really, I'm not "almost there" by any objective measure.

But I have to say, I am feeling so good right now. I feel fit, I feel pretty, and I feel like I'm in control.

It feels good!

I hope I have a while to enjoy this before the next plateau.  :o)

Loss this week: 2.9
Lost so far: 65.1
Still remaining: 34.9
Activity points earned this week: 18
Weeks to go: 26

Annie: weigh-in week 25

Well, this is quite a roller-coaster ride I am on - hopefully things will settle back down for me, now that I seem (fingers crossed!) to be healthy again.

And while this week, and last week, and the week before that all seem ridiculous weight-loss wise, consider this: I am down 7 pounds from 4 weeks ago, which is just about what I would expect in normal times. So one way or another, things seem to work out as they should, once the rest of the noise is taken out of the equation.

I have a couple of things I want to explore here - but no time tonight. I hope to get back to them later in the week. In the meantime, keep your fingers crossed for me: tomorrow is my first attempt at walk 4, run 4. Eek!

Loss this week: 8.7
Lost so far: 62.2
Still remaining: 37.8
Activity points earned this week: 20
Weeks to go: 27

Annie: Even Tim's is on board!

Note: this is our 100th post!    :o)

I realized this evening as I rolled up the rim on my Tim's cup that even the Tim's gods are conspiring to help me stick to my program.

Over the course of the current campaign, I've rolled about 10 or 12 winners - all coffee! No cookies, no donuts.

Thanks, Tim's!

Annie: Weigh-in week 20

Well, I hope that's the last of the plateau for the next little while - that was mentally exhausting.

There are a few reasons I might have finally broken through this week:

1. I cut out all eating after 8pm, and focused on getting my PP in earlier in the day. As a likely consequence, I felt even hungrier than usual, which may have led to...
2. I ate almost half my "weekly points allowance" over and above my daily allotment; this may have jump-started the metabolism after weeks of barely eating any of them?
3. I was in America for 2 days, during which time I ate in restaurants; while I didn't eat as much volume as I normally do (because of the PP), I figure what I was eating was likely higher in fat than I normally eat - which could have had the same effect as #2, above.
4. I may have finally outlasted the impact of the abandoned diuretic; maybe my water stores are back in balance. Or,
5. Maybe I had just done my time, and the plateau would have ended without any of the above.

Either way, I don't care.

Oh, and it sure feels good to see the "still remaining" number smaller than the "lost so far" number, regardless of how big the "still remaining" number is!

Loss this week: 4
Lost so far: 52.6
Still remaining: 47.4
Activity points earned this week: 20
Weeks to go: 32

Annie: Pictures

If this morning's sneak peek at the scale is any indication, I will have a big milestone to report on Monday. :o)

And, given that Husband is actually home this weekend, and the sun is shining, and it's not 50 below, I figured this was as good a time as any to do the long-promised photo comparison of then vs. now.

I have to begin with a disclaimer: I know the looseness of my clothes, especially my tops, is very unhelpful when it comes to before and after weight-loss pictures. But I don't wear spandex unless I'm alone, or it's just Husband and Child or perhaps the Faithful Mo around... so this is just what it's going to have to be!  :o)

With that said, I can still see a difference - I hope you can too.

Annie: Hidden trap of new Program

I've discovered a "trap" in the new Weight Watchers PointsPlus program that's really just common sense when you think about it, but which could really slow your loss if you don't. Which I hadn't, before this week.

On the new PointsPlus program, all fruit and most vegetables are PointsPlus free - so you can eat them (in reasonable portions) without any impact on your daily PointsPlus allotment.

The idea behind this apparently arose when Weight Watchers members (like me, I have to admit) tended to choose a two-point bag of cookies over a two-point banana in keeping to their points allotments. If you only had so many points to use, and fruit cost points, you were less likely to choose fruit than other things you felt you were missing out on.

The result was that Weight Watchers members did lose weight, but they weren't developing the healthy eating habits the program was striving for. So they changed the entire way food values are calculated, and made fruits and most veggies (exceptions: starchy things like potatoes, peas, corn, some beans, etc.) "free."

The warning

When they rolled this out, we were warned that we should still be mindful of serving sizes when it came to fruits and veggies - don't think you can eat a bushel of apples a day and lose weight as quickly as you would only eating one or two (they still do have calories, after all). Choose a piece of fruit for a snack, increase the proportion of vegetables in your meals, and you'll have more success -- but don't "abuse" the new rules about fruits and veggies.

The trap

A friend of mine gave me a recipe a while back for a spaghetti squash stuffed with ground beef, rice, carrots/celery and some low-fat mushroom soup -- it's baked, with reduced-fat cheese on top. By her calculation, it should have been around 10 PointsPlus (for the meat, rice, soup and cheese - the squash should be zero). 

Mae's Mister christened the dish "Meat Boat," as your serving is half the squash with all that stuff baked in the middle.

Because I am a stickler (spelled O-C-D) about the points, I ran it through the Weight Watchers "Recipe Builder" on the eTools section of the members-only site, and was shocked by the result: 15 PointsPlus!

PP value in the list: 45. At bottom: 59.

I thought, there must be some mistake - if you look at the PointsPlus values of the ingredients listed, they don't add up to that much.

So I ran another recipe through: a yummy soup from the Podleski sisters' Eat, Shrink & Be Merry cookbook (thanks Mo!) called "Gourdian Angel." On the face of it, it should be about 1 PP per bowl (it's all fruit and veggies, except for fat-free chicken broth, a bit of oil, and some evaporated low-fat milk). But when I ran it: 3 PP ber bowl.

PP value in the list: 7. At bottom: 21.

Again, the total number of PP per recipe was significantly higher than the counted PP in the list.

It's disappointing, but it makes sense

It only makes sense that a meal largely composed of vegetables and fruit would have to be counted like other food, even if they tell us fruits and veggies are points-free.

If you filled up on fruits and veggies at every meal, and then used all your alloted PointsPlus on top of that, and ate all 49 of your Weekly PointsPlus Allowance, it makes sense that your loss would be slower than it might otherwise... or that you might even gain.  But in your mind, you'd have been following the program.

I don't know why this surprised me, but I'm glad I figured it out before I wasted too many weeks' progress over a misunderstanding of how this program works.

I'm going to bring it up at the meeting on Wednesday, because many if not most of the meetings members don't use the eTools, so they may have no way of knowing the difference.

Annie: When you just can't believe it

I took Child to Kelsey's for supper tonight - we had to be out and about running errands.

Kelsey's, while not fancy, serves good food, is very friendly to children, and provides nutritional info on its website for all its menu items: so was exactly what I needed on this Friday evening.

I have been there once before since starting this project with Mae, and decided on the "sizzling chicken fajitas." According to my PointsPlus counter and the nutritional information I found on Kelsey's website, it came out to 16 PP including both the fajita skillet and the "fajita setup" with sour cream and salsa. (The "setup" plate also includes some shredded cheese, diced tomatoes, shredded lettuce and sliced jalapenos.)

The nutritional info chart did say "see below for rice and tortillas" right below the fajitas entry, but since the "fajita setup" entry was immediately below the fajitas entry, I assumed the tortillas and rice were included in the setup.

What's that they say about "assume"?  Yeah yeah.

Fast forward to tonight, as I look critically at the fabulous sizzling fajita dinner before me... and realize there's no way on Earth all this is only 16PP.  I mean, there must be 2 breasts' worth of chicken, oil in the onion/pepper skillet, there's the cheese, there's about 1/4 cup sour cream (which I don't use, but which they would have had to count), and there's at least a cup of southwestern rice (looked more like two). PLUS the four tortillas.

So on arriving home, I head back to the nutritional info guide, and sure enough, way down at the bottom with the side dishes like french fries (even though you can't order tortillas as a side dish), are additional counts for the tortillas and the rice.

The tortillas alone are 6 -- I didn't bother to count the rice because I don't eat it, but I figure it would be in the neighbourhood of 12.

As it turns out I had enough PP today to be able to "afford" everything I'd eaten, but that could have been a heartbreaker!

Lesson learned for next time. Read the whole nutritional info document, just in case!

Annie: iWatchr has caught up

Just a quick post to let you know that the iWatchr app ($0.99 in the iTunes app store), which was our fave before the Weight Watchers app was available in Canada, issued an update this past week to make it work easily with the new PointsPlus program.

Before now, as Mae discovered using her sleuthing skills, you could enter new formulae into the "custom" tab to calculate points on the new program, but now you don't even have to do that: clicking on the "US" tab now gives you the choice of old program (cals/fat/fibre) or new program (fat/carbs/fibre/protein).

While the Weight Watchers app is excellent for anyone using the online tools (i.e. paying the monthly fee for eTools), iWatchr is a great alternative for those who aren't (that is, as long as you don't mind using a non-Weight Watchers sanctioned product).

I first started using the iWatchr app before there was a WW app in Canada - I was paying full freight for the eTools, but they didn't include an app at the time. Now that I have the WW app, which incorporates both the calculator and real-time journaling, I don't often use the iWatchr anymore -- but I'm still glad to have it because I know someday the WW app will be down, or I'll give up my eTools, and I'll still have an option.

New program requires calculator; new program doesn't (always) provide calculator

As far as I know, every iteration of the Points-based program until now has included a cardboard "Points slider" that allowed the member to calculate the exact Points value of every food she consumed. Now, though, since the calculation involves four variables, that format can't work -- so WW has gone to a "you-must-buy-our-Points-calculator-if-you-want-to-calculate-PointsPlus" model. Which is fine, I guess -- as long as they have the calculators available for sale.

At the meetings I've been attending for the last few weeks, there's been a shortage of the calculators, which means some new members who've joined up have had to pay for the meeting fees and been given all the materials except the PointsPlus calculator -- which means they can only follow the program to a certain point, then they're in the dark.

The materials WW gives you when you join provide average PointsPlus values for a number of foods -- but as the organization has always pointed out, you can never be sure you've got an accurate Points value unless you calculate it yourself using the nutritional information on the label of your food.

So new members who haven't been lucky enough to get one of the new calculators are without that advantage - and are limited to eating the foods listed in the handbook if they want to be able to count.

That's pretty rotten, I think. So I say to new members: if you have smartphones (or an iPod touch), get the iWatchr! At less than a buck, it might make the $16/week you're spending on meetings a whole lot more valuable to you.

Annie: weigh-in week 14

This looks better than it is, thanks largely to the problem with my scale - but I'll take it!

I do note that I'm up 0.5 lbs since Friday, when I first tried the Wii scale - harrumph. There's no reason for it, particularly, though - food in/food out, water in/water out, eventually!

Off now to the treadmill...

Lost this week: 5.5 (not likely true, but need to balance last week's reading with this week's)
Lost so far: 41.5
Still remaining: 58.5
Activity points earned this week: 24
Weeks to go: 38

Annie: Weigh-in week 13

I'm not sure what to tell you about my result this week - my scale has decided to become flaky. I must have weighed myself at least 10 times, and I don't think I ever got the same weight twice (consecutively, anyway). They ranged between having lost 1.8 and 5.8 -- the latter of which I'm pretty sure is impossible, given I haven't had anything amputated this week.

I tried changing the battery on the scale -- it was 8 years old, at least -- but that didn't seem to change anything.

At least I will be hitting a meeting on Wednesday night, so I'll be able to track my loss since the previous Wednesday (though of course the meeting weigh-ins don't happen in the nude or on an empty stomach!).

Otherwise, it's been a good week, the highlight of which was the after-meeting sushi I shared with Mae and another friend of ours after last Wednesday's meeting.  :o)

On another note: week 13 marks the 25% mark in our year-long project. We're a quarter of the way there!
Lost this week: 1.8 (?)
Lost so far: 36
Still remaining: 64
Activity points earned this week: 20
Weeks to go: 39

Annie: Have 4 points to spare?

A delicious discovery from yesterday: M&M Meats Shops' hot & spicy chicken wings!

ONE POINTSPLUS POINT EACH!

Annie: Weigh-in week 12

Wow - it's been three months, and we're both still going!

Mae and I had (I thought!) a great brunch yesterday with a girlfriend of ours who is also beginning a weight loss program today. We had Hungry Girl's "Ginormous Oven Baked Omelette" and turkey bacon - huge breakfast, 5 PointsPlus (well OK, mine was 7 because I had seconds of the omelette!). Yum!

This week wasn't as tough as last in terms of willpower, since we don't tend to do much for new year's (as it turns out, babysitters like to go out on new year's eve!). I was also able to hit the treadmill pretty much whenever I wanted, since I was off work, and got some good sleeps in too.

It's back to work tomorrow, though, so I will be sad to say goodbye to my couple of weeks of having fun and doing whatever I wanted whenever I wanted.

On the bright side, though, it will be easier to get through the day without eating, since I can bring my lunches and will otherwise not have time (or opportunity) to be snacking, really. While I've enjoyed being able to sleep in a bit and treadmill without too much worry, it'll be nice not to be face to face with my fridge all day long!

Lost this week: 2
Lost so far: 34.2
Still remaining: 65.8
Activity points earned this week: 24
Weeks to go: 40

Annie: I ran for two minutes!

Haha, I know, big deal. But to me, it really is!

I've been reading John Stanton's book "Running," which I wrote about in my last post. One of the pieces of advice he gives is that you should look to increase your challenge to yourself in your workouts somehow every week or so, both to push yourself to improve and to guard against boredom.

At my stage of the game, I'm pretty sure that just getting back on the treadmill multiple times a week is taking care of improving things - so I'm not too worried about that. But I am easily bored when exercising, which is why I was always better at sports like tennis, which involve some competition and keeping track of score (even if I usually lost!) than individual, solitary sports like running. Once my mind starts to wander, I'm sunk.

Last week I added a couple of minutes to the duration of my treadmill sessions (now up to 42) - today, I added a couple of minutes of honest to goodness running: one at the 18:30 mark and one at 29:00.

I can't believe I will ever be able to run many minutes consecutively - but I've also read numerous testimonials of runners who've said the very same thing. Stanton himself talks about having started out overweight, running in the wee hours of the morning so his neighbours wouldn't see him struggling to make it from lamppost to lamppost. So we'll see!

The other thing that keeps me from getting bored? The new playlist the faithful Mo made for me! It has something like 76 songs on it, so I'm good for a couple of weeks before I run into repeats. It's great! She's going to make me a race playlist for Ottawa, which I'll hear for the first time that day - fun!

I've already requested that a song from my latest playlist be included... here it is (turns out I'm a Flo Rida fan - who knew?!). I dare you to sit still!