Annie: Inspiration

A few hours from now, my little sister will set off on her first full marathon - from Marathon, to Athens, Greece.

She's always been a runner, and has run a few half-marathons in the last few years; but she had made herself a promise years ago that she'd run a full one before she turned 40 (she even has a couple of years to spare!).

I always knew running a full marathon was an enormous accomplishment, but until following her training (as a listening ear, of course, not actually doing it!), I never fully appreciated what tremendous commitment is required over a long period of time, to build the physical and emotional stamina required to do it -- even for someone who was in excellent condition before starting to train.

Over the last two weeks, I've had my moments of weakness, when I've thought about doing the same thing I've done hundreds of times in the last 7 years: give up, eat some crap, skip the bike. But each time, I've thought about what my sister has had to do, and to give up, to get where she is right now: on the verge, literally, of living out a life-long dream.

It's been an enormous sacrifice, and it's also given her a tremendous sense of personal satisfaction and accomplishment.

And to me, it's an inspiration to keep going. My road over the next year is so far, far, far easier to travel than the one she will in the wee hours of tomorrow morning, halfway around the world. 

I wish I could be there for her tomorrow, when she crosses the finish line; but since I can't, I'll be here, in this very chair, watching for her bib number to cross on the race website. You can be sure I'll be bawling my eyes out with pride (and with relief for her poor feet!).

My finish line is far further in the future, but I have a feeling her inspiration will run alongside me every step of the way.

So to baby sister: run like the wind! And thanks.  : )

Annie: On my chinny-chin-chin

I have to admit to a fear that my weight loss will age me (at least, in my face).

I'm 41 now, and while my hair looks older than my age (I let it go grey years ago), my face looks younger. I don't have many lines or wrinkles... I'm not sure whether that's because my face is oily, which it is (and which the ladies at the department store cosmetic counters assured me as a teenager I'd be thankful for when I got older), or because they're puffed out by fat.

When I lost my pile of weight in 2003, I did look older; my face was a little less taut, and I discovered new creases around my eyes where they hadn't been before. Of course, it was well worth the trade to be healthy, but I did notice.

I was talking with a friend about this recently, and she didn't believe me -- so I pulled out some photos that were taken just after I'd lost the weight (that is, in the nanosecond before I turned around and started putting it all back on again), and she agreed: my face even looked older in those pictures from years ago than it did today.

So what awaits me?  Hmmm.

A potential trade-off, though, would be if the little hairs growing under (not on, yet) my chin would go away. An overweight doctor I was seeing at one time for my blood pressure asked me whether I had whiskers on my chin yet. Horrified, I said no, and she said "you will" -- unless I lost weight, that is.

Apparently, fat stimulates the production of hormones that make you grow facial hair.

So every time I start worrying about being wrinkled, I remind myself about being bearded.

And then I hit the bike.

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.

Mae: Week 2 weigh-in

Things have slowed down considerably this week. I'm not all that surprised by this and know that week one is usually an anomaly. I'm down 1.2 pounds, but as a former WW leader once said, "down is down, and it ain't up, so be happy."

Highlights
I finally got on the treadmill tonight and did 35 minutes of moderate to intense walking. I vow to make this a more regular event. Also, The Mister is on board and is following along with the iWatchr iPhone app. This makes things quite a bit easier because, well, we tend to eat badly together.

Lowlights
I hosted a little get-together at my house yesterday, and I made fairly healthy and low point stuff. Annie brought the most delicious dip (maybe she'll tell us about it in a forthcoming post) and the day could have been very manageable, points-wise. But I started to loose track, and was picking at things here and there thinking that I would add it up later (any seasoned WWer knows that this is a dangerous game and not advisable). I wasn't horrendously over, but I recognize that this is a bad habit that got me to this weight, so I have to keep that in check. I also tend to not want to count wine. Ugh. If only!

Weigh-in
- 1.2

Loss to date
- 6.4

Mae: foods to live by

Annie and I have been doing some food swaps lately, and I've come to the sad realization that most my finds are not available in this country. I used to live in the United States and found it was so much easier to do WW there. Turns out it wasn't just my imagination: the selection of ready-made, low-points foods really IS that much better south of the border. And while I try to stay away from too much of the pre-packaged, loaded with preservatives crap that is devoid of any kind of nutritional value, there are some products that are low-points, not terrible for you, and not completely synthetic. Here are a few of my must-haves from the U-S and A:

1) MorningStar Farms Original Sausage Patties (1.5 points)
I was a vegetarian for 13 years, and am well-acquainted with the 'fake meat' soy-based foods. The Mister, on the other hand, is a bonafide meatatarian, and has little tolerance for anything that rhymes with 'snafu.' Until now, that is: MorningStar Farms sausage patties have changed everything. I would go so far as to say that he loves them. And why shouldn't he? They're 80 calories and 1.5 points, which is a far cry from what the real deal would add up to. We discovered on a recent trip that these are also available in a jacked-up spicy version. I toast a whole wheat english muffin, spread some Light French Onion Laughing Cow on it, add a sausage patty, an egg, and a dab of hot sauce. It's phenomenal.


2) No Pudge! Fat Free Brownies (2 points)
I checked the "all natural" ingredients list in No Pudge! (honestly, they are so good and low in points that I almost don't care what is in them), and it's good news. There are only eight ingredients (whole wheat flour and cane sugar, for example), and I can pronounce all of them! Bonus! They're chewy and delicious, and are only 2 points per brownie. There are instructions on the box for making a single serving with just plain nonfat yogurt and the microwave, because who needs a whole damn pan of brownies laying around, right? These are the best, I tell ya, THE BEST!

3) Silk Light Chocolate (1.5 points per cup)
I don't drink milk because I've never really liked the taste of it, and dairy is not always my friend. Fortunately, soy milk has come loooong way from its earlier days as a chalky, too-thick bean juice. Silk brand soy milk is my favourite, and in my opinion, is the best tasting soy milk available. More recently, a 'light' version of the plain and vanilla flavours showed up on store shelves in Canada, and it's very low in points: about 0.5 per 1/2 cup. Now here comes the big sigh. A light version of the chocolate flavour is available in the US. This has in part been achieved by using stevia (see #4 below) as a natural sweetener instead of sugar, which lowers the calories significantly. Thank goodness it has a long refrigerated shelf life, I guess. Oh, and it mixes wonderfully with peppermint or coffee liquor. Intoxicatingly delicious and nutritious!



4) Truvia (0 points)
Splenda (et al.) is a lifesaver when you're dieting, but I've always had some concerns about the safety of artificial sweeteners. This has not curbed my consumption of diet pop, however, which I often use a way to feel 'full-ish' when I don't want to eat something and am running low on points. I've tried every kind of natural sweetener there is, and ended up sticking with stevia as a viable alternative to splenda. The problem is, some brands of stevia can be quite bitter and have the most awful aftertaste unless you're putting into something hearty and substantial like oatmeal. Truvia is different. Truvia is gooooooood. There's also plenty of information out there detailing how sugar alcohols (Truvia falls into this category) do not have the same health concerns as artificial sweeteners. Some people can have sensitivities to sugar alcohols (I can't go near maltitol without being doubled over in pain), but I've found Truvia to be just fine when used in moderation.


5) Yoplait Delights (2 points)

Yum. The chocolate raspberry flavour is my favourite, and this doesn't really taste like yogurt to me. It's more like a smooth, velvety dessert that is packed with flavour. This could easily pass as no-compromise dessert for me any night of the week.





We live close enough to the US border that we can do a quick grocery run in a day. I've got the method down pat, including how many coolers can fit into my car and where the best place is to get ice on my way back north. I feel a trip coming on very, very soon.

Annie: Very funny.

What song should come on my iPod's shuffle as I entered the 29th minute of my cycle this morning?

Nickelback's How You Remind Me, the refrain of which is "are we having fun yet?"

Haha.

And, for the record, no.

But while I don't enjoy the exercise, I enjoy having exercised.

Have a great weekend!

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.