I’m going to try to write this post in a mature, nurturing manner although I feel like having a stomping fit and slamming my little cowboy boots all over the house, followed by a bout of yelling and crying on the floor (complete with pounding fists).
It’s just that, you see, I joined Weight Watchers in early December and I’ve been very devoted to it. The results have been very positive. You go to a meeting, you get “weighed in” (like a truck), they hand you your little booklet, you attend a meeting where you learn fascinating things like how to make pumpkin mousse, and everyone claps for each other for losing 1/8 of an oz. or whatever. I did a brief stint in WW during my college years and loathed it — I felt starved all the time and I hated the meetings — but now I can cook, I’m not going to let the wacky sitcom atmosphere of the meetings get to me, and I’m trying to learn how to eat like a person who isn’t a compulsive overeater. I carry my little POINTS PLAN book around with me, I am really trying to learn how fattening things are, and what a regular portion looks like. Along the way, I want to drop some pounds. I’m willing to take my time, I’m not thinking about it constantly, I have a great Online Ministry Posse to write to when I need moral support, all is well, etc. and bla bla bla.
So I step on the scale tonight expecting to see a significant loss of butter and the gal goes, “Here you go. You lost one pound.” And I go, “WHAT?” She sees my face fall down somewhere around my ankles and she calls over a leader (on nametag: “I LOST 29 LBS IN 1998”) who asks me these questions:
Leader: Did you eat all your allowed points?
Me: NO!! I was so busy and I didn’t have time to keep track, so I just ate little bits of things and lots of vegetables — I did go to restaurants but I did really well, I think, I know that on a couple of days I ate quite a bit less than I was allowed.
Leader: Did you work out?
Me: YES! Four times this week! I did cardio, I lifted weights, I sweated! I drank lots of water!
Leader: But you didn’t eat more to allow for that, right?
Me: No, I just figured I’d lose more weight if I didn’t use the points earned during exercise.
Leader: Did you use up your 35 flex points?
Me: No. I’m pretty sure I didn’t.
Leader: You know what happened? YOU DIDN’T EAT ENOUGH THIS WEEK!! And your body probably thought it was starving, and it slowed down your metabolism to compensate. You have to eat all your points. Eat more when you exercise, and use your flex points.
Me: This is the first time in my life anyone has ever told me to eat more. Except for my Baba, God rest her soul.
So kids, the moral of this stupid moment in my life is that if you’re on a weight loss program, don’t be all Diet Ninja about it and starve yourself. Eat enough food, okay? Get your fruits and veggies in there, and enough hydration, and if you’ll excuse me now I’m going to have half a cup of pumpkin ice cream with dark chocolate chips mixed in.
Shame on them for not telling you this when you first started.
Hey Peacebang-
Maybe with all your hard work you have gained some lovely new muscle?? Because muscle weighs more than fat! Hang in there, keep up the great work–
“I feel like having a stomping fit and slamming my little cowboy boots all over the house”
Now you can add “Yosemite Sam” to your Auntie Mame and Cotton Mather litany…
[Another LOL!! Perfect! – PB]
Dearest PeaceBang,
I am SO with you on the Pumpkin Ice Cream (though not the chocolate). I’m not that big a fan of Friendly’s verdion, but if you ever get down to Connecticut, check out Shady Glen’s (in Manchester, and yes, people do make pilgrimmages for their ice cream). It’s seasonal, though, so it’s not always available. Have you tried Hood’s pumpkin eggnog?
A cubic inch of fat does indeed weigh less than a cubic inch of muscle, but this is becasue muscle is DENSER than fat, not heavier. A pound of muscle weighs just as much as a pound of fat, but takes up less space. Think Archimedes and Eureka! (Don’t get started on Shakespeare and Portia and a pound of flesh, please.) Sorry, this is my inner engineer coming out.
I’ve done WW, and what I took away from it was the difference between eating till I am satisfied and eating until I am full. Hope the program works well for you AND you make some good new friends there as well.
Congratulations on having a leader who gets that it’s not all calories in vs. calories out! There’s a lot more to weight loss than that.
Also? A pound in a week is a perfectly respectable loss (discouraging as it may be)- losing it slowly will make it easier to maintain your loss.
In addition to muscle being denser than fat, the process of building new muscle usually means you’re retaining some fluid as the muscle works to repair itself.
weight watchers has just launched a big anti-diet ad campaign on the NYC subway system, they’ll plaster a whole car with various ads. they’re pretty good ads too, with clever slogans like “stop dieting. start living” followed by a blurb about their philosophy and how it’s not a diet. hmm, what are some of the other slogans…
live or diet (followed by a bit about it feels like that when you’re on some diets)
diets take away the things we love and then make us hate ourselves for loving them – i particularly like this one.
PB, as a girl who’s been in and out of WW for most of my life, I usually got frustrated by a “trivial” loss of 1 pound. So I’ll tell you what my doctor told me. ONE POUND IS AWESOME! And if you really want to see how you’re doing in the long run instead of focusing week to week, graph your weightloss. The downward trend will make you smile and then when you do eventually plateau, you’ll know it.
Keep up the good work, I’m proud of you! [Okay :::dipping head down::: I will be proud on myself, then. Thanks. PB]
Hey! Is it too late to get in with the clergy WW group you’re doing? I’ve been doing WW online and the one thing it can’t seem to motivate me to do is get up off my @$$ and exercise. Need some help from another arena there. Maybe this is it?
If the clergy group is happening, I’d love to be a part of it.
My dear PB, you need to put those boots back on, and call all of us in the New England area to COME OVER and HELP YOU EAT that pumpkin ice cream with those dark chocolate chips. And then we’ll take a nice walk around Boston-area, since it’s all mobile and cool. I’ll bring the Mortensen’s (the Hartford-area pumpkin ice cream that ends all other ice creams for you). Yum!
I have heard, too, at WW, when this sort of thing happens, my colleagues say “THE SCALE OWES YOU!!”.
Congrats on the 1 pound! It is fabulous!!!
Hey PB,
I (finally) became a lifetime member last year and one of the things I had to learn to get there was that the points don’t work for me. I need to eat more than that to get my weight loss groove on. Once I started eating using the core plan the weight seemed to melt away. The best part was the fact that I never felt hungry or deprived! 🙂 If you need a quick jolt to the system try switching over for a week. 🙂
Good luck!
Kate