About a week or so ago, I expressed my disgust with my inability to really buckle down in this whole weight watcher’s thing. I debated the different routes I could go to keep myself on track, including telling you all what I had for breakfast, something I’m sure you all would really not care to hear.

Basically, there are 2 plans that one can do on weight watchers. You can do the Flex plan, or you can do the Core plan. The Flex plan is what I was doing last year – in fact, it was the only one availabe at that time. A serving of a food is assigned a point value based on the amount of calories, grams of fat, and grams of fiber. Who knows what formula it uses, but roughly, it’s 50 calories = 1 point with some leeway for bad things (more fat, less fiber=more points) and good things (less fat, more fiber=less points). On the flex plan, you have a certain amount of points you can eat per day depending on your current weight, and then you have 35 Flex points that you can use over the span of the entire week. After your weigh-in day, the week begins again, and your 35 weekly Flex points resets for the new week. It’s a good system with a lot of flexibility built into it (you can eat whatever you want, even use those 35 Flex points all in one day, but then you have to stick to your daily points and nothing over that the rest of the week), but heavy on journaling, which I am not good at.

I should also mention that both plans have daily requirements that one is supposed to have. A vitamin, 5? 6? (I don’t even know *cough* don’t ever make it) servings of dairy, 6 glasses of water, 6 servings of fruits and/or vegetables. One is supposed to include these in their daily intake for a healthy diet. The water is super important – if you don’t drink the water but have a perfect week otherwise, you might not see anything on the scale. Who knows why, it just is. It’s hard to do the water for me, but it’s the easiest thing on the daily requirements. I never get the milk in. I just take a calcium supplement at night instead. Fruits and veggies… Yeah, that also is rare. I have some fruit usually every day but I could go a few days without any veggies sometimes. Sad but true. Back to the plans.

The Core plan is what I was attempting. There is a core list of food which you can eat whatever you like, using your own hunger as a gauge (if you are full, don’t eat! how fancy! how innovative!) You get 35 Flex points per week which you can use on whatever foods you like that aren’t on the core food list. The Core list is made up of healthy, non-processed foods. It is really getting back to a more natural and wholesome way of eating. Bread is not on the core list, you would have to use some weekly flex points for that, but you can have potatoes or rice once a day – they limit it because those foods could be a trigger food for someone looking to snack. Lean meats, non-fat dairy, and of course all the fruits and veggies you could shake a stick at are on the list. Soups, as long as they are broth based and not cream based get the OK as well.

The problem with the core plan is unless you cook all the time, you start cheating. (I should stop saying “you” all the time. It’s me the one doing this, not you.) I do pretty well with the cooking a lot, but it takes preparation, and if I don’t prepare, then I’m going out to lunch during the week and I’m making guesses like, “Well, the turkey breast should be core and all the veggies are ok so I probably just have to count points for the honey oat bread on that sub and they only use lighte mayo so ……” It just goes on and on. I never actually count the extra points, I just figured it was low enough to be within my weekly flex points. The yo-yo weigh-ins told the truth about THAT little myth.

Well this was a long story, but a few people have asked me how weight watchers works, so I thought I’d fill in some of the blanks. The point is, I’ve switched to the Flex point plan this week, and to help me in my efforts, I enrolled in the WW Online E-tools which basically has all the foods you could ever find in a database already assigned their point values and I just have to search for it, and enter it into my online journal. No paper and pencil and looking it up in little books or using the little slide-rule calculator to find the point values. Online does it all, I just have to remember to DO it.

So anyway. That is what I’ve done to get back on track and I am feeling pretty proud of how I’ve done this week. Since I missed last week, this week will be a biggie – I’m sure I gained over Thanksgiving, so I’m hoping I’ve lost what I gained and then some for an official loss this week. I’m looking at that 20 lb goal by New Years, and this is my first big step. Honestly, even if it’s a disappointing weigh-in, I feel like I’m doing well, I’m ontrack and on top of the situation instead of being all, “Oh it’ll work out!” which is never true.

I’m sure I’ll let you all know how it went tomorrow – as well as how my pitiful Southern Living party went as well. I bought some stuff for the party, the makings of some mimosas and bellinis, along with a couple of shrimp plates (very weight watcher’s friendly, btw!) Tomorrow I need to tidy up and vacuum but I’m not going to kill myself over this one. Yes! I have children which means messy house and my walls are bare! BITE ME!

That’s a good motto. I smell bumper stickers.

amy loves toasty socks straight out of the microwave.