adventures in counting. everything.

So, you probably haven’t heard yet that Daniel and I decided to start going to Weight Watchers together. And now you get to! Yay! 😉

You probably do know that, for most of last year, I had myself on a fairly rigid low-to-no-sugar diet, inspired by my mid-January 2004 visit to the doctor (well documented in the archives of this blog). In 2004, I lost a total of about 70 lbs. and significantly improved my cholesterol and blood pressure; my cholesterol has never been worrisome (though it had long been around 200, the ratio of good to bad far exceeds the average, so my doctors have never been concerned about it), but my blood pressure had been creeping up for years, which prompted the change. (Because I had no desire, at 26, to begin taking blood pressure meds. Yikes!)

Anyway, over the holidays and into the beginning of 2005, I did gain about 15-20 lbs. of that lost weight back. (It sucks.) Mostly because I completely abandoned the two keys of my earlier success: careful tracking of my food, and routine time at the gym.

Earlier this year, I did join Bally’s, essentially because that’s where Daniel has his membership and working out together seemed like an excellent idea. The few times we have gone together have been fun, and I hope and expect they will continue … even though our schedules make it nearly — if not — impossible to go more than once or twice a week together, if that.

The exercise is great, and when I go to the gym I just love it. None of that “these people are all gorgeous” insecurity for me; my trainer, Sarah, really helped me to get past that insecurity, and nowadays I genuinely love the 30 or 60 minutes spent at the gym when I carve out the time to go.

The core concept of my eating rituals on the low/no sugar diet, however, fundamentally made it difficult for Daniel and I to cook dinner together at the house in a way that satisfied our tastes AND dietary preferences. He’s always been more of a Weight Watchers (low fat, low calorie) kind of eater. SO, when he suggested we consider doing Weight Watchers together, it wasn’t a tough sell.

Last Thursday (before we saw Kathleen Madigan at the Improv — who was, btw, HILARIOUS, as usual), we went to our first meeting together. The weigh-in wasn’t fun, but it could have been a lot worse. I actually spent most of the week before trying to make incremental changes in my eating so the shock of only getting about 1400 calories a day on the Points plan wouldn’t be so fierce.

I’m now well into my fourth day of this whole “points” concept … and it’s not nearly as difficult as I thought (in fact, I’ve actually come up two points short every day, which is probably a good thing since my point allotment will drop by two in another week or so).

What I’ve learned is that the target of six 8-oz. waters is easy for me to hit; the target of 28 activity points a week is very challenging (I won’t make it this week); and having three servings of dairy when you’re lactose intolerant is NOT FUN — today I tried a Yoplait Light (strawberry) with some very yummy/very low-point granola I got at Central Market Saturday, and it was bearable, but it’s only been in my system about an hour. I’m going to get some of the smoothie mix WW sells at their stores (hopefully, today), because you can mix it with (lactose-free) milk and have it count as two of your three dairy servings for the day. I’m just thinking that’s going to be a lot easier to get down. Especially since the yogurt only gets me 1/3 there. Yeesh.

Anyway, this has inspired several changes at the house … I’m curious to see how we’ll do now that life (i.e., Monday) has shot us back out into the real world. First, we cooked this weekend … A LOT. In fact, we actually cooked three meals in a row Saturday & Sunday (dinner, breakfast, lunch), which is probably more cooking than we’ve done in the previous month combined. We also went food hunting at Central Market and found some very good, VERY low-point things to complement otherwise bland food … sauces and marinades for fish and veggies and the granola being two big finds. We also grilled fish for the first time Saturday night — swordfish and mahi mahi. The fish was good for what it was, but neither kind of fish (and I’d never before tried either) really excited me. What WAS exciting, however, was the corn we threw on the grill with the fish; now THAT was yummy. (Keep in mind, though, that I’ve always loved corn, and Saturday night’s grilled corn on the cob was my first taste of corn in — literally — more than a year!)

I think we’ll continue to experiment with the grilling concept, perhaps next time with other kinds of fish. I also think we both have a better handle on how to budget our points throughout the day. Today’s Monday and I haven’t yet touched my “bonus points” — the 35 floating extra points you get for the week — that expire Wednesday night, so I’m wondering how best to use them.

Weight Watchers says my goal weight range tops out at 159 (which is really only for those over the age of 45). My thought from the beginning was to aim for 165, but given the weight ranges they’ve provided, I’ve readjusted my goal to 155, subject to slight change over the next couple of weeks (which is when I have to declare it to them). That seems really daunting to me, someone who hasn’t weighed less than 200 lbs. since junior high.

Anyway, that’s an exciting and new part of my life here lately. I will be very excited to see how the WW scale thinks I’m doing on Thursday night, but I can tell you that about 7ish days into generally eating better, I’ve lost 4-5 lbs. and can already tell a slight but noticeable difference in my clothes. Which, I know, sounds crazy … but seriously, gaining back those 15-20 lbs. since October-ish has *really* made me feel yucky, and just the slightest change already feels very, very good.