Non-scale goals

140, that's always been my goal. I reached it briefly in 2009 when my husband and I were engaged and he decided to study abroad in South Korea for four months. I was working ALL the time at a stressful job in order to cover his bills as well as mine and the weight just kind of fell off. I was the smallest I'd ever been but I still wasn't happy with my body. Even so, the goal stayed 140. Even this time around, when I'm asked what my goal is my go-to answer is 140. The truth is, I don't have an ultimate end goal. At least not a weight-related one. I want to be healthier, and I want to get fit, not just lose weight. I've never seen my body fit before so I have no idea what that will translate to on the scale. That's why I've decided to set some non-scale goals.

1. Stop hating summer

I'll admit, this is a weird goal, but hear me out. I live in the southern United States and it gets extremely hot in the summer months. So hot that I can't possibly justify wearing sleeves, even though I completely hate my arms. I also actively avoid fun outings like going to the lake because then I'd have to wear a swimsuit, in public, meaning around my friends, who love me for me and don't care what I look like. The horror! So, I want to tone my arms and legs so that I can stop hating summer, stop avoiding my friends, and so that I can rock a cute high-waisted bikini at the lake. #goals.

2. Practice yoga at least once per week

I love yoga, or better yet, I love the memory of yoga. I've practiced yoga in the past and loved the benefits of it. Increased stamina, strength, flexibility, balance, reduced stress and anxiety, mindfulness... The problem is actually convincing myself to get up and do it. I'm starting slow by setting my goal to at least once per week, and then working my way up from there.

3. Find the joy of cooking - Help me out Irma Rombauer!

I'm a darn good cook, the problem is that most of the time, I just don't want to do it. It's become a necessary chore, like doing laundry or cleaning the toilet. It has to get done, but that doesn't mean I have to like doing it. Except that I WANT to like it. I want to enjoy cooking delicious, healthy meals at home. I want to be excited about it so that we can stop spending money (and calories) on take-out. My ultimate goal is to limit restaurant excursions to just once per week. In order to make my time in the kitchen more enjoyable I'm making a playlist that I can listen to while I cook, and I'm trying to find ingredients to work with that are new and exciting to me.

4. Move more

This is really vague and could mean just about anything, but I'm translating it to: work towards 2,000 extra steps every day. I have a love/hate relationship with my fitness tracker. I love that it earns me fit points, but I hate when it points out that the amount of steps I take in a day is consistently below-average for a woman my age. Why don't you just call me a lazy bum and get it over with? Rather than be bitter, I'm going to do something about it. First, I'm going to resist the urge to flush my tracker down the toilet, and then I'm going to get up and move. On a typical day I normally only take about 4,500 - 5,000 steps. Pretty pitiful, I know. I want to work towards taking at least 6,500 steps every. single. day. Baby steps.

5. Eat my points

For some reason, I really struggle with eating all of my daily points, and I typically don't even touch my weekly points. It's difficult for me to get out of the mindset that having points left over at the end of day/week is a victory. The fact is, those points are there to be eaten and eating too little can hinder weight loss and muscle gain just as easily as eating too much. I want to make more of an effort to eat all of my daily points, and not feel bad about myself if I dip into my weekly points.

6. Throw 140 out the window

Savannah

Why I track

It's simple really. When I don't track, I lose track...

I wish I could be one of those people who can eat whatever the heck they want and not gain an ounce. I wish I could be like my lab partner in college who ate mini oreos for breakfast every morning and was still a stick. Unfortunately, I'm not one of those people, and never will be. I've been on Weight Watchers off and on over the past decade and every time I stop tracking my points, I start gaining weight. When I don't track, I stop thinking about what I'm eating or why I'm eating it. It's almost like Weight Watchers is a shield and without that protective shield, food just jumps right into my mouth. It's like magic, but not the fun Harry Potter kind. If I'm not consciously thinking about WHAT I'm eating then adding fries and a shake to my burger is no big deal. If I'm not thinking about WHY I'm eating then I start to eat for comfort, not nourishment. Food has always been comforting to me. Ice cream, pizza, a Snickers bar with a Dr. Pepper... these foods make me feel better when stress and anxiety are threatening to take over. When I'm being mindful about food I can take the time to think about whether I really NEED that triple layer chocolate fudge cake, or if it's my brain being a jerk - Sometimes my brain is like the worst kind of frenemy.

So, I track because it works for me, as long as I'm willing to put in the work for myself. I track because without tracking, I wouldn't have seen a 3.8 pound weight loss this week.

That's 3.8 pounds down just since starting the Beyond the Scale program, less than a week ago! THIS is why I take the time to count points. It's a lifestyle that definitely won't work for everyone, but it works for me.

Savannah

SO many points!

It's day three of being a Weight Watchers Online member and I'm still loving it. I had a bit of a falling out with the app yesterday when it decided to crash every time I tried to use the restaurant function, but it seemed to be working today so we made up. One thing that's been surprising to me has been how far my 30 points are going. I'm actually having a difficult time eating all of my points in a day. I think it's because I've been avoiding bread and dairy for the most part. I haven't missed them nearly as much as I thought I would. I'm not eliminating them from my diet but I am limiting them, at least until I find some lower point alternatives to what I have in my house at the moment. It's also been way easier to eat out than I originally anticipated. The app helps tremendously with this, as long as you aren't eating at a local joint. It's helping me to make much smarter choices when we eat out, like ordering a side of fruit or a salad rather than French fries, and sticking to lean, grilled meats over fatty fried stuff. Things do become a bit more shady when you eat at a restaurant not listed in the app however. Tonight my family ate at a local chain and I kind of just had to guesstimate the points total.

I ordered the Baha chicken with citrus rice and black beans. There wasn't a ton of chicken and definitely not a full cup of rice so I guessed it to be about 8 points, though depending on how everything was cooked it could have been higher. I'm not too concerned about the possibility of underestimating the points this time however because it's after 8:00pm and I'm still left with 9 daily points, which is kind of insane. I was really busy today and just didn't have a lot of time to eat. Hopefully I'll get into more of a routine soon and can start to be more consistent with my points. For now though, I'm feeling pretty good and am actually excited to weigh in on Thursday.

Savannah

Day One

Today was my first day on the new Weight Watchers Beyond the Scale program. It's still early, but so far I'm pretty happy with my experience. Prior to signing up I did a lot of research on the program, reading others thoughts to get an idea of whether or not to give it a try myself. By far the biggest complaint that I saw about the new program was that it was so restrictive. Quite a few people out there seem pretty upset over the fact that foods like crackers, chips, and ice cream have drastically gone up in points. I'm not going to lie, what first drew me to Weight Watchers more than a decade ago was that I could still enjoy these treats while also losing weight. However, now that I'm getting older I'm realizing that I'm far more concerned with putting good things into my body. I want to eat foods that are beautiful, colorful, fresh, and that give me energy. That's why I was so interested in trying out Beyond the Scale.

I panicked slightly when I woke up this morning and realized that I had absolutely no idea what I could eat. Not to be deterred I grabbed my cell phone and used the handy barcode scanner built into the Weight Watchers app to scan pretty much everything in my fridge. I eventually settled on two slices of turkey bacon, and a scrambled egg with mushrooms and spinach, topped with salsa. I ended up getting hungry again before lunch so I grabbed an apple and a water to hold me over. For lunch I made a spinach salad with refried beans, a sprinkle of cheese, and some homemade honey lime dressing, the recipe for which I will be sharing at a later date. It was at this point that I realized that I desperately needed to stock up on veggies. I didn't really want to think too hard about snacks so I just had a few honey glazed almonds and some bagel chips. Dinner was a bit of a splurge. We went to our favorite burger joint where I got a hamburger topped with lettuce, tomato, jalapeno, and a sweet sriracha sauce. The points on this were a bit questionable but I went with the suggestion in the app and calculated it as 14 points.

I ended up using 29 of my 30 daily points which I was pretty proud of, even if I definitely could have chosen some better options for dinner and snacks. I'm not too concerned about it since I completely expected for there to be a bit of a transition period.

After breakfast my husband and I (really just me) decided to go for a walk around the neighborhood. We ended up only walking for 15 minutes but it was nice to get outside for a bit of fresh air. Here's a tip: don't insist that your asthmatic husband go on a walk with you if your intention is to walk for an extended period of time.

One feature that I really like within the app is that I can sync my Jawbone Up Move to it. It tracks my activity and turns it into fit points. You can choose to trade your fit points for food if you go over your daily smartpoints allotment, or you can just use them as motivation to get up and move. The only thing I didn't like about syncing my fitness tracker to the Weight Watchers app was that it seemed to take a long time to update. My Weight Watchers app was still staying that I took 6,024 steps while my Up app had me at 6,972. It was a small difference but nonetheless I found it slightly irritating.

Only time will tell if my Weight Watchers Online membership will end up being worth the monthly fee, but so far I'm happy with my experience. Other than the fitness tracker syncing taking longer than I would like the only complaint I have is that they kind of just throw you into it. Nothing was explained to me, I kind of just had to figure out what I could eat and how to use the app on my own. Once I figured it out though it was actually pretty simple to use and definitely a handy tool. If you've tried out the Beyond the Scale program then I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments!

Savannah

Good Riddance

Ham Pants | noun | Sweats or loose-fitting pants that you wear during and/or after consuming mass amounts of food. Also known as cookie pants (Scrubs) and by the generic term of fat pants.

I'm saying goodbye to my ham pants. I took the plunge today and finally signed up for Weight Watchers Online. I’ve done Weight Watchers in the past but always did it on my own, never paying for a membership. It’s completely possible to download a free app and do Weight Watchers without ever giving them a single penny, I’ve done it multiple times and usually had success. Unfortunately, that success was often short-lived. I would get sick, move, go on vacation, start school… something always came up that derailed my plan and caused me to lose sight of my goals and gain the weight back. I don’t believe that simply paying for an online subscription to Weight Watchers will help me avoid these pitfalls, but I do feel differently about WHY I’m doing it this time, and I feel ready to make this change and maintain it. That’s why I’ve decided to invest in me. I never paid for Weight Watchers before because the service always seemed unnecessary and too expensive, meanwhile I had no trouble *treating* myself to a fancy coffee at Starbucks at least once a week. If I can treat myself to a $5 coffee every week, then I can invest $5 in my health every week.

I’ve only ever done the original points program. Points plus didn’t really appeal to me for whatever reason so I just never gave it a go, but I find the new Beyond the Scale program much more intriguing. I’m no longer just doing this to lose weight, I also want to be healthier, and I’m excited to see that this new program seems to encourage eating ACTUALLY healthy foods, rather than highly processed low-fat-high-fiber foods. They’re also attempting to entice you to be more active by rewarding you with fit points. I play video games so the thought of racking up points for being active is pretty awesome to me. Even better? Weight Watchers is running a promotion where if you buy two months, they’ll give you your third for free, plus they’ve waived the $20 activation fee. I figured this was the perfect time to truly give the program a try. If after three months I decide that the service doesn’t offer enough to justify the $20 monthly fee, then I always have my free app. ;)

Stay tuned for updates on my progress, my thoughts on Weight Watchers Online, and healthy recipes!

Savannah