Friday, May 16, 2008

Week Two - I'm in the Groove

Last night, the WW scale showed that I'd gotten rid of 2.8 lbs. Some of this is attributable to my wearing lighter weight shoes and clothing than the ones I wore last week. Also no last minute carrots bulked up my weight. Even so, my success is solid. I am firmly on track.

My biggest challenge this week was on Sunday night. Having gone to bed, I couldn't fall asleep. As I've mentioned before, sometimes eating cereal helps with this. I got up and microwaved a serving of the frozen oatmeal with raisins and milk that I described in my previous post. I dutifully deducted 6 points from my 35 weekly points, after which my "what if" mechanism began to chat. If I had oatmeal every night, I'd go over my weekly allocation by 7 points. If I had the oatmeal, I wouldn't have the extra points for days when I wanted to go beyond my daily point allocation. What would I do when my weight put me in the 18 daily points category? Having gotten rid of 5 pounds, I already have had to scale back from 23 to 22 daily points. Thankfully, I was able to put the "what if" chatter behind me and go to sleep.

As it's turned out, I used only 12 of my 35 weekly points during the week that ended yesterday. I could have gone on a 23 point binge last night and still remained "legal." In terms of ice cream, that would be like 4 cups of mint chocolate chip which, if I'd had it, would almost certainly have pitched me into the wild turbulence of gluttony. These weekly points were like money in the bank for me. They provided a sense of security.

I didn't notch up the exercise last week as I'd planned. Today I put in 33 minutes on the elliptical. Just so I can say at next week's meeting, that I've done so. That is so much of what WW meetings are for me; WW is a place where there are people who can witness my success and applaud me for it. I value my on-line friends for this as well. I am looking forward to finally being able to consistently write about my on-going success with getting rid of the re-re-re-gain.

6 comments:

Kim Ayres said...

It's the warm milk that will be the bit that helps you sleep rather than the oatmeal. Eating before you go to sleep is one of the worst times in terms of metabolising your food. Ideally you should avoid eating anything a good few hours before you go to bed.

Sally JPA said...

Arlene, have y'all looked into macrobiotics at all? I have been reading Meg Wolff's book Becoming Whole. She's a cancer survivor who utilized macrobiotics to regain her health. Her blog is at becoming-whole.com if you want to check it out.

Cory said...

You're doing great. Keep up the good work.

Mick & Cathy said...

Hi Arlene,
Well done on the weight loss, I think the other comments are so true that its the warm milk that helps the sleep and eating before bedtime isn't a good idea.

ArleneWKW said...

Thank you so much Kim, VP, Cory and Mick. The way you've stuck by me even through my very long stumble strengthens my commitment. I look forward to now showing you that I have the strength and resolve to continue onward with a more healthful life style.

Most authorities and ordinary people would agree with you, Kim and Mick, that one should not eat before going to sleep. My experience - and I am just talking about me only - is that I can get rid of the lbs. and still eat late into the night. This is what I did when I went from 192 lbs. to 125.5 lbs. from 10/22/01 through April of 2003. My regain was (mostly) unrelated to night time eating - with this caveat, which also applies to getting rid of the lbs. now: I can eat at night and still lose weight (or maintain a loss) as long as I am in control. At this point being in control means that I have the points available to eat while still "on program." It is possible that I could get rid of the lbs. more quickly if I avoided night time eating, but I'm not in a hurry. My goal is to remain consistent with food discipline and exercise. I'll check out Meg Wolff's blog VP, but - in line with what I wrote above - I'm satisfied that the foods that I eat are healthful ones: lots of fresh (usually organic) produce; animal protein pretty much limited to dairy (usually non fat or low fat), poultry and fish; tofu, beans, and the like; occasional bread, and a minimum of artificial sweeteners (mostly in the form of diet coke).
Thanks you for the link though. (And I continue to enjoy checking out your recipes.)

Onwards now to an hour on the elliptical.

Daniele said...

wow you're doing GREAT! Good stuff. I too have milk sometimes before bed.. as it helps me sleep. Better than chocolate cookies I say ;)