That was some birthday cake!

. . . and the leftovers stayed behind at the party. I did have a sliver of it and it was quite tasty. Unfortunately, I had to taste and adjust the flavoring of the frosting many times. Once I was into the sugar, it was hard to stop. There was frosting left over and it went into the trash the first thing the next morning, a difficult task requiring massive willpower. I've known for a while that I just can't eat sugary things but I gave in for the birthday cake.

I got back on the straight and narrow for the rest of the week and -- ta da! -- lost .4 pounds for a total of 26.6 pounds lost. There's something to this Core Plan.

I'm still looking for the perfect fat-free salad dressing. Fat-free plain yogurt mixed with salsa makes a yummy creamy dressing; the problem is it tastes best at room temperature and I don't always remember to pull it out of the fridge before I need it. So I continue my quest for a fat-free non-creamy salad dressing (there should be a better name than "non-creamy salad dressing," shouldn't there?).

Core Success!

Lost 1.4 pounds this week, for a total loss of 26.2 pounds. Finally! Finally made it past the 25-pound mark (those 25-pound "washers" are pretty lame, aren't they? no matter, I've got one and put it on my 10% keychain).

I stuck to Core pretty strictly throughout the work week. At this point, my plan is to eat purely Core meals during the week, then loosen up a bit on the weekend. Yesterday I had a couple of 2-point English muffins with peanut butter. Today I had a ciabatta roll with egg salad made with decidedly non-Core mayo for breakfast. Tonight we're celebrating family birthdays and I'll indulge in a very small sliver of the cake I'm baking; I'll probably also indulge in some real cheese before dinner.

I know there will come a time when I'll have to be more careful about my non-Core eating on the weekend, but for the next week or two, it's making it a lot easier for me to stay on Core during the week. I do not count my non-Core points because I really can't stand to track. Instead, I'm becoming more aware of when I'm hungry and when I'm satisfied and which foods just aren't worth the calories.

Big discovery of the week: fat-free yogurt mixed with salsa for a creamy salad dressing. Mix them about half & half and add other spices if you like, such as garlic powder or celery seed. Yum! Next on my list: discovering a fat-free non-creamy dressing.

eTools for eFools?

As I said in yesterday's post, I've decided to switch from Weight Watchers' Flex program to its Core program. I was motivated to do this by this week's meeting, where we got to talking about the advantages of Core and I realized that I'm practically eating Core already. I just have to give up bread and crackers (not easy, but I can still have rice, potatoes, and whole wheat pasta once a day).

I use eTools, which help me to track and plan. I've been driving myself crazy today trying to figure out why a recipe I entered that contained all Core foods had a Points value of 5. It should have a value of 0.

Finally, I started to troll the Help pages and found that the Recipe Builder doesn't work correctly for Core -- at least not yet and maybe never. That makes using the Planner useless for tracking my WPA (Weekly Points Allowance -- everybody on Core gets 35 Points to spend on non-Core foods).

My next stop was the Core Plan message board. The messages boards on WeightWatchers.com leave something to be desired, but I did eventually find a post that helped me out. The trick is to increase the number of servings to 99 or 100 to get the Points value to 0. Um, I pay $12.95 a month for a service that doesn't work for me?

Return to Core?

Lost .8 for a total of 24.8 pounds lost. So close to the magic 25! My plan is to select my goal weight when I hit 25, which I had hoped would be today. Next week will be fine.

At this morning's meeting we talked a lot about the Core plan. I tired Core once and failed miserably at it. It just gave me license to eat. As we discussed it today, though, I realized that I'm eating very close to Core already.

Core is all about attitude. Flex is all about options.

When I tried Core the first time, I did it because I was having trouble making myself track. But I wasn't ready to alter my state of mind so I could learn to eat only until I was satisfied. That's the attitude part of Core.

Core is about self-limiting by food choice. Flex is about self-limiting by tracking.

When I tried Core the first time, I felt strait-jacketed by the narrow range of food choices I could make. On Core, one can eat as much as one wants, but only of Core foods. I don't recall what I couldn't give up, but it doesn't matter. I've learned since then that I can't eat sugar; it just makes me want more sugar and I have a hard time stopping. I've also learned to like non-fat yogurt when I make yogurt cheese of it and add either Splenda or garlic salt.

The upshot is that I'm going to put together some Core menus for the week ahead to see if I'm not ready for it. Those who succeed on Core really like it because there is no tracking. I detest tracking!

A New Phase?

Lost weight this week: -1.4 for a total loss of 24 pounds. Making progress! I haven't been this low since I started Weight Watchers.

I don't have a lot to comment on today, but that's not what the "new phase" in the title is about.

The new phase I'm considering is whether I need to move on from Karen, my WW leader. Karen is funny, smart, and clever. Yes, here comes a "but": But too often her meeting is about her and not about us.

Last week, I attended Kaitlyn's meeting on Friday night. She also leads the first meeting Saturday morning. I go to Kaitlyn's meetings when I can't make it to Karen's. But I noticed last week that Kaitlyn's meetings are about us, not Kaitlyn. Last week I got a terrific recipe for butternut squash fries (cut up a butternut squash, spritz with oil, bake at 400 for about 10 minutes, indulge). I've never gotten anything like that at Karen's meetings.

So the new phase I think I'm entering may be that I go to Kaitlyn's meeting when I need motivation and Karen's meeting when I need inspiration. Sometimes the difference between the two is very minor, but at this point in my "journey" the two are distinct.

Oh. My. God.

The wedding I've written about at least twice? Here's a picture of me at the wedding (sorry, divamentors, no shots of my red hair, which is less than, um, exciting -- I'll be asking for an "upgrade" the next time I see my hairdresser).

Who is this fat, FAT woman? I don't know her!

I am regularly amazed by the discrepancy between my self-image and my "image." I do not feel at all the way this photo looks!

Fried Food Deficiency

I lost weight this past week. I lost 1.8 pounds, for a total loss of 22.6. Having hit my 10%, I'm now motivating myself with the goal of going over 25 pounds lost. The "washer" that WW hands out at 25 pounds lost (there are washers for other milestones, but I'm not certain what they are) doesn't have the cachet for me that the 10% keychain did, but it has finally occurred to me (duh) that I need to keep finding milestones to develop any kind of momentum.

Now to the topic of this post. The turtle I received (Be the Turtle) this week was given to me at lunch. It was up to me to select the place to have lunch, so I chose Lang's Express for a variety of reasons I don't need to detail.

Lang's has an all-you-can-eat lunch buffet and I knew before I got there that I was going to partake. Partake? No, it was more like indulge. Indulge? No, it was more like dive in!

Clearly, I'd been suffering a fried food deficiency because I went back -- twice -- for egg rolls and crab rangoon (oh, I had some noodles, too, but I managed to avoid almost all veggies). And I enjoyed every bit of it. Once I realized that I was not going to exercise restraint, I just went for it. I didn't feel guilty about it and I didn't obsess over it later.

I did, however, pay attention to how I felt that evening. I was still feeling satisfied from my fried-food fest, so for dinner I had a bowl of air-popped popcorn. And whatever craving I had for fried food before my Lang's excursion has been satisfied -- perhaps for months.

Ah, sweet satisfaction. I lost weight this week!

The Bride Was Beautiful

Today was the wedding for which I experienced "wedding bell blues" while shopping for something to wear to it. The bride really was beautiful. Her dress was gorgeous. She and her dress complemented each other. The groom was handsome. The ceremony was lovely. And a good time was had by all.

I'm glad I made myself go shopping for something to wear and purchased something I like and felt comfortable in. I hadn't looked at the skirt and blouse since I bought it and was pleased when I pulled them out of the bag before getting dressed. Maybe I'm making progress?

In order to have time to slice tomatoes and lettuce for 100 hamburgers (the wedding was not a catered affair, but it was no less lovely) I went to my WW meeting last night (Friday). I'd never been to a non-Saturday meeting before . . . really! I was surprised that there were even fewer people at the meeting than on Saturday morning. It was convenient to go off to a meeting after work and start my weekend knowing I'd had my weigh-in.