So Much for the Gain-Is-a-Loss Theory

Gained weight again this week, so my total loss is down to 25 pounds. My leader mis-calculated, so I thought I had fallen below that magic 25-pound mark. When I checked her math, I breathed a sigh of relief. It took me a long, long time to pass the 25-pound mark that it has more significance for me than it should.

Now I have to knuckle down and lose some weight. My leader suggested that I measure & track & count Points this week. She's right. I think I've been eating too much of the yummy grains I've been making. If there's a way to abuse a food, I'll find it.

So, it's off to eTools to change my plan from Core back to Flex so I can calculate the Points for the grains recipes I like so I can determine what a realistic portion is. The hard-core, purist Corbies on the Weight Watchers Core message board believe that if one counts anything other than the weekly 35, one isn't following the Core plan. Phooey, if it helps me to lose weight and to learn portion control, I don't care what kind of mutt it is.

When is a gain a loss?

Gained weight this week. I wasn't surprised. I gained a pound, so my loss is now at 25.6 pounds, but still past that magical 25-pound mark I was lusting after not too long ago.

I attribute the gain to two things: 1) I ate out twice last week and had fish & chips both times; and 2) IBS.

I cleaned my plate both times I ate out. I had no excuse last Saturday for cleaning my plate and finishing the meal with some (disappointing) key lime pie. I know exactly why I cleaned my plate on Wednesday night: I'd had a full afternoon at work and hadn't eaten anything since lunch. Add to that a menu that had very little that was vegetarian or Core. I eat a lot of salads and I just couldn't face another one, so I went with the fish & chips. Once I made that decision, I just went with it and enjoyed my meal.

IBS is irritable bowel syndrome. It's a common feature of fibromyalgia. Most people have either the constipation version or the diarrhea version of IBS. I swing between the two and I never know when one or the other is going to arrive. Last week I had (and still have) the constipation version.

Add to the eating-out and the IBS the cool weather we've had recently, which means I showed up for my weigh-in wearing jeans and a turtleneck instead of shorts and a polo shirt, and a one-pound increase seems positively insignificant! Right?

T'ai Chi!

I recently started taking t'ai chi classes again.

I've loved t'ai chi from the very first time I encountered it. It combines movement and meditation, which from the very beginning have made me feel at peace. While yoga has its appeal, t'ai chi has a stronger pull for me because of its movement. I've been a dancer at heart from the time my mother enrolled me as a pre-schooler in dance lessons ( I remember them as modern-dance lessons, but they were probably more akin to movement and rhythm lessons).

The power of t'ai chi came home to me in the class I attended during my first Jarisch-Herxheimer reaction (also known as a "herx"). I had been diagnosed with Lyme disease and was taking antibiotics. A herx occurs when there is a die-off of bacteria, which then release toxins and make a person even sicker. I went to the t'ai chi class because I figured it would help me to feel better. It did.

Unfortunately, I couldn't continue with t'ai chi because I developed chronic fatigue then fibromyalgia and couldn't do much else besides work (and I needed to work for the health insurance; ah, the irony).

Fibromylagia kept me from all exercise, even my morning walks with the dogs. Once the nasty flare that resulted in my fibromyalgia diagnosis started to recede, I started to think about how to become more active. Then I experienced two very nasty bouts of vertigo that led to minor vertigo on a daily basis.

Hmmmm, vertigo = balance. What's good for balance? Ah ha! T'ai chi.

It feels very good to be back.

Big Mommy Weight Watcher

I'm a big fan of Weight Watchers.

Eleven months ago, I purchased a "Gold Card." It was good for twelve months of weekly meetings. I knew I had to make a long-term commitment if I was going to stick with it. It was a very good move on my part. I have attended a Weight Watchers meeting every week since I signed up.

Six months ago, I signed up for eTools. I don't track or plan the way I should so I'm probably not getting as much use out of eTools as I could, but it's a good reference. It's harder to use now that I'm on Core, but I'm learning to make it work for me instead of stymie me.

I'm a big fan of Weight Watchers.

Complaint coming? You bet!

I spend a lot of time at weightwatchers.com on their message boards. As is common with active message boards, there is a lot of help to be had there. I got a lot of help yesterday, as I recounted earlier. That help included a link to a thread with lots of whole-grain recipes and a description of the once-a-day rules. I was having trouble understanding why brown rice can only be eaten once a day on Core (after reading the nutrition info on packages of barley, quinoa, and bulgar I now know that it's probably because brown rice doesn't have a significant amont of fiber).

I'm a big fan of Weight Watchers.

Fortunately, I printed the threads with the recipes so I could refer to them later while making out my grocery list. Why was that fortunate? Because when I went back to the thread to find the link this morning, the post with the link and once-a-day rules was gone. It took me a while to figure out that, no, I wasn't losing my mind, I really had read the post. Instead, Big Mommy Weight Watcher had "poofed" the post (as some posters put it).

Hmmm, why would that be? I've seen links to other threads in older posts so it must have been the once-a-day rules. Oh, please. I know that Weight Watchers fiercely guards its copyright and its plan details. Fine. Deleting the post with explanation, though, is patronizing and dumb.

Have I mentioned that I'm a big fan of Weight Watchers?

The messages boards are open to the public, so Weight Watchers obviously doesn't want non-paying people to show up, get the details of the weight-loss plans for nothing, then leave. Ahem. How many times have I heard that success is greatly improved by attending meetings? How many times have I read that success is even greater when eTools are added to the meetings?

This tells me that the message boards are nothing more than a promotional tool to get people to sign up for meetings. And once signed up for meetings, to sign up for eTools. If people can't get to a meeting, then they can sign up for the online program, which I believe includes eTools.

Looking at the message boards from that perspective, it's no wonder the boards are so hard to use (for starters, they're difficult to search and they default to the latest thread). I'm looking forward to the time when I don't need help from the message boards because I'm frustrated by them every time I use them.

And maybe by then, they'll have improved eTools enough that I won't have to keep switching my plan from Core to Flex and back to get the information I need.

Core Follies

Gained .2 this week, for a total loss of 26.6 pounds. Didn't make it below the magic 30 BMI this week.

Most of the week I didn't feel full, so I posted on the Veggie & Core message boards at WeightWatchers.com. The two boards are very different but they both came back with the same replies: Post a menu so we can take a look. On Core you're not looking to feel full; instead you want to feel satisfied. Are you feeling satisfied?

So I posted a typical day's menu. Once again, the responses were nearly identical: You're not eating enough dairy. You're not getting enough whole grains. You're eating too much brown rice. Your lunches are too diet-y.

Sigh.

I thought I was doing pretty well with Core, but clearly I'd missed some key points. Fortunately, a couple of the posters pointed me to some threads with lots of recipes using grains. This morning I selected two or three of them, made my grocery list, and went shopping. Now I just need to find the energy to cook!

The plan is to make as many of the changes as possible of those suggested and see how I do this next week. If I'm still feeling unsatisfied (I've learned my lesson on that one!), I'll post a daily meal plan again to see what I'm missing.

Someday maybe I'll be able to help someone else sort out their Core meal plan.

Setting Milestones

When I started Weight Watchers, I did so without a thought toward setting milestones. I just knew that I needed to stop gaining weight and start losing.

It wasn't long, though before I started to set milestones. Five, ten, fifteen pounds -- those were the first milestones I set and I rewarded myself with a WW Points calculator, a WW water bottle (which I have since abandoned because it probably contains BPA), and a WW magazine.

Next, I looked forward to hitting the 10% mark, which took months and months and months. I rewarded myself with the Hungry Girl cookbook.

My next milestone is to get my BMI (body mass index) to below 30. When my BMI goes below 30 I will no longer be officially obese. I will finally have entered the ranks of the merely overweight. I detest the term obese and I'm looking forward to shedding it.

Today my BMI 30.6. I have no idea how much weight I need to lose to see it go below 30 and I'm not going to calculate it. It's more interesting this way!

Slowly Going, Going . . . eventually gone

Lost .2 pounds this week for a total of 26.8 pounds lost. I'm not discouraged by such a small weight loss because I had the presence of mind to check my folder before getting weighed. I noticed that I'd lost week for five weeks in a row. I decided that if I didn't lose weight this week it would be OK because I can't expect to lose weight every week. Now I can say that I've lost weight six weeks in a row.

I spent the week trying to eat every three hours or so. I'm not a natural at this, so it was hard work and I'm still getting the hang of it. The reason I'm doing this is that I was recently diagnosed with vestibular migraines; they're migraines with vertigo and nausea, sometimes an aura, but no headache. The doctor I saw suggested I avoid the traditional migraine-headache triggers to see if I can reduce the frequency and severity of vertigo I experience; I experience vertigo and nausea daily, sometimes many times a day. He also suggested I try other things, such as eating more often to produce more even levels of blood sugar in my body.

Being a reference librarian at heart, I did a fair amount of research. It's easy to find lists of migraine triggers on line. It's much harder to find people who have actually reduced the frequency or severity of their migraines by avoiding the traditional triggers.

Based on my research, I concluded that the technique with the highest likelihood of success was eating throughout the day. Now I eat a regular breakfast then have a piece of fruit mid-morning, a small lunch, yogurt mid-afternoon, sometimes popcorn late afternoon, then dinner. I used to eat the fruit, salad, and yogurt at lunch.

So far I've seen no improvement in my vertigo or nausea. I have seen improvement in my ability to tell when I'm hungry and when I'm satisfied, which, as you may know, is a key component of the WW Core plan. Progress can made be made under strange circumstances.

I'm not optimistic that I'll be able to make a difference in how often or how severely I experience vertigo or nausea. It's entirely possible that this is just another manifestation of fibromyalgia, a possibility the doctor candidly discussed with me.