September 30, 2012

Progress Report on Weight Watchers

I am just three weeks out from my marathon, which also means I'm three weeks IN to my challenges. I had created two six-week challenges for myself: 1) Give up peanut butter, and 2) Try the Weight Watchers PointsPlus program. Since today marks the halfway point, I figured I'd write a little progress report.

First, the peanut butter. This is probably the longest I've ever gone without peanut butter! I knew I was hooked on it, but I didn't realize just how many calories I was getting each day from peanut butter until I stopped eating it. I thought giving it up would be awful (seriously, I thought I would die), but it hasn't been too bad.

Some might stay I have a small obsession ;)


I've learned that peanut butter is my biggest binge trigger there is. More-so than ice cream or cookies or candy. Every time that I binge, the foods I choose contain peanut butter in some form. I am excited to say that I have been 100% binge-free for three weeks now. It's been a long time since I've gone that amount of time without a binge.

Before this challenge, my snacks would almost always be:
Toast with peanut butter
Carrots with peanut butter
A spoonful (or two or eight) of peanut butter
Nutella with peanut butter (yes, you read that right)
A granola bar spread with peanut butter
Peanut butter + honey + dry oats (kind of like a cookie dough)
Frozen yogurt or ice cream topped with peanut butter
A brownie with peanut butter

For the past three weeks, my snacks have been:
Fruit (mostly grapes)
Broccoli with ranch dip
Fiber One bar
Almonds
Popcorn

I certainly don't think there is anything "wrong" with peanut butter, but I was obviously eating a lot of junk WITH the peanut butter before. So my snacks have been much healthier. I do miss peanut butter sometimes, but it's usually in a binge-y kind of way, which is no good. Giving it up has really helped me with my second challenge...

Following the Weight Watchers' PointsPlus program for six weeks.

It's been three weeks, and I have logged my food and counted my PointsPlus (PP) every single day. I decided from the very beginning to give the program a fair chance, and not think about my past experiences with WW.

I had the materials at home to follow the program without actually joining, but to give it a 100% fair chance, I figured I should at least join the online program--which is what I did. I forget the exact cost, but I think it was about $60 for 3 months. ($20/month is a LOT to me--it was hard to fork over that money).

Ironically, it's the money that has made me stick to the plan! I honestly would have quit on Day 1 if I hadn't paid the money. Every time I had a thought of my usual, "Oh, I'll just start over tomorrow", I reminded myself that I just paid them a lot of money, and I better get my money's worth out of it in the long run.

I've had a few obstacles, but I took Pete's advice and made a plan ahead of time for how to handle them. First, was dinner at my mom's house; there was Jerry's 90-Day dinner for work; going out to lunch with Renee and Jessica; and a couple of date nights with Jerry. I stayed on plan for all of those, which is a big achievement.

I'm really surprised that this time around on WW, I actually like the plan. The free fruit thing has me sold ;)  Whenever I am feeling ultra snacky, and feel like I'm going to lose control, I'll usually have fruit (almost always grapes). I haven't been "abusing" the free fruit, either--I typically will have 3-4 servings per day. Grapes have really been my savior over the last three weeks!

Since my desserts almost always include peanut butter in some form, I haven't really been eating sweets. At night, for my daily "treat", I've been having a glass of wine and a single Dove Promise (dark chocolate).

Typically, my food intake is breakfast, then lunch, then snack, then dinner, and then a bedtime treat/snack. I'm allotted 26 PointsPlus per day, as well as 49 "weekly PP", and "activity PP" (for exercising, I can earn extra PP to use on food). I've been eating all of my daily's, all of my weeklies, and almost all of my activity PP for each of the last three weeks. Here is what a typical day might look like:


I log my weight on Sundays, and today's weight was 146. My technical starting weight was actually 156 (!!)--BUT, I don't consider that accurate, because I had binged the day before, which always makes me gain 4-5 pounds of water weight. So my actual starting weight was probably more like 152 (yes, that's way above my panic weight). That would be a total loss of six pounds, or an average of two pounds a week. I'm very happy with that!


The best part is just that I feel like I'm in control again. All summer long, I felt like I was just one binge away from gaining back 100+ pounds. I was stress-bingeing too often, and it scared me. But like I've said before, the summertime is very stressful for me, and I always do best at weight loss/maintenance in the fall and winter months.

My jeans were extremely tight, and a lot of them were unwearable--and now, after just three weeks on plan, my jeans are getting comfortable again (and some of the unwearables are now wearable).

So as of today, I'm very happy with the way things are going. I am going to continue with my challenges until the marathon (and possibly beyond?? I would be thrilled to get back down to my comfortable weight of 133). As far as counting calories vs. counting PointsPlus, I think either one is fine and both work. I got sick of counting calories, and decided to give WW another try. I like that it's easier to tally up PP in my head, and I love the free fruit. I'll write more about what I think about the plan after the six-week mark, but for now, I like it enough to keep going :)

27 comments:

  1. Way to go!:)
    Iam addicted to pears & grapefruit:D

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  2. Glad to hear that you are doing so well on WW! Losing six pounds will probably make your marathon more manageable too!

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  3. I know this might sound ridiculous, but I find it refreshing to read a post about someone who lost tons of weight and still struggling with binge eating. So many weight loss posts are throwing out advice and saying "I feel so great now, I'll never go back". Binge eating is something that's around for life, and I love that you still recognize it and that you accept it instead of eating it (hah!).

    Since you mentioned what you binge on, I'll tell you mine is chips and pop. Whenever something happy happened in my life we always celebrated with chips, or if we had fun movie nights etc we had chips and I adopted it as my happy food.

    Thanks again for the always wonderful blog posts! :)

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  4. Ahhh I haven't lost 100 lbs but i'm working on a goal of 65 so far I have lost 15 and kept it off for almost a year! I know that sounds so sad but it's a daily challenge ( I also have hypothyroidism and pcos...if anyone has any suggestions with eating and exercise to help that would be great!) I'm with Daphne, YOU have done an amazing job and EVERY day is a challenge! keep on!

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    1. I have PCOS and I talked to a dietitian to get some things worked out. I would really suggest talking to a professional, the internet is full of people who just like to think they're professionals :)

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  5. At this rate, you could be back to 133 by Thanksgiving. :) That's awesome!

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  6. It's great to get progress reports...it's fun to hear how you're doing. I hope you do them as often as you're comfortable with, because they're motivational for many readers like me (even hearing about your weight challenges is helpful) :)

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  7. Great to read how everything is going :) Yay for WW win!

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  8. That's awesome! And not bingeing for three weeks is a HUGE accomplishment!

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  9. That's great Katie! Congrats on the success with WW and with numbers like that, you'll be back in the 30's in no time!

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  10. You're doing fantastic and I think it's great that you discovered which food is your trigger food for binges. I think once my gym membership is up, I'm going to try WW for a month just to see how it goes.

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  11. You are doing great on WW. I wondered how the "free" fruit thing was working out for you. I'm afraid I might be tempted to take advantage of that. Do they caution you to limit it to 3-5 helpings of fruit per day or do they just say, "Eat all the fruit you want!"?
    I had a very bad weekend--way too much snacking while watching football and volleyball. Very little activity, other than cooking and doing laundry, and lots of eating = BAD news on the scale this morning! So back at it today.

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    1. They encourage you to eat until satisfied, rather than stuffed. However, I might eat fruit when I'm not really hungry (WW would tell me not to do that)--but it's certainly much better than binge eating cookies! ;) I use the fruit as a "filler", where I can snack while feeling snacky, but still stay within my points range. So far, I haven't had problems losing weight this way!

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  12. That is wonderful, Katie! It sucks, but I have to keep certain foods out of my house. Just seeing them can start binge thinking.

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    1. I'm the same way...I have to keep so many foods out to where it almost seems like I don't have anything to eat.

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  13. You are such an inspiration, Katie :) I love how honest you are with yourself and with your readers. Congratulations and thank you, once again, for reminding us (welll... mostly just me!) that hard work DOES pay off. You know, if you do it ;) Rock on, woman!

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    1. Sonja, I want to include myself as well, to thank Katie for reminding (us) me about how hard work pays!
      I stumbled upon her blog & I have believed I can do it too.

      Iam trying to stick to the 'determination' that she talks about.
      :)

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  14. I read your blog quite often, but never comment. I just wanted to say GREAT JOB!! You are an inspiration!

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  15. Yay for your weight loss! I didn't do great over the past weekend or week so I'm gonna start back over and try to do better this week.

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  16. You are doing so awesome, Katie! As always, a total inspiration. Your weight loss is GREAT. I'm not doing WW but I am starting back on SparkPeople today (thanks to the nudge I just got from you after reading your post! :) Great job.

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  17. Katie, have you tried peanut butter powder? Like FitNutz? I just bought some locally from a company that makes it here and plan to be talking to him more about it in the next couple of days. Peanut butter is a hard one for me, too. Some people would rather not eat it at all if they can't have the real thing, but this PB powder when added with water, to me, is almost just as good as actual peanut butter. (and is only 50 calories for 2 tbsp!!)

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  18. Yay!! I'm so glad it's working for you!! Congrats on the success!

    I used to hate fruit...now that it's "free"--it's my new best friend. ;)

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  19. Katie,
    I am happy that you have found greater success on the ww p+ plan. I was really sad when I read your previous entry talking about the receptionist that didnt' care. Yes, it is a business, but I really do think my leader cares about me losing weight. I also reccommend peanut powder or "peanut flour", which you could mix into your oatmeal.

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  20. You know, you could just count calories, but not count calories on your fruit? Or your vegetables for that matter?

    That's what I do... Your counting doesn't have to be absolute in order to work. If I carrots, or broccoli, or oranges or apples or something I know is healthy like that, I don't bother counting the calories in them towards my daily total. Unless I'm eating like... ALL the CARROTSSSS. That rarely happens, though...

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I used to publish ALL comments (even the mean ones) but I recently chose not to publish those. I always welcome constructive comments/criticism, but there is no need for unnecessary rudeness/hate. But please--I love reading what you have to say! (This comment form is super finicky, so I apologize if you're unable to comment)

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