Thursday, February 10, 2011

Day 45: BATTLE!


Weight Watchers works, but not as well for me, I've decided.

First, there's the internal battle with Weight Watchers. Too many processed foods are low in WW points, and they're cheap. Then there's the financial battle to buy a lot of variety in foods. There's not much money floating around here right now, so it's a hard-fought battle.

Then there's the space vs. convenience concern. With my tiny fridge, I can't get a lot of unfrozen veggies and other good-for-me things. There just isn't enough room. So I get things that go into the chest freezer: vegetables, meat, and everything else. Except people bodies. That's just not my style! So many foods are filling and cheap and don't require fridge space!

Then there are the ineffective accountability procedures in place: 1. The now-evil splurge points that I constantly mess up, 2. Everything can have a point value, 3. "If you bite it, write it!" Ugh. That just hurts me on a literary level, too.

Writing everything down does make me aware that I have too many points and not enough restriction on what I can and do eat. I'm also more aware of when I mess up. And apparently I'm choosing the wrong foods. I need to get back to basics and cut out processed sugar and starches. But I find myself eating 3-6 points worth of frosted mini wheat knockoffs. That's up to 3 packs worth of oatmeal at one sitting!

My experiment with just WW and not a WW/Atkins hybrid, so far, isn't working for me. Having splurge points and a no-food-is-restricted process just gives me the wrong mentality: "I can eat this _______, calculate it later, and let my splurge points soak up the overage." And as soon as I do this, I'm outta splurge points, my body is accustomed to junk, and the minute weight loss I'm experiencing grinds to a halt. Again. :)

There just aren't enough repercussions for the simple, partially sustainable WW diet, for me. When in full ketosis on Atkins, I am more discouraged not to cheat. For one, the Atkins diet kills the sugar and caffeine addictions that allow us to consume the stuff without any mental checks. I just don't crave it as much. I have a second reason that cheating is less likely on the Atkins diet: eating processed carbs has a horrible effect on the GI tract. Don't wanna have an emergency in public with no bathroom in sight? Then you're not going to want to eat that burrito, are you? The third reason is appetite suppression. Until Maintenance, there is no hunger.

Call the Atkins diet restrictive, if you will. For my case, I think that's why it works. I'm going to give WW another couple weeks, until I run low on food I can't Atkins-ize. I'm determined to have at least 7 consecutive days of WW without screwing it up! :-D I want to give it a full month, and today is Day 16. So that'll place me around February 25 at a full month. That's not so bad!

PROGRESS: Abysmal, with high notes of exercise!
GOAL 1: REGULAR WW UNTIL FEBRUARY 25
GOAL 2: DESIGN FRANKEN-DIET of WW and Atkins STARTING Feb. 26!!!

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