Unsafe at Any Size

Huzzah!  I finally got a letter.

The backstory: after losing 110 lbs on Weight Watchers, I’m at a point where I’m feeling happy and healthy.  I’ve met my personal goals for weight loss.  Weight Watchers lets you come for free after you’ve maintained your goal weight for a certain amount of time.  These “lifetime” members get the support from other members for maintaining their weight loss, and can inspire them as they lose their own weight.

There are two ways to become a lifetime member: your weight can be within what the BMI says is healthy, or you can get a letter from your doctor saying a different weight is appropriate for you.

I haven’t lost enough weight to get to the BMI range for my height, and I haven’t after 2.5 years at WW.  I probably could, but I’m happy right where I am.  I’ve made a huge number of lifestyle changes, and at this time don’t feel like making more.

I thought that my regular doctor, who was on Weight Watchers himself and lost weight with the program, would be sympathetic.  But at my annual exam, he argued that based on statistics, people who are in the “normal” BMI range are healthier than those who aren’t.  Even those like me who have good cholesterol, blood pressure, etc. are more likely to hurt themselves when they fall because the weight makes them more top heavy.

Huh?

It’s hard to argue with someone who’s fully clothed when you’re wearing a paper napkin.  And he’s right, statistically speaking.  But there are statistics, and then there are the needs of individuals.  And this individual is DONE!

Fortunately, my gynecologist agreed with me!  At my visit yesterday I told her my plight, and she took mercy.  I now have a letter saying an appropriate weight for me is 170.  I finally feel like I’ve got some agency back!

As great as this news is, it doesn’t mean I can go on lifetime yet.  During my months-long hissy fit, I gained a few lbs I need to lose to get to that 170.  And Weight Watchers has you do 6 weeks on maintenance before you’re officially lifetime.  After that, if you go too high over your goal weight you need to pay.  Now THAT would be motivating for me.

So chocolate chip cookies?  Not interested.  Peanut butter sandwiches?  Nuh uh.  I’m on mission!

Not my feet, not my scale, not my weight

Whaddya know!  Tracking works.  You know that, and I knew that.  I know it again, too.  I lost 2 lbs this week, for a total of 113 lost.

I know that tracking works, so why did I stop?  Because it was all too much.  When I was originally tracking, I was doing flore- eating core foods but tracking points.  I wouldn’t eat my weekly points or my activity points.  Not surprisingly, it was very effective, but also hard to maintain.

When I got down to 22 daily points, I panicked.  This isn’t the way I wanted to live my life!  So I stopped tracking.  For the most part, my diet has changed enough so that worked well.  But after the Halloween debacle, it was time to get serious again.  Not too serious, though–I’m going over my daily allotment of points by a few each day.  And that is ok!

I’m hoping Thanksgiving won’t be very challenging this year, even though I’m not doing the cooking.  We are traveling to LA, and my sister and mother in law are both doing Weight Watchers.  We’ll have pumpkin pie for the kids, but we’re going to try Hungry Girl’s Pumpkin Smash.

Speaking of pumpkin, I now do a variation on the Hungry Girl pumpkin pudding, but instead of using premade pudding I use an immersion blender and blend in a can of pumpkin into 2 cups of milk, vanilla or butterscotch pudding mix, and some pumpkin pie spice.  Add a little lite Cool Whip, and you’ve got a fantastic dessert.  No, it’s not pumpkin pie, but it’s great for every day.

But oh no! Apparently, we are looking at a pumpkin shortage this year! Ohhhhhhhhh noooooooo!  Should I go and buy a crate of pumpkin now?  Screw the Eggo waffle shortage people; this is serious.  (Serious=it affects me.)

At least half of the Hungry Girl recipes feature pumpkin; why, I’m eying a chocolate and peanut butter fudge recipe on her site right now that uses a can!

I AM going to clear out the local Lucky.  If you can’t find pumpkin to make your pie, you can blame me and my pumpkin hoarding.

Not my feet, not my scale, not my weight

I knew the news wouldn’t be good today, and sure enough, it wasn’t: gained 2.2 lbs.  I’m pretty sure I didn’t eat that much Halloween candy; it must magically multiply in my thighs.

But the good news is, I do know what works, and that is tracking.  I haven’t done it consistently for about a year (?!? could it be that long?), and my weight has more or less drifted downward.  But now it’s drifting upwards.  I threw out all the clothes that don’t fit me, so that’s not a direction I want to go.

So thanks to DH Joel who hit me with the “Duh” stick.  Sometimes, it takes the obvious to get unstuck.  I’m back to tracking.

I realized I’m going to have to be a little less hard core when it comes to tracking.  When I was making good progress, I was doing something I called “flore”: eating mostly core foods (now filling foods on Weight Watchers) but counting points, using just my daily points and not eating any activity points or weekly points.

That worked great when I had 28 or 30 daily points, but now that I’m down to 22 daily points, it’s no wonder I found it too restrictive.  The solution is not to give it up altogether, but to do it the way it’s supposed to be: with room for life.  No program that is inflexible is something you can live with.

Not my feet, not my scale, not my weight

I’m jealous.  My husband lost a whopping 4.2 lbs this week following my “pay to eat” plan.  So did I have similar success?

Not so much.  I lost only .2–that’s right, there’s a . in there.  Ah well!  Better luck next time.  Maybe if I tracked… nah!

My meeting was rather annoying, too.  The topic of the day was getting in your filling foods, but we got stuck at the vegetables.  What was annoying was the attitude of one of the participants.  Now, one of the things I like about my meeting is it isn’t all “everything is wonderful” all the time.  But still, you have to wonder why some people return if there’s NOTHING they can do to improve their situation.

In this case, this member couldn’t find any way to eat more fruits and vegetables.  She doesn’t like vegetables like eggplant or bell peppers.  Her brother-in-law bought tons of fruit, but it didn’t “call” to her.  Her inlaws cooked, and she couldn’t get them to follow a recipe.  She won’t cook.  When she made a big salad, she gained weight the next day.  And so on.

At the end of it, it’s like she wanted the room to agree that, yes, you are powerless.  Yes, there really is nothing you can do.  But if she really believed that, why was she there?

We can always come up with reasons why we “can’t” do something.  And sometimes, we really can’t.  But sometimes, we’ve boxed ourselves in with reasons so we don’t have to leave a place that’s comfortable, but not making us particularly happy.  Don’t fool yourself though that you are really powerless; you’ve made a choice, and you’re coming up with reasons to justify that choice.

So I’ve made a choice not to track points.  I’d definitely lose weight if I did. But at this time, I just don’t want to.  It’s not that it’s too hard, or inconvenient.  It’s a choice I’ve made.  Maybe I’ll change my mind.  But it’s my choice to make; I’m not the hapless victim of circumstances.

So what are your reasons?

I’ve been having a lot of problems with free food recently.  It’s been easier this week because the fountain o’ candy has run dry, but it’s a tough thing in general.  It’s really tough for my husband, too, who contends with a newsroom full of candy bombs.

I realized that the biggest difference between free candy and candy at the store is that free candy, is, well, free.  I don’t have to actually make a choice and pay for it.  Even when the amount transacted is trivial, it’s that transaction that makes it easier for me to resist.

So, this week, I set up a deal with my husband: all that free candy isn’t free.  If either of us eats a candy bar, it’s ok, but we owe the other a dollar.  Whatever the “street value” of the food, that’s what we owe.

A wonderful thing happened: we were both able to resist the free food now, since not only was it not free but you had to ‘fess up about it, too.

And my husband lost 4.2 lbs this week!  That’s huge at any time, but especially so when you’ve been doing this for a while.  He’s down almost 80 lbs altogether.

My weigh-in is tomorrow.  I doubt I’ll match his success, but I feel I’ve been successful just by putting this one to rest in my own mind.

How about you?  How do you fight free food?