To Plateau Or Not To Plateau

pla·teau

[pla-toh or, esp. British, plat-oh] noun, plural pla·teaus, pla·teaux [-tohz, -tohz] verb, pla·teaued, pla·teau·ing.

noun

Psychology . a period of little or no apparent progress in an individual's learning, marked by an inability to increase speed, reduce number of errors, etc., and indicated by a horizontal stretch in a learning curve or graph.
 

When I weighed in yesterday afternoon, I was surprised to see that I didn't lose any weight.  I had really stepped up my game as far as exercising and was proud to say that, even without having the Active Link (remember, I lost it in the snow a week or so back), I kept my promise to know how I was going to be active every day.

That being said, I needed to take a look at everything I'm doing, especially if I think it is right.  The week prior at our meeting, we focused on portion control and how to be handling it correctly.  I assumed I was doing it right; how hard could it be if you are using the Weight Watchers issued measuring cups?  Believe it or not, I wasn't doing it correctly and I probably was lying to myself a little.  You don't always realize you are doing this; you think you would, however, for me, that is not the case.  I missed some of the demonstration and was unable to stay after the meeting to see it again.  That hurt me a bit, in the end.   

In any event, I ended up taking a look last night at the instructions for the cups.  A cup or 1/2 cup of one thing is not the same as a cup or 1/2 cup of another.  I think the best option for me is to find a real scale, preferably a digital one (I have bought others in the past and were not pleased with their measuring abilities).  I think that I also need to extend weighing and measuring when I am shopping, too.  Supermarkets have scales and a lot of them are digital, so I will be employing them the next time I do a big shopping.  

I also need to take some time and figure out what it takes for me to walk a mile.  If it is nice enough this weekend, before we go out for the evening, I will take a walk in the nearby park since I know that to and from is 2.5 miles.  I think my iPhone has a pedometer, so I can use that to measure a mile (I think).  Once I know that, I will know what my time is and can truthfully report it in Activity Tracking.

I've also said that I will examine the DVD that came with my member kit; I haven't endeavored to do that yet, but I know that just keeping it in my purse is not going to help with my goal.

So, this week, I plan to make these changes.  Our leader is going away for three weeks and she asked us to have something good to report when she returns.  I will be happy if I've followed through with my promises and even happier if said promises result in some loss.  That would be awesome.

Moving on... 

 

Losing, Literally.

It's been just about a month that I'm back on Weight Watchers (WW).  In that time, I've lost nearly 7 lbs.  I feel good about it, really, I do.  I just feel that I probably could be losing more, given the fact that I have significantly amped up how much I move.  I was doing virtually nothing before.  

Let's talk about measuring achievements for a sec, here.  When I rejoined WW, they told us about a new product that they developed in conjunction with Phillips.  It's called the Active Link (AL).  I thought, what the heck?  Try the thing and see if it works.  The only thing that would have held me back was the cost.  AL has an initial cost of $39.99 and a $5.00 monthly charge thereafter.  It also only works in one computer, so they tell you to use it with the computer you're using most.  For me, that's my work computer.  The thing is magic really.  You have a choice of three places you can wear it:  on your belt or pocket, on your bra strap or on a chain (which is what I should have done, but we'll get to that in a moment).  I chose to wear it on my pants pocket; if I wasn't wearing pants on a given day, I kept it on my bra, but that is really not comfortable.  You only have to have it on and it will record your movements.  It's looking for up and down, side to side and anything else you do.  It really motivates you to move.  My job involves a lot of sitting, so for me, this is good.  I almost never get up from my chair to move if I'm not heading to the bathroom.  This made me aware I should be moving more day-to-day in addition to exercise.  So, I mostly wore it on my pants pocket.  To tell you the truth, I was constantly checking to see if it was there.  Constantly.  Until I didn't check.  When I left my office this past Friday, I know the AL was on my pocket.  I even checked to make sure it was tight.  I put on my coat, hat and scarf and headed home.  I don't know why, but I left it alone for the entire ride home.  I did not check it once, which as I've mentioned, and because I was becoming obsessive compulsive about the thing, is rare.  I began to walk home in the snowstorm.  It is normally a good ten minute walk from the subway to my apartment.  With the snow, it would be harder, because it was coming down and the inches were piling up.  I started trudging through the snow piles.  At one point, I stopped to take a picture, so my friends in sunny Florida could see what was going on.  I continued walking along my merry way and then for a sudden, I checked to see if the AL was in place.  This time, sadly, it was not.  I started to panic.  The one time I don't check for it, it's gone?  Don't even ask the curses I started spewing.  Thankfully, there weren't too many people out.  I took a second, and decided to re-trace my steps.  Honestly, what was I thinking.  I has no idea when I lost it, so what good would that do?  Really, all it did was add to my exercise for the day, which because I was being so diligent and sticking to my promise to myself, was at almost an hour already for the day.  Adding another ten or 15 minutes would be great.  But, I was still soooo pissed.  I headed back towards the train station.  The snow was really coming down now, and it was colder than a witches... you know.  I had my gloves off, so of course, my hands were freezing.  By the time I got back to the subway, I hadn't found it.  I decided to turn around and head home again.  Of course, I couldn't go home without calling Weight Watchers and telling them I lost it.  I thought they'd have a measure of sympathy, which they kind of did, but not enough to say, "Oh, we'll send you a new one."  I did not remember that they told us that the contract was really with Phillips and since they were closed for the weekend by that point. I had to wait till Monday to deal with it.  The woman at WW did put a stop on my account, so it wouldn't be charged, but only Phillips could fully cancel the thing.  I did get a slight chuckle out of the phone call when WW woman said, "Perhaps when the snow melts, you'll find it".  Okay, hon, right.

Now, as this ends up, I have to decide if I want to invest in another Active Link.  I really loved the little guy.  I don't want to run the risk of losing it again.  If I did decide to, I would definitely put it on a chain and never take it off.  The question is, can I stay motivated to keep on track with the exercise?  I think I am able to.  Stay with me and follow my progress.  I am still on track this week and I plan to do that next and the week after, etc.

The journey continues.

Seeing the future

Maintaining.  This is a word I always associate with dieting.  Some would disagree with me and say it applies to other things.  My take on it is that whenever I've heard it, "She's maintaining; that's good." I can only assume it relates to a diet.

So that's basically what my past week brought.  Maintaining, or as our leader says, not getting on yourself for a failure to lose.  I can't really complain because I'm up only .2 lbs.  Not much to spill your milk over and cry in it.  I think the word should be changed to motivating, because whether you are losing or gaining, you have some motivation to keep going.  That is, if you face it as an adult and move on. 

Today's topic, which focused mainly on planning your future (tomorrow, the next day, the day after that), turned into "Why did I go to that Superbowl Party, eat those wings, drink so much beer?"  I personally did not suffer from this malady because I still chose wisely.  I decided early on that if my husband wanted some sort of Super Bowl treat, it would remain a healthful one.  Luckily, he wasn't against that and eagerly ate all of his Weight Watchers recipe Mozzarella Sticks.  I'm extremely thankful for the WW String Cheese, because it is the main contributor to the recipe.  They were quite yummy and I would definitely make them again.  I will, however, freeze them before baking next time because they melted into cheese puddles in the oven.  This is not necessarily a bad thing, because, as I've mentioned, they were yummy.

So, what is stopping us from planning the future?  Why don't we plan for exercise, which, as told by our leader, is an important component.  I'm sure we all know this, but we're better at making excuses for not doing it rather than having it in our weekly plan.  If we can track our food, we can track the exercise we get, no matter what it is.  This has always been a downfall for me in terms of maintaining the weight I lose.  I never realize that along with the good eating habits, I need to keep moving.  My job keeps me pretty sedentary; there's no running around the office when you're updating HTML and Java Script all day.  I can't do jumping jacks when I'm creating buttons in PowerPoint and saving them as JPEGs.  That sounds like exercise, doesn't it?  I can testify to the fact that it isn't.  I'm glad that I've been doing more walking.  I've taken advantage of WW's new Active Link, which I wear on my belt all day long.  It tracks every move I make, which is good, because it helps me earn activity points.  If I earn enough of them in a week, I can swap them for food.  My goal is to start earning more than I have been.  Walking to and from the train and a little bit during lunch has been gaining me 1-2 points a day, but that's not where I really should be.  I have to amp it up.  I was given a free DVD when I joined, so I really need to explore that.

I want to be able to talk about my goal setting next week at the meeting, so I'm resolving (ooh, there's that word I hate) to really check out the DVD (not just read the back) and to add more walking to my day.  I know I can make that work. 

Hit the comments and let me know what you're planning to do.  I know it will give me inspiration, as I hope this blog is inspiring you.

Staying on Track

I'm really proud of myself; I'm down 5.4 lbs in just 3 weeks.  You might think, "Why wouldn't she be proud of herself?  That's a great accomplishment!"

If you're reading the blog, you know that I've done Weight Watchers before and lost 52 lbs. in 8 months.  I was so proud of myself then.  I even kept it off for a year.  So, what went wrong?  Pretty much everything.  While I was patting myself on the back for the weight loss, I found out that I had a tumor on my adrenal gland.  The tumor was not malignant, however, it was causing me a lot of pain and stress.  You would think that the doctor would want to take that puppy out right away.  But, of course not.  Even though he was 95% sure this tumor was a, get this, pheochromacytoma (say that ten times fast), he needed to do a myriad of tests to be completely sure.  I was hoping the tests would show he was completely wrong, because, to be honest, I did not plan for having holes cut in my abdomen any time at all.  Sadly, he was not wrong, and the surgery was scheduled.  Due to all the stress, I gained about 15 lbs. back prior to the surgery.  Because the tumor was affecting my blood pressure and the amount of adrenalin I produced, the doctor was on me to lose that weight.  I could not do it.  In fact, I became a stress eater, even after knowing I was going to be completely okay.

Most people think stress eating is not even a real thing.  It is.  Sometimes you don't even know you are overeating because of stress.  For me, most of the time I did, but I didn't care.  I could not get myself to a place where I wanted to be completely better.  How sad is that?  

They (whoever they are) always say that in order to make a change in your life, you need to want it.  No smoker is going to quit unless they really want to.  I know this to be true, because I watched my father try to quit numerous times.  He even went back to smoking after having cancer and 2 heart attacks.  It's what ultimately did him in, but not before riddling his whole body with tumors.  I think about that all the time, but until now it didn't faze me enough to want to change.

Now, I want it more than ever.  I suppose it is because I am reaching the end of my 40s (not that soon, nosy!) and I want to make the rest of my life a healthful one.  

So, how can we plan for this?  Truthfully, there is no concrete plan, but you have to do what is best for you.  For me, it is being back on Weight Watchers and attending meetings.  I personally need that kind of support.  In my last try at this, I was secretly angry at people who were on the program but only had a little to lose.  Now I know I should not have been judging them.  They obviously were there because they thought they needed to lose their weight.  I know now it isn't about numbers.  It always has to be about how you feel.  Of course, you won't feel good unless you find something that works for you and for me this is it.

Find your own plan.  Again, I'm writing about weight loss, but if there is something else you need tyo change in your life (maybe you smoke too much) try creating a plan for yourself and track your progress.  For me, tracking is key, but it isn't the end all be all of the plan.  I just want to feel better and I know that following this plan is going to work.  I believe.

A Funny For The Day

Slow And Steady Wins The Race

I'm proud to say that in my first week back on WW, I lost 2.2 lbs.  To be honest, it is less than I wanted to lose.  My last time around at this, I took 6 lbs. off the first week.  I couldn't believe that was even possible.

When I first sat down waiting for the meeting today, I had a tiny bit of sadness.  I did everything they told me I should be doing.  Remember, if I am going to do something, I have to go all-in.  Suggestions were to change your spaces, so I cleaned out the refrigerator and the cabinets.  I replaced all the bad stuff with vegetables, fruits (most zero points), lean protein and lots of good whole grains.  I'm on a new kick eating things with flax.  Everything these days comes with added flax.  Oatmeal, bread, even pasta.  Glad to know this, as it makes it easy, and truthfully, this stuff actually tastes way better.  I know, you'd think high fiber foods have a weird taste, but that's not the case at all.

The leader asked who was new from last week.  I reluctantly raised my hand, and I wonder why it was reluctant because last time I did this, I was chatty Cathy in the meeting room.  Then she pointed to each of us and we had to say what worked for us and if we lost weight.  I suddenly had an epiphany; this stuff is cathartic.  When the first girl said she lost 7 lbs. in her first week, I wanted to smack her, but it ends up that now that she's drinking water instead of wine in her many client shmooze fests, she lost because alcohol is a killer.  I don't tend to drink much at all, so I didn't have that to give up.  I'm now glad that I lost at all.

I also started walking more.  How nice for all of us in NYC that the weather has been milder this last week.  I have a DVD from WW, but I need to figure out what to do with my living room; if I'm going to change my spaces, I need a space that is good for exercising.  Right now, I'd just fall over and hit the wall unit, and that wouldn't be good, right?

Luckily, my husband is all-in, too.  That's what helped me the last time and I'm sure it will help me now.

Now I'm looking forward to next week.  I hope to lose some more, but if I don't, I won't berate myself.  I'll just move forward, slow and steady.

Attempting to not fail

“What I’ve experienced is that I can’t know the future. I can’t know if anything that I do will change what happens tomorrow. I can’t know with certainty, but what I do know is if I do nothing, nothing will change.” ~ James Orbinski

Because I am back on Weight Watchers now, I am drawn to anything about it, either in the news, on the web, when someone talks about it.

As I logged into Facebook this morning, there was a post on the WW wall asking, "If you could do anything and not fail at it, what would you do?"

I was taken aback at first.  Don't we go into everything we do with a nod to failure?  I like to think that I walk around spouting that for me FAILURE IS NOT AN OPTION.  I mean, how can we learn if there is no option for failure?

What is it about ourselves that makes us so afraid of failing?  I'm sure we've all failed at something at least once in our lifetimes.  For me, as a child, it was MATH.  In the beginning of my educational career, I did just fine.  Adding and subtracting were EASY.  When they attempted to teach us multiplication and division, I became sadly lost.  Weird, right?  If I could master the earlier equations, why couldn't I do these, which clearly involved some sort of adding and subtracting anyway?  Don't EVEN ask me about fractions.

Fast forward to adulthood.  I went through high school and college as what they call a Skinny Minny.  I didn't even have a chest until senior year of college.   Pretty much wore a training type bra until then. Seriously.  I graduated, started working and being able to eat better and packing on the pounds.  I joined Weight Watchers then, and lost 42 lbs.  I looked amazing again.  I even kept it off for two years.  Then, I met my husband, and in the throes of our early love, we ate like crazy.  I was still in the mind of the way to a guy's heart is through his stomach, but I included my own stomach and gained again.  FAILURE.

Next time I attempted weight loss, I did it on my own and lost about 25 lbs.  Still could not keep it off.  I was feeling great and then suffered the loss of my dad.  The depression sent me into an eating frenzy and I gained it all back and more.  FAILURE.

Four years ago, I joined WW AGAIN and took off 52 lbs.  I was doing so well and then was dealt my own health setback.  I focused on the fact that I was going to get through this issue, but honestly, the stress of all the tests, the operation that followed and the recovery, I failed yet again.

Now, I'm back on the journey.  I have A LOT of weight to lose.  What's different now?  I refuse to let failure be an option.  When I say this, I mean on the whole.  I know that I won;t be successful if I beat myself up about every setback, but this time I'm focusing on not having any.  I'm already feeling so good with the small changes I've made in my eating habits, that I'd be dumb to not fully embrace this.

And, I will not fail.