Well, I finally did it. I forked over my $85 bucks and bought myself a 3 month membership to weight watchers online yesterday. I figure three months will get me near enough to the fall sweater season that I can say I gave it my best effort and bury my bathing suit in a pile of junk food wrappers until next year.
As I mentioned in my other post, I’ve never dieted before. I don’t think my eating habits are horrendous, but I do like a little snack here and there. The appeal of WW was to learn how to make better food choices, especially since I’m the chief cook and grocery buyer.
The plan I chose is called the Flex plan: “Enjoy the full range of food options, while making better choices with the POINTS system. ” All foods have a point value, and you just have to stay within your daily alottment of points to become a size 6 overnight. Okay, I may be extrapolating more than they are promising, but how hard can it be?
Two things appealed to me about this whole point system. The first was that they have a full catalogue of the point value of all my favourite fast foods. Subway, Tim Hortons, Wendy’s, McDonalds, it’s all there. How bad can any diet be that includes Dairy Queen? The biggest appeal, though, was the daily counting and control of the points themselves.
I must confess, I am a bean counter at heart. Points to tally, online charts to monitor your progress, little boxes to check off several times a day – it’s an obsessive-compulsive dream come true. With all these points to micromanage, I’ll have no time to eat junk food.
So I sign up late yesterday afternoon, and spend a while playing around on the site and looking at the point values for various foods. “Hey,” I think, “This is going to be a breeze. Looks like I’ll have to replace the odd bag of chips with an apple, maybe choose the veggie sub over the philly steak and cheese, but this is going to work out great!”
I enter my height and weight, and it gives me my daily point value. And I hit the back button to make sure I didn’t miss a digit or something, because that point value seems suspiciously low. So I rekey it, and it is still the same. Hmmm. Okay, we can work with this.
Despite the fact that I’m feeling a little shortchanged in the points exchange, I’m still feeling keen and eager to play with their various points calculators, so I begin entering all the food I’ve eaten so far in the day. I’m amazed how simple it is – just a few clicks and I’m into the “dining out” section, finding Tim Hortons, scrolling down to find the choco-chip muffin that is my daily breakfast bread and – GASP! Holy point explosion Batman, that damn muffin is almost HALF of my daily alottment of points.
It is with considerably more trepidation that I search out the salami and havarti sandwich from my favourite deli that was lunch and add it to the total. Eek. Not even noon and my points are busted for the day. Too late to change dinner plans so late in the day, so I go ahead and add the barbequed sausage, saurkraut and cole slaw that I have on the menu for dinner. I am only somewhat mollified by the fact that the greek salad will cost me nothing if I pick out the feta. I know I probably won’t pick out the feta, but I just don’t have the heart to burden myself with the additional points.
Okay, so this is not an example of my best eating habits, but neither is it as bad as it gets. On day one, I’ve eaten 150% of my daily points alottment. Yikes. No wonder left to my own devices I’m not losing any weight.
Already discouraged and wondering if I’ve just wasted $85 that I could have just spent on bigger pants, I found my saving grace. You can bargain for extra points! For 20 minutes of moderate exercise, you can buy a point. For 30 minutes of vigourous exercise, you can buy two points. So my new daily obsession is not so much tallying up the food points as keeping track of how many seconds it takes to walk to the photocopier or the printer and back to my cube, so I can string them all together to buy myself enough points to earn my muffin back.
I was going to create a new blog for my WW adventures, but with barely enough time in the day to maintain one blog now that I’m spending all my time bartering points I’m not sure I have it in me to maintain two. What do you think? Are you interested enough in my WW adventures to keep reading them here, or should I move it elsewhere? Or, god forbid, shall I just keep it to myself for once?
You go girl!!! I am with you – will cheer for you and yes, be extremely jealous when you will soon look (better than you already do!) so good that maybe even one day I’ll play along.
Blog away – you post today was f-ing hilarious!!! Oh, and I do NOT wanna know how many points my smartie McFlurry was last night (size small though!).
xo
Hey, Danigirl. Welcome to the club! Don’t worry, you get used to the low points. And not to discourage you, but the real challenge comes when you get to go into a lower point zone :). But, if I can do it, so can you. Good luck, I’ll be checking back to see how you’re doing. If you need some extra encouragement just email me.
Congrats Danigirl! Not that I think you needed to join WW, but it is always great when you set out to do something that is just for YOU!! Keep us posted, reading your blog today reminded me why the “Points” program was my only non-weigh loss program with WW… I can justify ANY point! Congrats again, will be willing to let you know how many points are in a slice of my Banana Bread 🙂
Congrats Dani on doing something for yourself and your family too as you’ll be making healthier food choices for you all. I too am a bean counter at heart so this points system really appealed to me. You quickly become efficient at figuring out which foods give you the biggest volume to points value. I remember gasping at the Greek food stuff, and pizza, and a bagel with cream cheese, etc.
Will definitely want to hear your journey with WW. During my weight loss, I was avidly writing everything down, which really helped me keep in check, adding for exercise, saving points for an event later on in the week. Since I’ve been on maintenance for the last 2 years, I’m still mentally tallying up points in my head, reading ingredients on food labels, etc. Its not a diet its a lifestyle change.
Will be here to help any way I can, e-mail if you want too.
And congrats on your 5000th hit!!
Of course I want to hear about this.
How many points can you barter for the energy expended while blogging?
Warm wishes for all the best.
Welocme to the WW club….I didn’t join online but I do go t maeetingonce a week with my Little man. I catch a few things here and there when I’m not saying
“stop that” Sit Down”
I’ve been on the program 7 weeks and lost 5 lbs. But the frist 2 weeks well HELL on earth cause I couldn’t keep with in points rage. But I learned. Need support Blog and we’ll help!
Congrats on your 5000
Hugs
That’s very cool about your 5000th hit. And congrats on joining WW! I’ll be cheering you on for sure!
Hey.. I just googled “weight watchers” “points” and “tim hortons” and yours was the first hit. Apparently Tim Hortons didnt agree to be part of the weight watchers book this year (I just joined a few days ago)… i need to know how much tim hortons stuff is worth, I’ve been out of the country for a year (where I gained all my weight) and and and.. I missed tim hortons so much! please lemme know what an iced capp is worth, if you can? please?