Weigh In Results

I got a pleasant surprise when I got on the scales yesterday - 1.5lbs off. Very surprising, but very happy with it. Hope I can keep this up. I've decided to try and do the ProPoints thing this week - it's the only real week I'm going to not have any plans before Christmas so this will let me see if it works and if not I can go back to the Discover plan next week.

Currently, we have lots of snow. It's very early in the year for snow where I am and it may mess up my exercise plans this week. The gym I go to is at the top of a super steep hill and I worry about walking down it in the bad weather so I don't know if I'll get up. If not I will need to try and kick my ass into exercising at home. I'm terrible at this - I have lots of fitness videos and equipment but no motivation to do anything when I'm at home. Could be time to look out the batteries and dust off the old Wii Fit! Espesh as our Christmas Party is soon and I am having serious dilemmas but about my dress. I have a skin condition which has flared up and my dress doesn't hide it (a skin condition which, by the way, was meant to get better as I lost weight, but has actually gotten worse) and I have old woman flabby arms going on too. Bingo wings ahoy!

I also noticed I've totally forgotten to take my measurements so will need to do that soon although don't think there's been much change. None of my clothes feel any bigger and I measured myself for a new bra the other day and I'm the same size there. That's the most frustrating thing for me. It's great to see your weight go down every week but without the inches coming off too it feels a bit like it's not really happening if you know what I mean. I have not been my usual conscientious little gym bunny recently though so that doesn't help. I need to get my mojo back!

Friday night thoughts II

So, WW hasn't been going at all well just now. I'm feeling really negative and can't shake it. I've been okay this week, but not great. Stuck to my normal meals but I've had to the odd extra thing here and there, and haven't tracked at all. The good news is I've been to the gym twice. The bad news is I planned to go three times.

I've no idea what will happen tomorrow. I've kinda done Discover plan, kinda done ProPoints, kinda not bothered, so really the scales could say anything. I've also lost my Weigh In card. No fricking idea where it is.

The final straw is I just looked out of the window and there's a good covering of snow over everything (I hate snow) and that scuppers my plans to wear my leggings (eg lightest trousers, and what I wore last week) to get weighed as I've no "snow friendly" boots I can wear with them. Oh le sigh. Hopefully I'll feel more positive next week. I've no idea whats happened but I've completely lost my mojo.

Sad face :(

Okay, so it's only Monday teatime and I'm already pissed off with ProPoints. Bearing in mind I don't point on a Saturday that means 1.5 days of the plan and I'm already pissed off with it.

Seriously, I AM HUNGRY. I was never hungry on the Discover plan. I am so far finding it a nightmare to follow. Yesterday I used 8pp of my weekly allowance, and I wouldn't say I ate any more than I do on a normal Sunday (I generally don't eat much on a Sunday between getting up late and then being really busy) and I was still hungry when I went to bed.

Today I had 2 cereal bars, 2 coffees, a small lentil soup and a white roll with crisps and I only have 8pp left for dinner. And let's face it, 8pp gets you sweet FA.

I'm going to try it for the rest of the week to see how I get on, but I can seriously see me going back to the Discover plan.

:(

Saturday, Saturday

I lost half a pound this week at WI. I am really pleased about that as I expected another gain, but I am feeling really deflated about the whole WW thing and it's all my own doing. I really need to get out of this rut. I am feeling pretty negative about the whole ProPoints thing. I haven't done a full week on it yet, but things I am discovering are worrying me. For lunch I normally have a ham sandwich and my ham would be between 0.5p - 1p per portion. It's now 3pp - 4pp and remember that's before I've even added bread. Another staple of my diet was WW Oven Chips. They were so handy when you wanted to feel like you were having a treat and only 4pts for 240g portion. I used to have them with omelettes, chicken, fish etc.. On ProPoints the same portion size is 12pp. 12 PROPOINTS WHEN THEY WERE 4!! I'm only allowed 29pp per day. Ugh.

I'm going to give it a go and see how I feel but I've bought an old points calculator from eBay so I can follow the old plan if needed.

Another thing that's pissing me off, and this is ridiculous (on my part), is that my meeting is now so busy. Before I had my little routine. I'd get up early, get to class 15 minutes before the "official" start time and most of the time there'd be one or two other people there but sometimes noone. I could be in and out before the official start time. Now, I walk in 15 minutes early and theres already 20 other people sitting and they've not even got the shit set up for the meeting! It pisses me off no end which is stupid because these people are only doing what I did! I need to sort that attitude right out haha!

So we'll see how I get on with ProPoints this week. I'm encouraged because another blog I follow, Gem's WW Story (http://gemswwstory.blogspot.com/), reported an 11lb weight loss this week followng the PP plan - holy moly, how great is that!? I know I won't lose 11lbs but if I could get back on track for my challenges I'd be quite happy!

Ch-ch-ch-chaaanges

So when I went along to my meeting on Saturday, I got my fancy schmancy new ProPoints book. According to the Leader "everything" we need to know would be in the book and she even brought in a days worth of her food (it was gross, it had been sitting all week!) to show just how much you can eat in a day. I planned to sit down and go through all the stuff on Saturday so that when I went shopping on Sunday I could have pre-planned all my meals so that I knew where I was at. I had a terrible week last week and I am blaming it on how I was stupidly feeling about the new plan. Scared it wouldn't work so sabotaging myself. Anyway, it didn't quite work out like that.

I did have a quick read of the stuff on Saturday. None of the science behind it, but the general info about foodstuffs and what the points allowances were. You basically now are allocated a daily and a weekly points allowance. My daily allowance is 29 and my weekly is 49 (everyone's weekly allowance is the same). You can no longer "save" points for treats etc, that's what your weekly allowance is for. The points value of all foods have changed - mostly increased. Fruit is now zero points, but other things, such as baked potatoes have leaped (10-14 points without filling I've heard - glad I don't bother with them!). I also know one of my staples (and yes this is probably why now they're trying to promote healthy eating) Weight Watchers oven chips have leapt from 4pts for 240g to 12pts!

First of all, I am on the minimum daily allowance of 29. Now, being that I haven't read the "science" behind it, it may well be explained in there, but my first impression is "I have at least three stone still to lose, possibly five, so how can I possibly be on the lowest points allowance?". Straight off the bat - without having to read any "science" - on the old plan I could see that as I lost weight, my points allowance reduced therefore allowing me to continue to lose weight at a healthy rate. I cannot see how I can have the same points allowance as some 8 stone chick looking to lose a bit of weight for Christmas / Wedding / Holidays. BUT like I say, I've not read the whole science shit so it might well be explained in there.


Secondly all over the website people are complaining about not being able to eat their 29 points a day. I don't think I'm going to have that issue. Today I had toast and coffee for breakfast, soup and a roll for lunch, a packet of crisps and a coffee for a snack and a small tin of Mac cheese with toast for dinner and I'm over points already. On the Discover plan I can guarantee I'd have had points left over on that.

Thirdly there doesn't seem to be much hard and fast information available - apparently food stuffs are still wrong on the tracker and on the website some people are saying you should be eating all of your daily points, and whatever you want of your weekly, some people are saying you should eat most of your daily points and some of your weekly and others are saying you should eat all of your daily points and all of your weekly! WTF Weight Watchers, get some frickin' FAQs up on your site!

Like I say, I planned to plan out my meals for the week and stick to them as best I could however on Sunday I was ill so I didn't get to the supermarket and had to rely on my fiance to get my food in. My head was all over the place so I just told him to get some of my old Discover Plan staples so I'm just having to muddle through as best I can.

Overall my first impressions of the plan aren't favourable, but I really want to like it. I like that they're trying to encourage you to choose foods that are good for you rather than foods that are convenient / low points, however I do think they will lose people in their droves. It's much harder now to pick up something in the supermarket and know whether its going to be something you'd want to include in your diet - on the Discover plan you knew if something was high in calories and/or high in sat fats it would also be high in points. Hell, sometimes from experience you could guess the points! There ain't no chance of that with their carb/fibre/fat/protein combo!

I don't think this week will go particularly well for me, due to the lack of planning but I'm not going to give up on it right away. I will give it a week or two, although I was really hoping to be in the 10s by 1st January although that looks hugely unlikely now.

Uh-oh

I've had a bad week this week. Totally my own fault and no one else to blame.

Yesterday I had a big work day out which had been arranged for a few weeks. It basically involved eating loads and drinking. Because I knew it was coming up I planned to a) weigh in early (on Thursday rather than today, Saturday), b) save a couple of points a day so that any damage wasn't as bad as it might've been and c) make healthy choices. Just because I'm booked into restaurants for lunch and dinner doesn't mean I have to go crazy and have eat really bad food. Unfortunately I did none of this.

All week I've eaten like crap. I've had pies, chips, chocolate, alcohol and I've not set foot inside the gym. I kidded myself by saying "oh it's this new ProPoints system. I've not had it rolled out yet but all the stuff online has changed so I don't know how to work the points out!". This was shit. LIES! I basically wanted to eat what I wanted without thinking about it. By the time Thursday came around I knew I'd have gained anyway so I thought fuck it and just went shopping instead.

When I went out yesterday I did pace myself as far as alcohol is concerned. I am pretty much a lightweight and if I drank the way everyone else did I probably would've blacked out/passed out/spewed (or all three!) but the thing is I spaced the drinks out with Pepsi and not water. I drank cocktails, I ate chips and cheese and other fatty things and then I moved onto cider.

I was SO tempted to skip WI this morning, but they've launched the new Propoints plan and it was being rolled out this morning so I had to go to get my pack. I prepated myself that I was going to have a gain and I didn't think I was bothered. But I got there and stood on the scales as I was so disappointed when I saw it was worst than I feared. I put on 1.5lbs. I know 1.5lbs doesn't seem like much, but if I dropped 1.5lbs I'd be delighed. It's a huge amount to me, especially as my weight loss has been so good the last couple of weeks. I've been doing WW for about 28, 29 weeks now, and I haven't had a gain in 17 weeks and the most I've ever gained before 1lb *siiiiiiiiiiiiigh*

Oh well. Like I say, no one to blame but myself and only I can put it right, which is exactly what I plan to do. I am away from home next week for two days, but plan to be prepared for the whole thing (the only thing I won't be able to control is the dinner on the Thursday night but I can control how much of it I eat). This week will be my first week on ProPoints so I will give some thoughts on it next week but the good thing is it makes it easier for me to grab some food on the go/take food with me as fruit is now all 0pts. My suitcase will be full of apples and oranges!

In other news, I tried on my size 16 jeans this week and they fit nicely which was a huge boost, but I also tried on my size 16 Anthro dress and I am still miles away from getting into it. Maybe summertime!

And for about a year, maybe longer, I have loved loved LOVED Dannii Minogue's chic and shiny bob. I always said I would get it when I lost weight (waaay before I even thought about joining WW, and not really believing I would ever lose weight). I hate my hair. I've always had fine hair, but I used to have lots of it. To the point I'd asked for updos and other styles and been told on more than one occasion by more than one hairdresser that I had "too much" hair for that particular style. Over the past few years my hair has got thinner and thinner and it upsets me SO much. I've cried about it. I went to the Docs recently to see if he could find any cause, but they can't. It's just "one of those things" and "it might right itself" and "good hairdressing should hide it". *Sigh*. So I've been growing it for years but it looked awful so I decided, well I've lost weight, I've loved this hairstyle, maybe getting it chopped off will help the condition and maybe stimulate the growth again.

I have to say my hairdresser did a fantastic job. She did exactly what I ask for and it's not her fault I feel this way, but here's what I went in and asked for:



And here's what I think I look like with it:



Now don't get me wrong, I think Ruth Jones is a great looking woman. But not as Ness.

I'm really disappointed with it, but it's because I've completely overthought it. I think in my head I'd come out with the new hair cut LOOKING like Dannii haha. I mean, no way, it's a haircut not bloody plastic surgery! But anyhoo, I was hoping it'd be a confidence boost, but it's not. I hate it and with my shitastic hair it will take FOREVER to grow. Meh.

Sorry for the Debbie Downer post but it's just the kinda mood I'm in.

WI and Pro-Points

I weighed in this Saturday and lost 2lbs! Woo! I am now on track for both online challenges I joined via the WW website - Christmas Challenge (lose at least 1lb a week in the 15 weeks running up to Christmas) and 12 for 12 (again, lose at least 1lb a week in the 12 weeks running up to Christmas). I was behind in both of these due to small loses or STS but now I am back on track, yeah!

Only 3.5lb to go til I hit my next big milestone - 3st off. I was hoping to do this in the next 2 weeks, but it's unlikely I will lose this week (and will probably gain) as I am off out for a day of eating and drinking on Friday so I will either be weighing in a day early, or weighing in on my normal day hungover and bloated!

So, the new plan was launched this week - Propoints (or Pro Points, or Pro-Points?). I have to say, although I am very openminded about the new plan, holy crap their launch was a mess.

First of all it was meant to launch yesterday, so we all assumed it would go live @ 12am on the 7th. I do my grocery shop on the Sunday so thought I could read all about it and then decide what I was doing foodwise, but it didn't launch. Turns out it launched @ 12.01am on the 8th. Okay - that's not the 7th Weight Watchers so get your dates right!

Secondly, I logged in this morning when I got to work for a sneaky peak at the new website and was immediately bombarded with the intro and lots of questions. I wasn't meant to be online at that time so I had to close the site down and I've not been able to get the same pages back up, so have no idea what I missed! And finally there's not one place on the site that seems to have any sort of useful FAQ. I am basically going to have to trawl through the site tonight to get some info. I'm staying on the Discover plan til at least next WI anyway, and if not maybe the one after that. I will report more when I know it myself!

The end is nigh...

Well tomorrow will be the last week on the 'Discover Plan' before we switch over to 'ProPoints'. It officially launches on 7th November, and although I attend a meeting (where it'll launch 13th November) I do most of my shit online so will probably start the new plan there.

I'm not sure how I'm feeling about the new plan yet. I was worried at first, then looking forward to it, but now I'm a bit worried again. But, hey, if it doesn't suit me I still have enough resources of my own to follow the Discover Plan if I want to.

I guess we'll find out how it is in a week or two...

Quickie

Haven't really had time to blog this week. Lost 1.5lb on Sat which I was very happy with, but I've not been able to make it to the gym yet this week so who knows what Saturday will hold. Saying that, it is only Tuesday!