Weight Watchers Woes

On Tuesday this week David and I started back on Weight Watchers after a long hiatus. We were doing fine until the holiday season when we kind of dove off the wagon and now that we've climbed back on it's a bumpy ride. For those of you who aren't familiar with the Weight Watchers program let me explain it for you. There's a formula to figure out how many points a day each person gets as their "target" based on whether you're male/female, how active you are, and your current weight. If you're nursing you get a bonus 10 points which really helped me out last summer when we first started the program. Actually the primary reason I wanted to start Weight Watchers back up again is because I weaned Ethan this spring and I need to readjust my eating habits now that I'm not burning those easy calories. I wish there was another way to burn that many calories just sitting on the couch! The beautiful thing about Weight Watchers is that it allows you to eat any foods you want so long as you stay within your points target. Of course once you eat a normal meal and realize you ate your entire day's worth of points just in breakfast you might just change your eating habits a little. Especially when you're relegated to eating just 0 point foods for dinner and discover that carrots just don't cut it. Of course there's 35 bonus points everybody gets each week which you can use to add 5 extra points a day, splurge on a big meal one day (hello Thanksgiving!), or not use and lose the weight faster.

This time around I lost my 10 point "bonus" for nursing and get 21 points a day. That's 2/3 of what I had last summer which really stinks! No wonder I've been starving, but then again I was starving the first 2 weeks of doing Weight Watchers the first time too. David gets 38 points a day right now which really burns my biscuits. It's no fair that he's eaten my entire day's worth of points so far today and it's only noon! I think the reason I'm so hungry is that I'm adjusting my stomach to not eating two people's worth of food a day and I'm struggling to find low point meals. Last time I did ok but losing 10 points a day is killer.

Here's an example of what I'm eating on my 21 point a day limit. I'm saving my 35 bonus points for this weekend so I've pretty much stayed in the 21 point limit so far:

Day One (21 pts)- Small bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios with Skim Milk, 2 Tbsp hummus and 1 whole wheat pita, 2 cups of cantaloupe, 55 goldfish crackers (yes I counted them out!), small bean/cheese/avocado taco, small package of David's Sunflower Seeds, and a Healthy Choice Fudge Bar
Day Two (21 pts)- Mini Bagel & 1 Tbsp fat free cream cheese, small bean/cheese/avocado taco, 2 cups of cantaloupe, 1 small barbecued chicken breast, salad & 1 Tbsp fat free Ranch dressing, Healthy Choice Fudge Bar
Day Three (22 pts)- Mini Bagel & 1 Tbsp fat free cream cheese, granola bar, yogurt, 1 graham cracker, 2 pieces of french toast with 1/8 cup syrup, 2 pieces of sausage

With all the complaining I'm doing you might think I don't care for Weight Watchers but I actually do like it. Once we get in the groove and our stomachs adjust to eating the amount of food they're supposed to digest it's pretty easy to stick with. We quit counting points at the end of last summer because once we made all the dietary changes and learned portion sizes we were pretty much writing down the same things every day. Then the holidays came and we slacked off and I weaned Ethan and didn't want to face the fact that I needed to quit eating enough for two. So here we are. Back in the saddle again.