Another Week One

January 26, 2007
Friday
 

Week Ones are usually good. I tend to weigh and measure more diligently than usual and be more precise in the written tracking of my food consumption. And because a rejoin or a recommitment usually follows a period of overconsumption, the first weight loss is easily shed water. Thus I was not surprised to see that I am down 1.6 pounds this week, a modest start, but a start.

I did find myself falling into a pattern I’d wanted to avoid this time. Last week I’d arrived at the Weight Watchers center at about noon because that’s when the impulse to do so seized me. I stayed for the noon meeting because, even though I really like the leader who does the Thursday and Friday evening meetings, I have not the heart right now for navigating the crosstown rush hour traffic to get to that usually very crowded meeting. The Friday noon meeting is small, and a friend from church was there, so I thought I’d try that again.

That means that I left the house at 9:30, without breakfast, weighed in, had an Egg McMuffin (6 points) and a small orange juice (2 points) at McDonald’s, arrived for my haircut at 10:30 back on my side of town, and then went back to WW for the meeting. That’s an inefficient use of time.

And with Weight Watchers’ new method for calculating how many points one should consume to keep losing weight, I found that my initial modest weight loss had pushed me down one more point. A point is worth about 50 calories, and I’m supposed to have only 24 points a day. That’s 1200 calories a day. “Flex points,” the “extra” points a member can use all at once or spread throughout the week, adds another 5 points (250 calories) a day, still under 1500 calories. I can certainly lose weight on that restrictive an intake, but I am hungry all the time that way, and tend to have a bite here and an extra taste there (BLTs — bites, licks, and tastes).

But I’ve started, and feel some measure of success. I start my week on Sunday, and as it happens, I have no more “Flex points” left for this week, and we’re going out for dinner tomorrow. I’ll just do the best I can, and start another Day 1 on Sunday.

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