Down 1.1 Pounds :-)

It could have gone either way last night but it went the right way. I am happy about that.

It was a tough week though.

I had fun, perhaps too much fun, and had to exercise my ass off to deal with it.

Truth be told I think I exercised too much. I was a bit manic about getting my points back in line. I didn't quite manage to do it but I managed to only go 13 points over my weekly allowance and that proved to be good enough.

I like that I can have fun on this plan and still lose weight, but perhaps a little more balance on the food front will result in a little bit more balance on the exercise front.

The thing that makes me happy though is that I am finally back in the 180's weight-wise (I am 189.6 pounds) and I only have to lose another 2.6 pounds and weight watcher's becomes free again.

We will see if I get there by next week.

Be healthy!

Alan

I love fresh beginnings

Today is the day I step on the scale.

To say this week has been a challenge from a points perspective is an understatement. The bottom line is I allowed myself to drink/eat too much and spent most of my time trying to compensate for it through exercise.

While this is possible, and I have no doubt I will repeat this pattern too many times, it really is a lot of work to undo food and drink damage. It certainly does make a good case for moderation. I just wish moderation was in my vocabulary. I will keep trying to get it in there.

I ended up being in the "negative" at the end of my Weight Watcher's week last night but only by 13 points...hardly the end of the world.

I think it means that whatever the scale says when I step on it tonight it will not be that drastic a change. I will be up or down slightly but there will be no major movement in either direction.

I know why the results will be what they will likely be so I can accept them.

Looking back over the week I think the only think that real frustrates me is those damn empty treats like donuts. I blogged about them, said I needed to stop eating them, and then continued to eat them. Damn frustrating.

Today is a new day, however, and a new week. There is something very refreshing about going on-line in the morning and opening up your tracker and seeing everything cleared away and the slate set back to zero.  It's a new day.

I will never be perfect...and don't want to be...but am hoping this week will be a little less of a challenge than last week.

Only 16 more days until I have to keep my promise and post my shirtless pic...I need to behave :-)

Be healthy!

Alan

Some Days Are Just Crazy

Yesterday was nuts work-wise.

I was up working by 6AM and by the time 10:30pm rolled around I was still working...and I hadn't even taken a break to have my morning shower. I was not a pretty site.

Fortunately the only "client" I actually had to see was also a family member.

On crazy days it can be really hard to eat right.

I thought I made a good decision at lunch by going to a "wrap" restaurant. I got their Roast Beef wrap of the day combo (combos are never a good idea") with 1% chocolate milk...and stupidly...a bag of chips. I really need to listen to my own "empty treat" diatribes. I topped the wrap with only healthy vegetables, but it still didn't look particularly healthy...it was way too big for one thing.

I was busy...I was hungry...I made a decision to go to a "better" option for take out food since I was nowhere near home...but at the end of the day I didn't make the best choices.

I also didn't have time to get to the gym yesterday. This isn't good from a points perspective but I know in my heart it is good from a health perspective. Every now and then the body needs at least a day's break from the gym.

If this was a normal week it wouldn't be a big deal but it is in a week when I was already finding myself struggling after a couple of excessive nights out.

I'm afraid there is little...scratch that...no...hope of me being in "balance" by the end of my points tracking week tonight, but hopefully the scales won't be too harsh on me when I get on them tomorrow. I am currently sitting at negative 18 points...last week I ended tuesday night with an extra 27 points.

What is done is done. We do not feel guilt...we get back on track and keep on riding as best week can.

Be healthy!

Alan

Had a Carmel Cheese Danish AND an Apple Fritter....oops!

I was feeling pretty proud of myself after my night of drinking at the comedy club Saturday night. Not because I had behaved well alcohol-wise but because I had had a good healthy dinner and then resisted the temptation to order food all night long.

Even when I got home at about 1:30 in the morning in a drunken stupor I thought about raiding the kitchen but managed to resist. I was determined to stay as "on plan" as I could.

I hadn't bargained on waking up this morning with intense carb cravings. I knew I had to get to the gym to burn off some of the "night before" so I forced my butt out of bed and headed to Tim Horton's to get a coffee...but man I was hungry!

It was at this point I caved. I forgot everything I had written this week about empty treats...I forgot about tracking...and decided I was going to eat and not only NOT tell anyone about it but not even enter this one little indulgence on my tracker. With absolute confidence that no one was lurking behind my back to catch me, I ordered an Apple Carmel Danish AND an Apple Fritter. They were yummy.

Fortunately working out at the gym brought me back to my senses. I realized that lying about the whole thing and not putting this food on my tracker was primarily fooling no one but myself.

So...I put it on my tracker (18 points) made a point of keeping the rest of my day's food "low in points" food, and made my indulgence fit into my points allowance for the day.

I was already in the process of digging myself out of the negative "weekly points allowance" so using weekly points simply wasn't an option.

I did an hour and 3/4 exercise instead of my usual one hour in order to gain back some points.

At the present time I am "negative 9" in my weekly points allowance. My Weight Watchers week ends Tuesday and an hour's exercise is five points so, provided I don't so anything else stupid food-wise, I can do an hour's exercise today and tomorrow and bring my nine points back into balance.

Clear as mud? Hopefully next week I won't put myself in a position where I need to dig my way out.

It will be interesting to see if all this creative, but valid, working of the plan, will result in Weight Loss Wednesday.

Be healthy!

Alan

Boring Blog Day

OK this one is going to be short as I don't have much time to Blog today but wanted to keep my commitment to posting my tracker everyday until Feb 10th.

As you may know I budgeted for 20 beer points because I was going out last night.

I honestly didn't expect to use them all but when all was said and done I had had 22 beer points.

So...even after exercising I woke up this morning 18 points in the hole.

Most of this was planned, however, and I can deal with these points through exercise before my week is up Tuesday night.

What I hadn't planned for is the mega carb craving I woke up with this morning...but that is a subject for tomorrows blog.

If it kills me I will make this week work out so that by Tuesday night I am right on plan.

Be healthy!

Alan

Non-Hungry Days

I have blogged in the past about "Hungry Days" and how hard they can be. Yesterday I had a "non-hungry" day.

I have very little doubt that it had everything to do with the 101 Weight Watcher points day I had had the day prior.

Having an "I feel full" day after a splurge day presents its own dilemma.

It sounds kind of ideal doesn't it? I ate too much yesterday and I am not hungry today so if I eat less today it will all balance out.

According to WW this strategy is not a good one and I suspect they are right. I decided to trust them on this.

The problem with the above mentioned scenario is that you end up overly hungry on day three because you didn't eat enough on day two. In reality you have binged and starved (you may not feel like you are starving but you are not giving your body sufficient food). This is the type of situation that leads to more binging.

What we are told to do is just eat normally the next day and make sure we consume all of our daily points allowance. So that is what I did.

I can't say I made 100% the best choices as 6 points went to a small peanut butter candy bar and a sample of chocolate at the Supermarket, but I did make sure that by the time I went to bed I had consumed my entire daily points allowance.

I did my exercise as promised and earned back five of the six points I was in the "negative" for for the week, so now I am only "negative" one point.

Tonight we are going out to a comedy show where drinks will be consumed so I am sure I will be further in the negative by tomorrow but if I stick to my strategy I will be right on plan "points-wise" by the end of the WW week (which is Tuesday).

All is good.

Be healthy!

Alan

Yesterday was a Food Disaster Day...Not the end of the world

Last night I tied one on. It wasn't planned. I hadn't thought I was going out at all....but sometimes life just happens.

Our friend Tim had been staying with us for a while as he lives in Windsor but was teaching at the Institute of Holistic Nutrition here in Toronto. 

Last night was his last night with us and while we had planned to have dinner with wine, we didn't really plan on a "last night out".

After dinner, however, we decided to go to the local Pub the "House on Parliament" for drinks. I knew my weight watcher points had already been used up for the day, but I also knew I had my weekly points allowance and my exercise points so off we went for drinks at the pub.

Although I had already had three glasses of wine I still managed to also have three pints of beer...and a HUGE order of sweet potato fries that I can assure you were not baked in an oven.

The question then became..."how the hell do I figure out how to enter all this in the Weight Watchers Tracker?". This is the type of dilemma that turns people off of Weight Watchers.

Last night I had decided just to move the 49 weekly points allowance into yesterday's points and make the decision that for the rest of the week I will only have my daily points allowance and any new points I generate through exercise.

Today I decided to do my best to be a bit more accurate. It actually wasn't that hard. 

I looked up my points for the wine and beer and entered them on the tracker. The next thing to figure out was the points for the Sweet Potato Fries. The pub I went to does not have nutritional information available so I looked up the Nutritional information for Sweet Potato Fries at the TGIF restaurant as I guessed their fries would be cooked in much the same way. 

When I looked up the nutritional info. at TGIF the website indicated the information was for a "side of fries". I had well more than a "side" of fries so I multiplied the nutritional info by three and calculated the points....it came to 31 whopping points.

So....the grand total at the end of my day yesterday was 101 points (I am allowed 37).

Seems like the end of the world from a weight loss perspective doesn't it? It is not.

Over all, after adding in the 49 weekly points allowance that I am allowed to use at my will, and the activity points I had already earned this week I was in the negative but only by 6 points. I will do 5 points worth of exercise today. This means that as long as I eat just like a normal person today, by tomorrow morning I will only be in the negative by 1 point. 

This goes to show that we can enjoy a good time and still overcome what seems like disaster.

I don't get off scott free, however. I am going to have to be a little more careful the rest of the week.

Looking forward I will use my 37 points daily allowance each day (as I am supposed to) and continue to do 5 points worth of exercise each day. There can be no "skipping the gym" this week.

By tomorrow night I will have paid off my debt and have generated 4 new usable activity points (The five I earn through exercise less the one I was still in the "negative" for). Then on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday I will earn five more activity points each day. This means I still have 19 "fun" points available to use.

This is good news as we will be going out Saturday night so I will need them. It will just be drinks Saturday night as we will eat at home. According to Weight Watcher's beer "cheat sheet" a pint of light beer is 4 points. This means that as long as I have a 36 point day Saturday rather than a 37 point day, I can go out that night and have up to 5 pints of light beer. I think that should do me :-)

I am glad I wrote today's blog. It actually helped me to plan the rest of this week out while simultaneously convincing myself once again that the Weight Watchers plan really is doable for life. I can have fun AND lose weight. Well...I guess the scale will determine that next Wednesday :-)

Be healthy!

Alan

Down 3.3 Pounds!

Well...the plan worked. I weighed in at Weight Watchers yesterday and I was down 3.3 pounds! For those of you who followed my blog last week you know I was still able to have fun while doing it.

I must admit that although I always say I prefer the version of their plan where you don't have to count every point you put in your mouth (and I think I still do), counting points, once you get into it, can actually be kind of fun and it really doesn't take that long. As long as you do your best to pay attention to the health guidelines you can play with your points and actually get a bit creative. It feels good knowing that you can succeed, that you can have fun, and that having control can actually give you freedom to enjoy your treats.

I do have to admit that yesterday I was abysmal at following the health guidelines. I fell into the trap of not wanting to eat too much before I weighed in so although I did have a light breakfast and lunch, things like the snack fruits kind of got ignored for the day.

I had a Real Estate listing appointment after the Weight Watcher's meeting so dinner ended up being a 6" Turkey Breast Subway Sandwhich (by the way...be careful with those....if you put cheese etc. on them, the points can add up pretty quickly...I'm not saying don't eat them...but if you really crave something like a Burger and you pick the Subway sandwich just to be "good", you may find the points are the same).

I can't say I was particularly healthy yesterday but I have been reasonably healthy all week, I took my multi-vitamin everyday, and I stayed on track points-wise.

The Weight Watcher's daily points calculation is based on a number of factors and one of those factors is weight. My weight has dropped and as a result my daily point allowance has now dropped by one point too. So as of today I am allowed 37 points a day.

To be honest this is totally cool. I know women get fewer points and in 2011, before they tweaked the program a bit, I only had 34 points. I am am pretty lucky in terms of my point allowance, and the fact that I exercise a lot provides me with additional activity points. This leaves me with extra room to play.

One week of tracking down and onto week number two :-)

Be healthy!

Alan

Tricked By The Tracker

Hi all!

In my blog yesterday I was saying that today was the last day of this week's tracking and I still had 27 "fun" points left that I might use to treat myself after weighing in today.

For those of you not on Weight Watchers the weekly fun points (really called "weekly points allowance") expire on the last day of your weigh-in week. It is a "use them or lose them" scenario. Once the weigh-in week is over the slate is struck clean and you start the next week anew.

In my smugness I thought that meant I had 27 extra points to play with tonight.

Clearly, however, I have not tracked points in a while as I had forgotten that if your weigh-in day is on a Wednesday the slate does not get wiped clean at the end of the day Wednesday night. It gets wiped clean at the end of the day Tuesday night.

So...this morning I logged onto the WW system to find my extra fun points were gone...so sad.

At the end of the day it is a good thing as it will keep me more on track today.

I didn't completely lose out though. My cousin Shirley stayed over last night and I had four 5oz glasses of wine. Also, Joni, the girl who is staying with us also made a Burger and baked Sweet Potato fries for us for dinner. It was a much healthier version than you would get in a restaurant so I didn't completely blow things points wise.

So I did actually splurge on the last day of my WW week I just didn't know it was the last day of my WW week. When all is said and done, yesterday I used 11 points more than my daily allowance. I also added 5 activity points, however,  which means I only used an excess 6 points.

I had 27 "fun" points available so after debuting my 6 excess points I ended the week with 21 points to spare. Those points are gone now but that is not a bad thing.

In reality those 21 points would have been gained entirely from exercise. Using these type of points is a choice. You can eat these points if you like, but if you eat them you have to accept that your exercise is likely not contributing to weight loss. It is simply allowing you to eat more and still lose...something. Sooo...having 21 points I didn't use is a very good thing.

We will see how it reflects on the scale later today. I will report the results from the scale tomorrow.

Be healthy!


Alan

....And I'm Feeling "Clean"

In her Weight Watcher's commercials Jennifer Hudson sings that she is "Feeling Good". Very true words when one is losing or has lost weight.

The thing that never ceases to amaze me about eating well however, is how "clean" you feel almost immediately. It only took a couple of days and I was feeling like my body was functioning the way it was supposed to. It is a great feeling.

I feel like a car that has been taken in for a repair, car wash, and an oil change...revved up and ready to go. The inside feels "clean".

I am not going to say things are perfect yet. It is a quiet time of year in my kind of business (Real Estate) and it can be hard to stay mentally motivated to work when there isn't that much on the books.

They say when one is "whole" they feel at one with mind, body, and soul. I feel at one with body and soul but the mental motivation still needs stimulating.

The bottom line is I need more work to get me mentally active again. So if you want to buy or sell a house give me a call!

Ok...that was a shameless plug for business. LOL

Seriously though, I am feeling really good and it didn't take me very long to get this way. All it takes is a few days of commitment and the next thing you know you feel great.

Tomorrow is weigh-in day for me. I don't expect a huge loss but am hoping for 1-2 pounds which is just fine. I have to remember that a lifestyle change is the ultimate name of the game.

Yesterday I ate six points over my daily allowance but earned five activity points so my weekly points allowance was only reduced by 1. This means I still have 27 extra points to use today and tomorrow.

I doubt I will use them but it is nice to know I have them. Perhaps I will allow myself a treat after I weigh-in. It is nice to be able to have that treat and know that I am not "blowing the plan" on the last night of my "weigh-in" week. It would be a celebratory treat and not an "empty treat" as I discussed earlier in the week. I would make sure I take the time to taste it and enjoy it.

The points are there for me to use if I decide to use them. It's awesome knowledge to have.

Be healthy!

Alan

Empty Calories....only worth it when they are not Empty Treats

I did pretty well points wise yesterday. I ate three more points more than my daily allowance but also earned five activity points so rather than losing three of my weekly allowance points I actually gained the differential of two more points.

I did have a momentary relapse in the Tim Horton's store after the gym though. I was a bit hungry and I thought I would find something healthy (or at least not unhealthy) to eat. Unfortunately it was a really small Tim Hortons with a limited supply of food and I just couldn't see anything good. Perhaps I just didn't want to see anything good.

Rather than take the smart road and simply "pass' I heard the following words come out of my mouth: "Oh well...I guess I have an excuse to splurge". I then promptly ordered a Maple Swirl donut and downed that sucker before I had even got out the door and onto the street. I barely even noticed it going down my throat.

Do I feel guilty about it? No. 

Do I regret it. Yes?

The problem is that it was the worst kind of what is often called empty calories...food of little nutritional value that is basically just junk food.

When losing weight we are often told to stay away from the empty calories. I don't completely agree with this. Sometimes empty calories are wonderful treats.

The problem, however, is that when these empty calories are consumed when one is on one's own they simply go down the hatch, and that is that. There was no "fun" involved, and in my case, I sometimes forget to even taste the food.

So my decision is to try to stop thinking about empty calories going forward and start thinking about empty treats. If I am out with friends and the empty calories are under control and contributing to a great evening then they may very well be worthwhile. If, however, I am on my own, and they are simply filling a "void", then these empty calories are also empty treats and are probably not worth having.

This is just a theory at this point. Using this logic is still untested.

I do hope, however, that if I try to remember this going forward it will help me to consume those empty calories as empty treats...in the right places and at the right time.

Here's hoping!

Be healthy,

Alan

Hungry Day Fell On A Saturday

For those of you who are not Weight Watcher members but still read my blog, I apologize for the focus on WW and point tracking this week, but I think focusing in on exactly how I am tracking for one week will help me.

After this week I will try to get back to more general topics but will still post my tracker daily, as promised, until February 10th.

Yesterday was a hungry day. I have posted about these before.

I think all of us, whether we are trying to lose weight or not, hit a day (or more) every now and then where we want to eat and eat and eat and eat. I call these hungry days.

Yesterday I woke up hungry. I went to Tim Horton's for my morning "pre-gym" coffee but ended up getting a breakfast sandwich instead. It was an egg white one, with ham and cheese on a whole wheat English Muffin so hardly the end of the world.

The real issue was that I was hungry all day.

Usually when this happens I eat everything in site until I feel like I am ready to puke. Yesterday, however, I ate a large volume of food but I was a tad more controlled.

I increased my fruit intake during the day (zero points) which helped a lot and I tried to eat consistently throughout the day rather than consuming vast volumes of food all at once.

At dinner time I did over indulge, but it felt good because it was a "conscious and aware" state of indulgence.

Our friend Tim made a really good Indian dish for us called Kichdi. It is really quite healthy and only about 4 points a serving. I estimate I ate three servings but that still only added up to 12 points for dinner which wasn't bad at all.

Although many of you may think I blew it with my next statement I really don't think I did.

I ate three HUGE slices of sourdough bread with the Kichdi and I think this is the equivalent of six slices of bread. I also had two 5 oz glasses of wine (yes...I actually measured my wine). These two items added 23 points to my 12 point dinner so at the end of the day I had a 35 point dinner.

The wonderful thing, however, was that I didn't feel out of control at all. I knew it would mean that this particular Saturday was a very high point day, but I also knew that I had the points to spare and I was fully aware of where I was spending them.

I haven't always been a big fan of counting points for everything one eats but I must admit that counting the points, and knowing exactly where I stood, gave me the freedom to eat without guilt. It actually gave me freedom.

So I had a 62 point day when my daily point allowance is 38 points, but at the end of the day I still have 26 "fun" points remaining in my basket and if I exercise more I can increase that amount.

As Martha Stewart would say: "It's a good thing". 

Be healthy!

Alan 

A Friday Night On Weight Watchers

Weekends can be tough for me as I tend to equate food with fun.

Last night our friends Karen and Ian asked Jamie, Joni, and I if we wanted to go out for Indian Food. I want to be successful on Weight Watchers, but not at the expense of enjoying my life so the answer was a definitive "yes!".

I was at a bit of an advantage as I had had two glasses of wine and three pints of beer the night prior and as a result had no desire for alcohol last night. I had also had a low point breakfast and lunch so I had 25 WW points I could go out to dinner with and that is a fair bit.

Nonetheless, wanting to stay on track I went to the Weight Watchers website and looked up their suggestions for eating out at Indian Restaurants.

They suggested Tandoon baked meals or something with a Dahl Sauce. I ended up choosing Spinach Dahl, one piece of Naan bread, Rice and Tea. My friend Ian ordered these small sweet dessert balls and I ate half of one of them. Dinner was good and the company was great.

I wasn't sure how to count the points for Spinach Dahl, and it didn't show up on the Weight Watcher's site when I searched for it, so I google a "non-diet" version online and used the nutritional information on that to figure it out.

When I added up the dinner it came to 25 points which was exactly the amount I had room for so I lucked out.

I also went to the gym yesterday and earned 5 activity points I can bank for future use.

So far so good.

Be healthy!

Alan

Scottish Dancing Required Alcohol But Soup Saved The Day!

Hi everyone!

Yesterday was the first day of my commitment to track what I eat and post my Weight Watcher's tracker everyday until February 10th.

I have to admit I used all of the daily points that I am required to use, plus all of the activity points that I earned for the day, and also used 9 point of what I call the 49 "fun" points we are allotted for special occasions etc. throughout the week. It was a point consuming day.

On the plus side I drank a lot of water (which I am not very good at) and fulfilled all of the daily health guidelines (meaning I had sufficient liquids, healthy oil, fruits and vegetables, lean proteins, and a multivitamin) except for one category which is dairy.

Personally I am not a big believer in dairy and would prefer to get my calcium etc. from other sources, so it doesn't remotely concern me that I didn't get my dairy in. In all likelihood, however, I will do the "dairy" thing until Feb 10th as I have a lot of smoothy packets in the house that have powdered milk in them and I think I will use this opportunity to use them up.

Joni, the girl we have adopted as our daughter (we don't have official parent approval for the adoption and she is 25 years old so it is really more like the girl we have kidnapped and made our daughter), had prepared a delicious 0 point vegetable soup. I had that with a bit of Turkey breast and was able to have a very filling 1 point lunch.

It was a good thing too because I had totally forgotten that I had agreed to take Scottish Dancing Lessons with Joni and they started that night. The dancing lessons were to be held in a Church, and we correctly speculated that it would be with older people. The combination of these facts and the reality that I can't dance if my life depended on it meant one thing and one thing only...I needed wine first!

10 oz of wine (8 points) later I was off to dancing lessons.

We got there and I think we both started to panic a bit when we saw there were only about ten people present and we didn't look like the rest of them. Well...Joni is 25 so I looked more like the rest of them than her :-)

We were whispering to each other about the possibility of racing out and grabbing a pint at a pub instead and I think we were literally one second away from making that decision when someone said to us "Are you here for the Scottish Dancing?". It occurred to me to say no, but that wasn't really a viable answer. Why the hell else would be standing in a hall with a bunch of Scottish Dancers? So I hesitantly said "yes" and we were off to the races.

Surprisingly it was quite fun and two hours later I was actually feeling sweaty so I must have at least got some exercise in.

If we thought we wanted to skip out of the class and have a pint BEFORE the class began, that was nothing compared to the absolute knowledge that we were going to go and have a good old Scottish Pint after the dance class!

So off we went. One pint became three pints and when I did the calculation this morning that came up to a whopping 19 points of beer.

So...between the wine and the beer I drank 27 points worth of alcohol. Yikes!

I pretty much got my healthy guidelines in, however, and I went to the gym, and I danced. When all is factored in I was only over by 9 points.

The online tracker will deduct these 9 points from my weekly allowance of 49 points which is totally fine. If, however, I work out more, I will earn activity points, and assuming I do not eat these newly attained activity points I will be able to slowly regain those 9 points.

Either way I am on track. I still have my daily points allowance, plus 40 remaining "fun" points, plus any extra points I earn through exercise.

Clear as mud?

It just goes to show you can indeed go out and have fun on this program and stay on track.

My tracker is attached at the bottom as promised. I believe if you click on it, it should become larger.

Be healthy!

Alan

Sometimes we forget that we already have a plan

Two days ago I made the foolish commitment to post a shirtless pic of myself on-line on next February 10th. I will do this.

To be honest I am not that freaked as my body already looks better than it did the last time I posted a pic, so I just need to clean up a bit of excess blubber and all will be good.

Today I will make another foolish commitment...but it is only foolish because I believe it will be hard to keep.

I was thinking about an effective way to lose that last little bit of weight. Of course...exercise was first thing that came to my mind, but then I was enlightened by an amazing concept. Since I am going to Weight Watchers every week...why don't I actually do the program the way it is designed?!!!!

That is a no brainer right? Well...let me tell you that most (not all) WW members will understand exactly why that can seem like such a novel concept.

So many of us, including me, have periods of time where we go to the meetings every week because we need the constant reminder to stay on track, but then as soon as we leave the room we really don't give the actual WW plan much thought until the next time we show up at a meeting.

This doesn't mean we aren't trying....ok...sometimes we are not trying...but often, simply attending the meeting can help us think about what foods we are putting in our mouths the following week and even if weight loss isn't accomplished, attending the meetings can help prevent weight gain.

So...starting at this moment, until the shirtless picture is posted, I am not only going to do the program the way it is designed, but, for better or for worse, I am going to post my daily food tracker on the blog. I may not mention it every day (do you really wan't a daily diatribe about what I actually ate?) but it will be posted at the end of each blog. If for any reason I don't have time to write a blog that day I will simply post the tracker. If I fail to do this PLEASE hold me accountable...I am asking for your help.

For those of you who are not WW members, WW actually has two plans. One where you have to count points for every single thing you put in your mouth, and another one where you simply eat from a long list of healthy foods/ingredients, and only count points when you stray outside of those foods.

As a way of life I prefer the second plan because I am not sure I can count points forever, but the first plan is really good when you need to kick start yourself and get back on track.

Until February 10th, I will do the first plan. So every piece of food that goes in my mouth will go on the tracker.

Be healthy!

Alan

Blow Dry Your Hair before weighing in

Ok. I just weighed in at Weight Watchers.

I was pretty sure I would be "up" following my vacation and post vacation nibbles, but I also expected that I was not up by very much.

Before going to Weight Watchers I made my daily journey to the gym.

As I was towelling off post-shower, it occurred to the warped little brain I have that all that water in my hair felt particularly heavy.

Now I never blow dry my hair but I was going to be damned if that excess water was going to add to my weight on the scale!

I know...I know...it is ludicrous....but tell me you have never done anything similar.

Anyway, the blow drying the hair clearly worked because I was down . 4 pounds! (that is "point 4" not "4").

I don't care how I attained it. I am a happy camper.

Be healthy!

Alan

It's Monday....Time for a new commitment!

It is Monday folks. The day of new beginnings and new commitments.

My vacation is over and my post vacation splurge of thing such as Beer, Potato Chips, Chocolate, Fried Calamari etc. is also now over.

I have to tell you that I did well on my vacation from a weight perspective, but I cannot take an ounce of credit for it.

When we got to Singapore I was eating way too much and was starting to get concerned as we headed to Indonesia.

While in Indonesia two things happened:

1) At the beginning I was still eating a lot but was only having two meals a day and I think that kept me from gaining too much more.
2) I got some kind of bug. I think it was from the water, but I am just guessing. Other than the occasional stomach cramp that hit hard for about ten seconds at a time I felt totally fine, but I couldn't eat. I looked at food and my stomach just said "no". For  a while I pretty much had nothing, or some white rice (I had to stay bland) and whatever I did manage to eat came flying out the back-end pretty fast (I know I know...too much information). It took about 9 days to get back to normal again.

Christmas Eve we went to a dinner with copious amounts of delicious looking food. It looked sooooo good but the rice was about all I could manage.

Things turned around Christmas Day, however. I managed half a dish of Lasagna and, although I still had some trouble eating much, I discovered I could still drink wine :-)

By the time we got to London on the 29th I was "almost" ok and eating normally. We had a great time in Biggleswade England with our friends Alf and Paul and their family (wonderful people). I ate non-stop New Years Eve.

On New Year's Day we went to London and saw more good friends Ted and Paul (different Paul) and our "daughter" Kimmee (we have two girls we consider our daughter's now) :-) . When in London I continued eating but had to cut back on the alcohol as the damn body seemed to be rejecting it.

At the end of the day I am guessing that following my time in London and the time at home "post trip" I am probably up about 4 pounds. Not the end of the world.

Public commitments often work well for me though so it is time to commit to posting another shirtless pic of myself. I have actually gained muscle definition in my abs but want to set a goal, slim up, and post a new pic, so....February 10th I will post a new pic. That gives me a month to work toward getting in the best shape I can.

Be healthy!

Alan