First weekend...

Well, so far, so good. I weighed myself this morning and the scale said: 332.6. Yay!

I haven’t been able to afford to officially join WW yet, but I’m doing my best to follow the plan. I bought a few groceries this weekend: Chobani 0% Greek yogurt w/fruit on the bottom; butter lettuce; baby carrots; single serving bags of 94% fat free popcorn; apples, pineapple. The Chobani yogurt was interesting. I love yogurt, but this is different than say, Yoplait or Fit and Trim, or any of the other non-Greek yogurts out there. It’s thicker and has got more “bite” to it, if you know what I mean. At first, I wasn’t sure I was going to like it. But it grew on me, and I think the difference is that it is not so sweet and candy-like. I think that the more I eat it, the better it will get. I only purchased three containers just in case. But I will definitely be trying more, and I will try other brands as well. One six-ounce container is 4 WW points: 0 fat, 22g carbs, 0 fiber, and a whopping 14g of protein! I had the black cherry today.

I also had a packet of instant oatmeal with apples and cinnamon, which after the yogurt tasted overly sweet and fake. I will probably switch to plain oatmeal or instant grits to see if that is better.

A very nice person, Betsey C., left a comment for me – thanks Betsey! She brought up a point that gives me a lot of trouble when I am trying to keep track of what I’m eating: home cooked food. I live with my sister, bro-in-law, and a family friend. When my sister is not forced to be down in the Portland area, she makes wonderful home-cooked meals for us. The problem is how to count it! I could look up each ingredient in the meal (casserole, slow cooker, etc.) and try to figure out how many servings of what size the meal should make, then try to figure the points. But, realistically speaking, we all know that is just not going to happen. I find this to be very frustrating and it’s usually what knocks me right off the program. When I was living alone in Montana I usually ate prepackaged (frozen) Smart Ones or Lean Cuisine meals, or foods that I could easily find the Points value for (fast food or prepackaged).

Some months ago I went to my doctor to see if there was anything she could recommend to help me with my weight loss. To be honest, I was hoping for miracle pills, speed or similar. She gave me this weird plate looking thingy that basically helps with portion control. My response was to throw it in the back of the truck where it stayed. I guess I will dig that out and start using it when I eat the home-cooked meals; I may not know exactly how many Points I’m eating, but it will help me to keep my portions in check. This is very hard to do when she makes chicken enchiladas! Yum yum yum.

Does anyone out there have any suggestions on how to deal with home-cooked meals that you don’t make yourself or have any control over? I am not going to sit at the table with a frozen Lean Cuisine when my sister has made dinner for us; I feel that is rude. Like going to dinner at a friend’s house and bringing your own food. Not cool.

Today’s plan for lunch is to go to the mill’s café and get a scoop of their lovely chicken salad (chicken, celery, cucumber and honestly not a lot of dressing) to eat with my rice cakes, butter lettuce salad (with dressing on the side), baby carrots, and fresh pineapple for dessert. I’m going to pop a single serving bag of 94% fat free Kettle Corn just before leaving the lab to eat on the way home. I’m usually starving by the time I finally get home, so hopefully that will help.

I’ll let you know how that went.

I'm happy with the weight loss, especially after this weekend.  Pizza on Friday night (Papa Murphy's 5 Meat Stuffed), chicken teriyaki bowl on Saturday, leftover pizza on Sunday.  Sunday was horrible as I lay in bed with a weather-induced migraine.  It's finally raining here in the Pacific NW after almost three straight months of sunshine, and my noggin' don't dig the weather changes.  I expected a very small loss or at least staying the same, so the nearly four pound loss was a nice surprise!
TTFN.