A Week Later

I've been actually tracking my food since I wrote last, and have lost another pound. Maybe Weight Watchers in my head is not as good as Weight Watchers in my computer.

I've survived the second week of the semester, and I survived session three of some professional development that I have been doing at the local high school. I am so glad that contract is almost done.

I've at least looked at my dissertation lately, which is something. I am hung up on figuring out how much sewing women actually did at home before paper patterns and sewing machines. I feel like it is important to have that bit of information. How else can I talk about the rhetorical construction of "work"? And how women's identity were defined? That seems to be important to me.

Weight Watchers update...

I've been on Weight Watchers for three weeks and have lost five pounds. This may be as well as I have ever done on a diet, except Phase 1 of South Beach. But South Beach leaves me light headed after a day or two. So I am avoiding it.


WW is not without it's challenges, though. Some points sneak up when I am not expecting them. (Mac & Cheese is 11 points? Really? Homemade chocolate chip cookies are only that high if I eat six.) I am often a little hungry. Quick fixes for hunger, like nuts or peanut butter, have points that start high and add up quickly. I should learn to eat carrot sticks when I am hungry. Today, unfortunately, I chose to eat a cupcake instead.

Regardless, I now weigh less than I did when I took my comps, a year ago. I would really like to lose another 15 or so pounds and get down to the weight I was before I started studying for the comps.

What I'd really like to do is get down to the weight that I was when we moved back to Arkansas after Miss O was born... But that is a goal that will likely take exercise and a lot of it.

New Year!

So, I have gained a ton of weight. Almost a metric ton. So I decided to do something. My dh does WeightWatchers online, but it is expensive. So I didn't want to do that. So I poked around and found a free food tracker. It figured out how many calories I need to eat every day to loose 1.5 pounds a week (I lack the obsessiveness to eat few enough calories to lose more). Other than the point system, it works like Weight Watchers. You type in the food you ate and the amounts and it tracks the calories for free. It will keep a year's worth of records for you. If you want more than that, you have to subscribe (but it is still WAY less than Weight Watchers.

I've been obsessively finding foods that will help me not starve while not sending my calorie count out of control. I found this list of 100 Calorie Snacks on WebMD:

100 Calorie Snacks: 20 Choices

Need some ideas? To get you started on the road to calorie-controlled snacking, our experts offer some suggestions for healthy 100-calorie munchies:

1. Half an apple with 2 teaspoons of peanut butter
2. An orange and a few dry-roasted nuts
3. 10 cashew nuts
4. 10 almonds
5. 2 ounces of lean roast beef
6. Half a small avocado
7. 3 ounces cooked whole-grain noodles with 1 fresh tomato and 1/2 ounce hard cheese
8. 1 seven-grain Belgian waffle
9. 4 mini rice cakes with 2 tablespoons low-fat cottage cheese
10. 3 ounces low-fat cottage cheese and 3 whole-wheat crackers
11. 1/4 cup fat-free ranch dressing with mixed raw veggies
12. 6 Wheat Thins crackers with two teaspoons of peanut butter (or any nut butter)
13. 1 small baked potato with 1/2 cup salsa and 2 tablespoons of fat-free sour cream
14. 1/3 cup of unsweetened applesauce with 1 slice of whole-wheat toast, cut into 4 strips for dunking
15. 1/2 cup frozen orange juice, eaten as sorbet
16. 2 large graham cracker squares with 1 teaspoon peanut butter
17. 3 handfuls of unbuttered popcorn, seasoned with herbs
18. 4-6 ounces of no-fat or low-fat yogurt
19. A 5-ounce tossed salad with lettuce, tomato, cucumber and 1/4 cup fat-free dressing
20. Half a "finger" of string cheese with 4 whole-wheat crackers