Dr Mom's Wednesday Weigh In

Despite considerable back sliding - involving crisps, cake, chocolate, nuts and general snacking morning, noon and night - plus multiple visits to restaurants (last Wednesday I had meetings involving coffee, lunch, coffee and dinner) - I came out this morning at 149.4 lbs, which is just about the same as I have been for the past month. Must admit that's quite a surprise! I was fully expecting to have broken back through the 150lbs barrier.

It has also been raining pretty much continuously for the past two weeks, which means that I have only done a couple of long walks with Ruby. We were at Arasteradero yesterday for an hour but it was quite the mud bath. Today the rain has set in again.

Today I am at a conference all day, which will involve food at multiple opportunities. I plan to arrive this morning near the end of the "breakfast and networking" session so I don't eat anything. Well, anything much.

Snacking is bad for you - shock

Well, it's not bad for you if you then reduce the amount of food you eat at the meals. In fact, eating many small meals are better for you than a small number of big meals. But the harm is done when the meals are normal, and the snacks are additional. I'm just reviewing my points for today, which came in at 43. I earned 10 activity points today (walked the dog twice for a total of 80 minutes, dance class tonight with about 90 minutes activity). So I spent my daily allowance of 29, my activity earnings of 10, and squandered 4 points from the weekly floating allowance.

If I look back on the scores for the day, I spent 4 points for breakfast, 12 points for lunch, 13 points for dinner, and 13 points on snacks. If I had not eaten the snacks, then I'd have been a more reasonable one point over the daily allowance. (Are you following this?)

Ergo, if one stops snacking, one should lose weight faster. QED.

Mind you, the snack in question was a large latte and a chocolate croissant from the Mayfield Bakery, so they were points well spent.

Not a Very Successful Week

I have got to the end of another week, and my points score is -2. That means I've eated all the points for each day (29) plus all the points for the week (49) plus all the points I've earned through exercise (16 this week). Not a very good result.

I can tell you exactly where the problems arose. First was that hazelnut blackberry muffin at Peet's Coffee on Wednesday: 14 points, more than a whole meal. Then there was the meal out with my friends on Thursday, that I calculated at 29 points all by itself. Saturday lunchtime was also a rather scary 21 points, a result of eating a bacon cheeseburger and a few fries at the cafe near Windy Hill. My excuses for that one are (1) the kids needed to eat at the end of a walk, and (2) the cafe only sells pizza and burgers.

By today I had lost hope. I ate some chocolate and a brownie bite at lunchtime because I knew I had gone over my allowance. For some people, that knowledge would make them stricter with themselves. Doesn't work that way for Dr Willpower.

Further Cake Horror

I was yet again killing time before going to Reading Partners, and I yet again ended up at Peet's Coffee. I had my usual medium nonfat latte (3 points, and a "power food" according to Weightwatchers); but I also yet again succumbed to the temptations of the pastry and cake cabinet.

Today I opted for a Hazlenut and Blackberry Muffin, which was a whole lot tastier than the reduced fat thing I had on Monday. Alas, it cost me as many points as a whole meal - fourteen. Yes, that's 14 points for one muffin. Here's the nutritional breakdown of the item:
500 calories
Fat 26g
Carbs 62g
Fiber 2g
Protein 8g
Sodium 450 mg

Given that I had got into the habit of eating a coffee shop cake or pastry every day, I can see why I was piling on the pounds. I brought home the Peet's nutritional guide and just did the points calculation for all the items I might be tempted to eat. The lowest is the Lemon Poppyseed Muffin, weighing in at 260 calories and 7 points. It turns out that the muffin I ate today is the costliest, tying with Gingerbread Loaf Bread at 500 calories and 14 points. The reduced fat items tend to come in around 11 points, because the reduction in fat is made up by an increase in sugar, in an attempt to get the product to taste decent.

If you try to lose weight by eating reduced fat sweet items, you are clearly just kidding yourself.

Cake Horror

This morning I had 45 minutes to kill between dropping off Little Starlet at school and getting to my volunteering gig in Mountain View. It was also perishingly cold - I even had to scrape the car before setting off from home. So the temptation to head to a cosy coffee shop was strong.

I ended up in Peet's Coffee - http://www.peets.com/ - which is a locally based chain. I had a nonfat latte, so far so good; but then I succumbed to the baked goods counter. Oh woe is me.

I now know that a slice of Peet's Reduced Fat Chocolate Cherry Cranberry Bread is worth 11 Weightwatchers points. It contains 70g of carbohydrate! And it didn't even taste that good.

I made up for it by eating a cheese sandwich for dinner.

Groaning Waistbands

Oh my goodness, the fondue meal. Talk about excess.

We started with the ridiculously large and unnecessary salad that comes as part of the meal. Hubby warned our guests not to try to eat it, most of it, or even any of it, but they didn't listen. Then came the cheese part. Yummy. Bacon/Cheddar/Buttermilk and beer mixture, with bread and veggies. Delicious.

Then came the meat part. Two Fondue Feast Combinations, comprising scallops, prawns, tuna, boar, duck, beef, other fish, ostrich, and other things I've no doubt forgotten about, all grilled (or as Brother John pedantically pointed out, fried) on the hotplate in front of us.


And then the piece de resistance, the chocolate fondue dessert. After much discussion, I took charge and ordered the Triple X, which is milk chocolate and fudge; eaten with fruit and bad for you bits like profiteroles.

We also downed a bottle of wine.

This morning I rose from my bed with a strong sensation that my body had not succeeded in digesting anything at all during the night. I think we were all suffering a bit. Little Starlet said it served us right for not taking her with us. However, I should point out that she and her babysitter made a chocolate fondue in our own kitchen, which they ate with strawberries and apple slices, so she isn't having too deprived an existence.

Snacking: The Final Frontier

The internet connection at home is pretty funky at the moment, which is one reason why the blog posting has been somewhat limited. Anyway.

Wednesday weigh in for Dr Mom was 153.8 lbs, which was the same as the week before. Given how much I'd eaten at Hidden Villa, that was amazing.

Participated in dance class as usual on Wednesday and ended up with a sore toe again. Too much pas de basque, I fear. But I went for a walk this morning at Rancho San Antonio with chums, and it isn't too sore. That was the first walk I've had time to do for ages. I'm doing so much volunteering for different nonprofits, I can hardly fit my own activities in. It's good for the soul to be useful and contributing to the community, but I shall be glad when the summer comes and I can give up everything for a while (except for my work with Breakthrough Silicon Valley - I'm helping to organize a summer program on girls in science). Hopefully I shall be fighting fit for next week's Disneyland adventure!

I'm having great difficulty not snacking all the time at the moment. One of the problems is that there is a great deal of yummy food in the cupboard, including far too much sweet stuff. Deep Thought is also having trouble resisting, which is bad given that she is diabetic. I'm starting to think about having a month when we don't have any sweet food in the house except for fruit. I keep threatening to make us all vegetarian for a month, but I think there might be a riot from Little Starlet if she is deprived of her meat.

Good and Bad Choices

I am also eating too much, dear OEM. I've fallen back into the trap of evening snacking. Yesterday was brazil nuts and a biscotti. We were watching a very dubious movie on the TV - "Appaloosa" with Jeremy Irons playing a most unconvincing cowboy baddie - so some sustenance was required.

This morning we succumbed to the appeals of our children to go to the diner. I didn't have my usual bacon, poached egg and hash browns meal, but instead had french toast with fruit and a little syrup. I skipped the butter. I'm not so stuffed as I am usually after a trip to the diner, but I can't help suspecting that this morning's meal was less nutritious than the usual one. I guess I did have fruit, and that's unusual for me.

Hubby has a new theory based on something he read somewhere.... That we should avoid processed foods, but that animal fat is not really bad for you after all; which probably means that bacon is bad, eggs are good. But then again, if bacon tastes that good, how can it be bad for you?

Things are about to get worse

Have you noticed how downbeat our blog is? It's full of gloom and doom about what we've eaten, how our moods make us into ravening chocolate eaters, the woes of inadequate willpower, and the evil of our nearest and dearest who insist on eating ice cream and potato chips when we are meant to be nibbling on lettuce?

Well. Things are about to take a turn for the worse in Dr Mom's household. Tomorrow our kitchen is being demolished as part of the Great House Remodel (for more on that, see my other blog at http://remodelbox.blogspot.com). Hubby and I have spent the past two days packing the kitchen up. We've taken a lot, really a lot, of boxes to our storage unit. The food in the cupboards was pretty much a three way split between the storage unit, the dining room (for eating) and the garbage. We discovered that much had disappeared down the back of the main food cupboard. The record for out-of-dateness was May 2004.

We ended up at the pizza house at lunchtime because Deep Thought had a friend over and she turned out to be vegetarian; and of course we had planned to eat two meaty meals. Hubby and I were exceptionally abstemious, sharing one pizza between us. Dinner was pasta carbonara, using up the remaining egg and bacon. No time for treats or temptation for the rest of the time.

However, there is no way we will be able to eat at home most days. Tomorrow, the girls have a dance class that doesn't end till 5:30pm, so we shall be off to the Country Gourmet in Sunnyvale for a spot of all-American home cooking, restaurant-style. I figure we'll be calling on the hot food counter at the supermarket a fair bit. A big "Mi Pueblo" supermarket recently opened close to us, so that might be a good option. Of course, Mexican food is well known for its low calorie nature - NOT.

Bad Hotel Days

I spent Thursday and Friday at a hotel conference center, at a conference sponsored by the Women's Foundation of California. It was a tremendously interesting and energetic conference, filled with inspiring speakers and committed workers in California's nonprofit sector. I had eye opening conversations with the executive directors of Girls & Gangs, an LA based nonprofit that works to take girls out of the gang culture; Foundation for a College Education, from East Palo Alto, that helps 40 kids a year find places at college; and Breakthrough Silicon Valley, that concentrates on promoting achievement among high potential Latino kids from disadvantaged backgrounds, starting with middle school. I learned that the nonprofit sector employs 10% of the Californian workforce, and I found out what the "Tea Party" movement is. So it was all good.

Except for the eating. Which was not.

Well, you know how hotels and conferences go. First of all, you have to keep eating in order to stay awake, no matter how interesting the speakers may be. There is just something about sitting still for long periods, exercising only your ears, that makes that essential. Second, there is the constant stream of food. Coffee and cookies at break. Cooked breakfast. Tempting buffet at dinner. Drinks and dessert in the evening. It has to be described as a calorific couple of days.

Emotional Eating

What you need, OEM, is a strategy for gaining control of your "emotional eating". I found several articles on the web about this, including this one from the Mayo Clinic. Seems to me that you are already following a number of the suggestions, such as keeping a food diary (and the no deprivation one is clearly very important).

I am also a toadal emotional eater. Eat when I'm bored, eat when I'm happy, eat when I am cross... I guess the strategy would be to reach for something that is less calorific for a start. So reach for the yoghurt not the crisps. Have a cup of cocoa instead of a chocolate bar. Plus the action of having to make something will decrease the amount of food you eat, because you have less time!

I also suffer from Lack of Willpower. Today I'm heading off to a hotel in Santa Cruz for a conference (today and tomorrow). Which means - hotel food. Large portions. Too much choice. Cooked breakfast maybe. Temptation and almost guaranteed failure. I'm thinking of going vegetarian for the couple of days, but I may have missed the boat on that one.

On the bright side, I did do my dance class last night. Any progress on that front for you? Now it's stopped snowing in good old Blighty, might a brisk walk around the park be another way to work off the annoyance?

Cruel and Unusual Punishment

Kids demanded fried eggs and bacon for breakfast. Since today is a very rainy public holiday - kids off school - and both are apparently experiencing a growth spurt - which translates into perpetual foraging for food - how could I say no? But how cruel is that, to make the dieting mother cook bacon?

Succumbed to a small bacon sandwich, only two rashers and one slice of bread, but still...

Hmm. Jeans feeling tighter again today.

Great Expectations (Not)

First of all, the problem with this dieting thing is that you think about food all the time. It may be even worse than when you aren't dieting.

I feel like I've failed on just about every front this week. Unlike the exceedingly virtuous OEM, I have definitely fallen foul of treat foods, going out to eat, coffee shops, and so forth, to the undoubted detriment of my waistline. I am expecting that tomorrow morning's weigh-in will result in more pounds, not fewer.

But are we down-hearted?

Well, yes actually.

No cake today!

I think this counts as a major achievement. I'm going to say it again, I'm so surprised. NO CAKE. In fact, no treats of any kind, apart from a nonfat, decaf latte as fetched from Starbucks by Hubby this afternoon.

Breakfast: weetabix and milk
Lunch: pasta with chicken and red peppers in cream (I ate only half the pasta that Hubby put out for me).
Dinner: well, ok, we did go to the California Pizza Kitchen... But I elected to have chicken salad sandwich on herb focaccia bread, which was 995 calories, instead of a pizza which is more like 1200. So I felt very thin doing that. Had a small cup of pea soup on the side. Vegetables! How virtuous.

I had a continuation of yesterday's headache today, and retired to bed for three hours in the late morning. Feeling better now.

Successes and Failures

I think that'll be a heading that gets used quite frequently.

Visited the movie theater last night. Did not eat ice cream. Did not drink coffee. Didn't consume anything at all - mainly because Hubby dragged me away from the concession counter.

Earlier in day, did visit coffee shop twice. Horrible remodelling noise at our house, so I just had to get away. Once with Hubby, to discuss landscaping plans. Once just because. On second occasion, succumbed to a slice of chocolate cake.

Bah.

A Few Teething Troubles

Lack of food is not really an issue here in the great US of A. There is abundance all around, and particularly in coffee shops...

Referring back to the manifesto, yesterday I managed to score on one, but fail dismally on at least two. I went out in the evening to my regular Scottish Country Dance class, so I get a win of two hours exercise. However, I score badly on the coffee shop visits, as I went once at lunch time and once again in the afternoon. On the second occasion, Deep Thought compelled me to share a piece of chocolate cake with her, and how could I deprive my child?

Today I had a fairly modest salad and grilled chicken lunch - possibly with too much bread - but this evening there are dinner plans, so it could all go horribly wrong.

Weigh in - Dr Mom

I weighed in this morning at 158 lbs.

My house is currently being remodelled. I have men on the roof, a guy jack hammering up the front yard, and more men making dust and noise in the back yard. My lovely cleaners are also here doing their stuff. Alas their stuff has to be done to the background noise of loud Spanish radio.

So I am going out.

To a coffee shop - but the library first. So virtuous.

Sticking with the Manifesto

The challenge of having a manifesto is finding a way to accomplish all its parts simultaneously. I think I succeeded yesterday in achieving at least two.

First, I ate less and in moderation: Weetabix for breakfast, soup and a slice of bread for lunch, modest homemade fish pie for dinner. Then I rejected deprivation by eating half a tin of biscuits after the kids had gone to bed.

So far so good, eh?

I also re-ignited my WeightWatchers account yesterday. I added my current weight (to be revealed tomorrow, which official Day One) and started inserting the data for the food I'd eaten. But since the tin of biscuits sent me over the edge for the entire week, I decided that perhaps I'd better start again.