Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Updates, Group Power and Weight Watchers

Today is my weight tracking day in Weight Watchers, as well as my second time doing the new Group Power release, so it seems like the right time for some updates.

Regarding Group Power- did I mention not being sore yesterday? Apparently, I spoke too soon. I really did not feel much soreness after Monday's class... until I went to today's class. Once I started doing all the new exercises for the second time, I could really feel the first time. I am fairly terrified of Boot Camp tomorrow, because all of the things I find hard about that class (particularly lunges and plank) are a big part of this Group Power release. Hopefully, there will be no puking or crying. We'll see.

As far as Weight Watchers goes, I am still enjoying the new system. I experienced a little weight spike over the holidays (though much less than expected), followed by a big drop that I think had more to do with the monthly bloating/un-bloating cycle than with how well I was following the plan. Today, I was back up half a pound, but the overall number seems right for the post-holiday recovery period.

This past weekend, I had a belated family holiday party to attend, so I had to bake another round of Christmas cookies. This was an opportunity to reflect on two important Weight Watcher tips:

1) Calculate Points yourself. Do not rely on the general guides that are available in the program materials and online. For example, the program materials say that two small homemade chocolate chip cookies equals 3 Points. I use two different chocolate chip cookie recipes, and I calculated the actual Points for each one by adding up the Points for each ingredient and dividing by the total yield of cookies. For the first recipe, the cookies are 4 Points each; for the second, they are 8 Points each. So, as you can see, if you don't figure it out yourself, you risk seriously underestimating your Points.

2) Manage your environment. For the first part of the holiday season, I had all of the Christmas cookies sitting on my kitchen table. This meant that I saw them multiple times each day, including at night when I am most inclined to overeat. I ate a lot of cookies. Then, I moved them to my pantry, where I go much less often, and probably cut my consumption by half. With this weekend's cookies, I brought the leftovers to work and left them out for my co-workers. The workday is not a time when I am inclined to overeat, so I effectively removed the temptation and made my co-workers happy. Perfect- I need to remember this strategy next year!

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