Would I eat pumpkin pie if I couldn't have whipped cream on it?

Answer: probably not.

Thanksgiving was a lovely day. 

Guess what! Guess what!

I totally didn't pig out--and it didn't kill me. 

Now, to be honest, I can't say that I ate entirely prudently, but I don't have any regrets. I didn't eat seconds of any of the dinner items (though I had two pieces of pie when we had dessert later.) All my portions were quite reasonable--I even cut back on the things I didn't care as much about (mashed potatoes, for instance) so I could have a little more of the stuff I really wanted (stuffing). Best of all,  I wasn't sick at the end of the day. 

Joel is the dieting king--he is better about sticking to a diet/healthy eating plan than anyone I've ever met. Yesterday, however, he just let go and ate with abandon. He logged all his WW points, though, so I guess he wasn't quite as wild 'n' crazy as he might have been. 

He used 37 points on pie alone. For those of you not up with the Weight Watchers lingo, that translates to roughly 1800 calories. I'm not entirely sure why he didn't descend into a diabetic coma during the night. 

As promised, I took a picture of one of my mother-in-law's enormous Thanksgiving plates (see above). As always, I made sure this picture was as flattering of me as possible. 

I hope you also had a very nice holiday. If you, along with Joel, ate a day's worth of calories in pie alone, please forgive yourself as soon as possible. Just be on the lookout for the diet dangers that December will be bringing your way shortly: fudge, fruitcake (ha!), chocolate Santas, frosted sugar cookies, eggnog, schnitzel with noodles...etc. 

Let's Talk Turkey...

and stuffing and yams. 

First, let's talk about yams. They are nasty. Don't waste calories on tubers smothered in marshmallowy ooze. 

Next!

We're having Thanksgiving dinner with my in-laws this year. Somebody help me! (Just kidding--I love my in-laws. I especially love any of my in-laws who happen to read this blog entry. I love them SO much!) 

My mother-in-law has special plates just for Thanksgiving dinner. And by "special," I mean, "bigger than my hair in the 80's." You could feed an entire third-world nation off one of these plates. I'll take a picture of one of them (the plates, not a third-world nation) on Thursday and post it on this blog.

This post is not about big plates or big hair--it's about food. Specifically, it's about the big calories in your Thanksgiving dinner. 

If you want to eat until your belly button pops out like a Norbest turkey timer, go right ahead, but I want you to be informed first. Here's a veritable feast of information (tasty, tasty information) for you:

Thanksgiving Foods: Calories and Weight Watchers Points

*turkey, white meat    2 ounces (approx. weight   111 cal   2 WW pts
                   of an obese parakeet)
*turkey, dark meat     2 ounces (see above)       125 cal   2 WW pts
*turkey gravy          1/4 cup                     68 cal   2 WW pts
*mashed potatoes       1 cup                      233 cal   4 WW pts
*stuffing              1 cup                      300 cal   6 WW pts
*sweet potatoes        2 1/2" x 2" section of     151 cal   3 WW pts
                   casserole dish       
*green bean casserole  1/6th of 1.5 qt casserole  410 cal  11 WW pts
*cranberry sauce       1/2 cup                    209 cal   4 WW pts
*dinner roll           1 average size roll, white 111 cal   2 WW pts
*butter                1 tablespoon               102 cal   3 WW pts
*pumpkin pie           1/8th of a 9-inch pie      323 cal   8 WW pts
*whipped cream         1/2 cup                    207 cal   6 WW pts

This information was gleaned from the fertile fields of the internet. The caloric values of your Thanksgiving foods may vary. 

What are you going to eat on Thursday? How much of it? How many new feuds will you start with your siblings? 

(my answers: everything but the sweet potatoes, not enough to make me throw up, 2)

Photo notes: 

1) It was taken in 1990, not the 80's, but for our purposes it works.

2) I don't know what's most horrifying: my hair, my pleated white pants, my facial expression or the lasers. What do you think?

3) In my defense, I was reluctant to be photographed in front of the laser background. The photographer talked me into it. "It looks really good in the finished pictures!" he gushed. 

4) The pants were my idea, and there is no excuse for them. 

5) This picture will probably come back to haunt me someday. 

If you fail to plan, you plan to gain 50 or 60 pounds

I promised the world a plan by tomorrow night. For once I'm true to my word. In fact, I'm early. I'm never early. I live across the street from my church and yet I'm consistently 2-3 minutes late for services. But I digress. I have a diet and exercise plan. Or, rather, I will be making one up as I compose this post. But by the time you read this (all 3 of you), I will have a plan. Confused yet? I am.

Plan, the:

Exercise:

I don't exercise much nowadays. That's not good. My joints ache, I don't sleep well, and things are lumpy. I feel that exercise may change these things.

(Always go with your feelings--just ask teenage girls.)

Fortunately, I also know that exercise will change those things (aches, bad sleep, and lumps--not teenage girls and their feelings).

• Exercise 6 times/week (Monday-Saturday) for at least 20 minutes.
• Plan type and time of exercise the night before.
• Keep track of it all on a chart. I love charts. So does Sara.
• Buy stickers for chart, preferably scratch and sniff (Bubble gum and green apple, please)

That's a pretty basic plan. For now, I'm not going to focus on what type of exercise--just doing something that benefits my body cardiovascularly or gives me muscles and/or less lumpiness. As I see it, developing the exercise habit is much more important right now than fine-tuning a fitness program. That'll come later, I'm sure, when I'm all skinny and decide I need abs of steel.

Food:

Mmmm...food.

• Make sure I eat breakfast before 9am. I used to be really good at this, but lately I forget to eat until 11 or so.
• Track my food and Weight Watchers points. Joel found a great app for my iPhone, so I don't even need to use a pen and paper like some crazy Luddite! (Joel can't believe I still read actual books made of paper.)
• AND (this is crucial), track everything I eat. Everything. Even on days when everything I eat is coated in cheese powder.

Again, I'm starting with the basics. I'm not setting calorie or point goals yet (though that should come soon.) I just want to raise awareness...of consumption of cheese powder.

Sleep:

• Get more of it
• Go to bed before midnight

Again with the baby steps and manageable goals.

Tomorrow night I'll post a wee analysis of my first day on the plan.

EDIT: I just noticed something on my "plan" picture. Under "exercise" I thought I wrote "boogie down." But it appears I wrote "boggie down" instead. Even better.

(See why I need more sleep?)

Confess and Assess

Weight loss is a constant battle. I know that's not a news flash to most of you--it isn't to me, either-- but the past 12 months or so have been even more strugglish than usual for me on the weight loss front. Last October my weight was in the low 170s after a long stint in the 180s and I anticipated continuing the weight loss and reaching my goal weight (Weight Watchers goal: 155, personal goal: 145) in the next year.

As Sara likes to say, "Hope is not a plan," and I'm afraid I was running more on hope than finely-tuned plans. Throw in some battles with medication difficulties and changes (no, no--I'm not trying to blame all my weight problems on that, but it was a factor) and some holidays that sprang up out of nowhere (Christmas is brand spankin' new, right?), and I was on the bullet train to Chubsville in no time flat.

At first my gain was slow (there goes my bullet train analogy), but I gained momentum rapidly and by late spring I was in the 190s.

Allow me to backtrack a little: when I joined Weight Watchers in February of 2007, my starting weight was 194.5 pounds. I received my 25 pound award in August of that year.

Back to this summer. By mid July, I hit 196.5 pounds, putting me two pounds above my starting weight (WW does not currently offer an award for this). I had given away all my size 14 clothes in the previous year and not only did I need those again, I was fitting into size 16 (and even 18--curse you, Old Navy!) for the first time ever. (Hey plus size friends--I realize you're pulling out your tiny violins at this point, but too much weight isn't good for you, whether it's 50 pounds or 150 pounds, wouldn't you agree? [If you don't agree, I don't want to know.])

I guess you could say in July I was near rock bottom (though my actual bottom was far from rock-like). I don't know exactly what made me stop the weight gain, though if I ever figure it out, I'm totally bottling it and selling it on QVC. Nonetheless, I stopped gaining and lost a few pounds before kind of hovering for a while in the lowish 190s.

Ever since, I've managed to avoid returning to the habits that put me on the gain train in the past, but I haven't really committed to doing anything that will produce steady and continual weight loss. I have lost a few more pounds over the past few months, it's true, and I'm happy about that, but if it's going to stick I need to start trying harder. Effort is a beautiful thing.

I've been working long and hard on my plan. Well, actually, so far my "plan" has consisted of not resisting Sara's efforts to get me to blog about weight loss for NaBloPoMo.

I hereby promise to make a plan. A real live plan for losing weight and doing it soon. And I also promise to post this plan on this blog (this one--right here) by midnight on this coming Monday.

Here's the rundown of how things are with me, weight-loss wise and health wise right now:

*Weight: 186 (yesterday it was 185)

*Height: still 5'9"

*Exercise regimen: none

*Best thing I eat regularly: broccoli

*Worst thing I eat regularly: Arby's mozzarella sticks

*Husbands who weigh less than I do: Joel

*Nights per week I get enough sleep: one or two

*Number of aches and pains: four

*Water consumed daily: around 48-64 oz

*Measurements:

-Upper arm: 14 inches

-Neck: 14 inches (for pity's sake--why is my arm as big around as my neck? Oh yeah. Frequent fried cheese consumption).

-Bust: None of your diggity dang business

-True waist (smallest part): 34 inches

-Waist at belly button: 37 inches

-High hips (at hipbone): 43.5 inches

-Largest hip measurement: 44.5 inches

-Thigh: 27 inches

-Knee (just above kneecap): 17 inches

-Calf: 16 inches

-Ankle (why not?): 8 3/4 inches

Well, that's the scoop. The scoopity scoopy scoop.

Stay tuned for the plan.

She's plucky

I bet you're dying to know how many pounds I was down at my Weight Watchers weigh-in on Saturday? Sorry about the suspense. Can I get a drum roll? No? That's OK--but have your snare drum ready next time, please. 

I was down 0.2 of a pound! I am SO glad I plucked my eyebrows before I got on the scale. 

Don't worry, it's just butter weight

You may be wondering what I'm doing with 8 pounds of rettub on my head. The picture is symbolic, you see. I love symbolism--I'm deep like that. I'm also crazy. The kind of crazy who gets 8 pounds of butter out of the freezer in order to give you, my reader, a visual image of how much weight I gained in a mere three weeks. No, I didn't gain the weight on the top of my head (though that would have been a good reason to invest in a wardrobe of top hats--finally!), but I'd rather not photograph the area where the pounds actually settled. This isn't that kind of blog.
Here's how it all transpired:
I went to Weight Watchers on Saturday, April 5th and weighed in at 182.8. On the 11th we drove to Sara's house, far far away, for a visit/vacation. (Before you start blaming Sara for making me fatter, read on--I know it's your tendency to blame her for my problems, but you really ought to get your facts straight). We spent a lovely 10 days with Sara and her family, enjoying the sights and eating. I ate so much. Sara tried a few gentle reminders along the lines of, "How about we both count points tomorrow!" and
"Are those pants really splitting at the seams?," but I was not to be dissuaded from my chosen path of sugar and gluttony. Fast forward to my next WW weigh-in on April 23rd (yes, I could have gone to WW on vacation, but that would have made me feel guilty. Guilt is uncomfortable). Dum, dum, dum, dah! I weighed 190.6. Sorry to say this wasn't a fake weight. You know, the kind you get when you're bloated, or you had a really big meal the night before, or you're carrying 400 quarters in your jeans pockets. No, this was real, genuine body poundage.
What now? I've heard eating less and moving more works for some people. I may have to give it a try. Meanwhile, I think I'll go put the butter back in the fridge before it jumps into a bowl with flour, cocoa powder and eggs and becomes brownies.


Pssst...Are you wondering if I tried to balance the butter tray on my head rather than hold it there with my hands? Of course I tried that! And I was rewarded by painful butter-box-corner wounds on my shoulders and legs.