On the Right Track

Today marks the fourth day in a row that I've tracked all of my food and stayed within my daily point target!  Hurrah!

For those of you not familiar with the Weight Watchers plan, each food is given a point value based on fat, carbs, protein and fiber.  Each person gets a daily point target to stay within and still lose weight.  You can eat whatever you want, just stay within that target.  The point values and the materials steer you toward eating more filling foods - fruits, veggies, whole grains, protein - and it doesn't take long to learn that if you use up your points on crap, you're either going to finish off the day ravenous and stabby, or you're going to end up going on a midnight fridge run and eating everything inside, including the mystery hunk of cheese in the back of the drawer (right after you cut off the moldy or filmy bits), thus derailing your weight loss efforts.   

For me, there are definitely days when you sort of "wing it" - you keep a rough tally of what you're eating, but don't write things down, then you sort of "guesstimate" that the piece of cake is still within your target, because surely the grilled cheese sandwich you ordered at lunch was made with whole grain bread, low-fat cheese and light butter.  Right?  Some weeks this works, but most of the time you see less than ideal results.

Well, I made a commitment that this week I would start off the year with good habits.  I've written down everything.  I've stayed within my target.  Today I enjoyed a bountiful selection of fruits and veggies to accompany my small portion of whole grain pasta and sauce.  Yesterday I got a little hungry in the afternoon, and upon searching my desk drawer, found a hunk of chocolate that I devoured, but I calculated the points, added them in, and adjusted the rest of my day.

I didn't have the opportunity to weigh in yesterday (my normal meeting day), but I am going to crash a make up meeting tonight and check out the scale.  We'll see what happens - at least I don't feel like I need to try to hang my heels off the back of the scale in an effort to nudge the numbers down a bit...