I was raised on candy, chips, pretzels, ice cream, cookies, cakes, etc.  My Mom would cook every night and we ate well, but our pantry was filled with junk food.  Luckily, I was a skinny kid and the weight gain didn’t really come until my 2nd child.  I had a little spurt as a teenager once we started driving and we didn’t ride our bikes or walk as much.  But I nipped that in the bud quickly and didn’t really have problems until my 2nd pregnancy.

What I have noticed is that when I don’t eat fruit first before any other snacks then my sugar and carb desire spikes and I want to binge.  If I have fruit first it fills me up and if I still need a sweet treat I don’t go all wacky and start eating snacks left and right, going from sweet to salty (usually potato chips).  WW PP rewards us for eating our fruits and veggies by not charging us points for most of them, so I don’t know why I’m suddenly having such a hard time.

Funny thing is, I went out to dinner the other night with friends and had a salad followed by gelato and I was fine with my points that day.  I binged the next day.  I noticed I felt tired and didn’t feel like myself, which is maybe why I started eating junk.

Today I ate good and light.  I didn’t have any candy and just finished having a delicious, perfectly ripe organic pear.  I ate under my daily points to help make up for yesterday.  I will try to do the same tomorrow.   As long as I can pick myself up from those bad days I should be fine.  More fruits and veggies for me = less junk.  Unfortunately, fruits were never my “go-to” snack.  I also want to get back to juicing and maybe I’ll start tomorrow.  When I did it before I didn’t have a desire to eat the nasty stuff as much.  I need to get back to that place.

Another thing I’ve been doing wrong is purchasing junk food and candy, thinking I can fit it in my daily points at small enough amounts to allow a treat but still stay on plan.  That didn’t work for 2 days for me last week.  But to go off plan for 2 days and still lose a little is wonderful, especially since I’m so close to goal (6 pounds).  And truth be told, I don’t think I went over my weekly points, or if I did it wasn’t by much.  However, I ate bad for 2 days, eating too much junk, so it is not acceptable.

I made it through a challenging week and yesterday started my new one.  I did great yesterday, even having 1 daily point leftover.  I am going out to dinner tonight with my friends and am not worried about it.  I’ll order something good and eat half.  I’ll have unsweetened iced tea and I’m not sure about dessert.  I’ve never been to this restaurant and don’t know what they offer.  I found out recently that I’m allergic to wheat so won’t be having any kind of cake or pie or bakery item.

At first I wasn’t going to attempt to record them on my online food tracker.  I had no idea how much I ate.  So I figured I’d just stay within my daily points for the rest of the week and not eat any of my extra leftover points.  But I didn’t want my week to have holes in it where I didn’t record something.  So I did my best guess and wrote those horrible amount of points down.  The thing is, even with overestimating I still have weekly points left.

What Happened?

I haven’t been eating fruit for the past few days.  I only had apples left and just didn’t have a taste for them.  That means I’ve been eating more junk.  Sure, they fit into my points just fine, but they created that binge urge.

Another thing I noticed is that because I hadn’t been sleeping well, I was feeling fatigued, even having to take a catnap almost every day, which I rarely do.  So the combination of no fruits/little veggies and being tired, my willpower was gone.  The temptations won.

I Paid for It

Since the binging started in the evening I had acid reflux while sleeping.  I woke up with indigestion and a terrible taste in my mouth.  The good news is I had enough of junky eating (even if it was within my points) and I went out and bought more fruits and veggies.  I was still going to eat just within my daily points yesterday and actually went under by 2, which is fine after my previous day.

It’s So Much Easier to Stay on Plan When You Eat Right

My lesson was this:  most fruits and veggies are zero points.  Eat those that you like and there won’t be much room left for the junk.  I felt so good yesterday with clean eating.  In fact, I had so many points left after dinner that I had to eat more as I don’t want to eat too little.  That ends up backfiring after a while.  So I had some pistachio nuts and a piece of Amy’s Gluten Free Chocolate Cake and still had points left for the day.

Weight Watchers Points Plus Rewards Us for Eating Right

I’ve said it before, zero points for most fruits and veggies is a brilliant concept.  I don’t know anyone who became overweight from eating too many of those food groups, at least not the point-free ones.  On the old Flex Plan it was too easy to substitute fruits and veggies and the points they cost for junk food.  I’ve just got to keep my favorite fruits stocked up so I don’t stray too far with snacking.

Another good thing is that this plan makes it easy to jump back in when you have a bad day.  Even if I had done much worse and used my entire points for the week, I would have eaten my daily points only for the rest of the week and start new the following week.  One bad day should never stop your diet plan in its tracks.  Pick yourself up and get back on plan. 

I wanted to not write my points down.  I wanted to give myself a day off and eat some cheese puffs my daughter bought.  But I came to my senses, tracked everything and left those cheese puffs alone.  I had one organic string cheese instead.  Now I’m feeling a mini victory, but I hate the fight.  Hopefully, tomorrow will be better.

I will write another post in more detail, but I am waiting to start my exercise regimen until I am 5 pounds away.  It is always difficult to lose those last 5 pounds so I’ve been saving up exercise as a metabolism booster.

I’m feeling good with a lot of energy and although I’ve got those “good” hunger pangs (which tells me my body is losing), I don’t have my normal binge mentality.  I’m probably eating better on WW PP vs. The Carbohydrate Addict’s Diet (CAD).  My meals are usually more balanced  on Weight Watchers since I can eat from all food groups at every meal vs. having to stay low carb for 2 out of 3 meals on CAD.

I am not so limited at one to two meals a day, which had to be low carb on CAD.  WW PP rewards me for eating fruits and veggies by not costing points for most of them.  I had peas for the first time in a very long time yesterday and today, and they were zero points.  I didn’t have them on CAD because I could only eat them at my Reward Meal, and I ate other things at that meal.  When I wanted them was at dinner time with my protein serving, but I had to eat a low carb veggie.  I could only eat fruits at my Reward Meal, but they weren’t my first choice, so I rarely ate fruit.

I feel so free on this eating plan.  I know I can reach goal on this plan alone.  I don’t think I’ll do it in a month, but I’m not in a hurry.  It will be difficult switching to another eating plan to try it out for this blog.  But I can always go back to Weight Watchers Points Plus and can see myself using the program for maintenance.

The plan was just a different way to do Weight Watchers.  Instead of eating your allotted points each day, you switched up the points.  There were low points days, medium points days, high point days and a super high point day.  I noticed that the weekly points in the Wendie Plan were a bit less than Weight Watchers allowed.  I’m now not sure that is such a good thing.

You could still do something similar with Weight Watchers new PointsPlus program.  Take your total weekly points, including the extra 49 points.  Then split them up into varying points for each day of the week.  I used to take my super high point day for Friday or Saturday, which allowed me to go out to dinner and not worry so much about eating too many points in one day.  However, I sometimes struggled with my low points day.

My Wendie Plan Days

When I did The Wendie Plan I was under 150 pounds so followed the lowest points program.  My days were as shown below:

POINTS TARGET – 20 (Weigh Less than 150 lbs)
• Day 1 – 20 points
• Day 2 – 25 points
• Day 3 – 21 points
• Day 4 – 35 points Super High Day (SHD)
• Day 5 – 20 points
• Day 6 – 24 points
• Day 7 – 22 points

Since I always begin an eating program on Monday, I switched my SHD to Friday or Saturday instead of the Day 4 as shown above.  It is said you should keep it the same each week but the whole idea is to shake things up, so IMO it didn’t matter what day the SHD fell on, as long as you otherwise stayed on plan.

I Reshaped My Body

Using The Wendie Plan and an exercise regime, I went from size 12 pants, getting ready to buy size 14′s, to a size 4.  As I’ve mentioned, I am petite and pear shaped, so there was a huge difference.  I actually went under my goal weight and felt great.

Anyone Can Use the Wendie Plan

A lot of WW followers used an iteration of The Wendie Plan without knowing it by eating more on one day and less on others.  Some would save points for a special occasion.  For some reason The Wendie Plan was banned on a popular Weight Watchers forum, which I stopped participating in because it was so ridiculous to ban a different way to allocate your weekly points.

If you count calories or points no matter what diet plan you are on, you can do it via The Wendie Plan.  Figure out how many calories you need to consume in order to lose weight (can be used for maintenance too to keep you on track), and set up your week in advance.  Use whatever tracking method you’re currently using.  If I wasn’t using WW online I would track in Sparkpeople.

How to do it for PointsPlus

Many PP users have 29 daily points and 49 extra for the week.  I try to use all of my points and I’ll write a separate post about that.  That means you have 252 points for the week in total.  Here is an example of how I could set up my daily points using The Wendie Plan idea:

• Day 1 – 32 points
• Day 2 – 36 points
• Day 3 – 33 points
• Day 4 – 35 points
• Day 5 – 32 points
• Day 6 – 50 points Super High Day (SHD)
• Day 7 – 34 points

In reality, I do end up eating differently from day to day, although probably not this amount of points variation from one day to the next.  Right now I’m just doing PointsPlus using a few of the extra weekly points each day.  I will have enough left over on the weekend to have a higher point day, which is nice.  However, maybe I’ll eat via The Wendie Plan my next month instead of trying the 4-Hour Body program.  I’m so happy with WW PP that it will be difficult to leave it for another plan that is a lot more strict and limits food choices somewhat.

The Wendie Plan

My introduction to the Weight Watchers program was via The Wendie Plan.  I will write another post about it.  Basically, it was the Flex Plan but with a specific amount of points to eat each day, allowing for low point days, medium point days and a high point day.  This plan, along with a vigorous exercise plan, brought me to the lowest weight I had been in years, and I was in my late 40′s.  I felt great and kept at it for about 1 1/2 – 2 years, and kept most of it off for another year after.

I did it all online and didn’t pay a penny.  I downloaded free Xcel spreadsheets to journal what I ate and the points.  There was even a free program where you could add ingredients for a recipe and it would calculate points.  I was a member of The Wendie Plan forum and Bootcamp Buddies.

The reason I quit was because I could not continue to journal everything.  I was sick of it.  I reached goal and lost even more and figured I knew how to eat well and could maintain on my own.

Weight Watchers Meetings

My next attempt was going to the meetings and there was one close to my house.  I kept trying different time slots with different trainers, but I wasn’t really happy with any of them.  One woman was obese!  She said she had a medical condition but I think they should have removed her.  How could I look at this obese woman telling me what to do when she obviously couldn’t follow her own advice?

Another trainer appeared to be at the high end of her weight to me but I guess she was in her healthy weight range.  I liked her the best but I wasn’t in love with these meetings.  Another trainer was svelte but I felt like a kid in school with her and I didn’t like that.  I just didn’t like the meetings.  I ended up going in just to get weighed and would leave.

This time around I paid my dues and purchased the calculator and some WW products.  I bought the package with the journal and cookbooks and stuff.  I just found it the other day while going through some boxes in storage.

I was less successful even when money was on the line.  I did lose weight and reached my current goal weight of 129.  My goal back then was 125, which I might attempt this time around.  But then I tried The Core Plan.

The Core Plan

No weighing food, no counting points, just eat the allotted foods.  Unfortunately, all of us on forums figured out how to bake goodies using these allowed Core foods.  Those of us who couldn’t control our eating started binging on these allowed foods.  I got lost and couldn’t get back on The Flex Plan with the journaling and counting points.

WW Online

I think before my surgery in March I had started the WW online program.  I was amazed at the new and improved program.  Most fruits and veggies were zero points?!  Brilliant.  I had started the program and then got the news about my cancer diagnosis.  Losing weight was no longer my main concern.  Now the cancer should be gone (surgery followed by radiation) and I lost some weight during that time.  But I’m not at goal weight and I wanted to give the new WW plan a try for this month.

After being on CAD for a month, eating the WW way is a breath of fresh air and I’m really enjoying it.

As I’ve mentioned before, I was on CAD in the past for 2 1/2-3 years.  I was very strict with it for at least 2 1/2 years and didn’t have problems straying.  But in subsequent attempts I haven’t been able to stick to it 100%.  The last time I tried it I don’t think I lasted a week.  This time I stayed on it for a month, but I was not 100% on plan.  I had a few bad days in there, one with a mini evening binge.  Below are the Pros and Cons based on my experience:

Pros

• A specific regime which could be easy for many to plan for and follow the program.
• One meal a day is a Reward Meal, where you can eat a treat (or two or more, in my case).
• If you like a low carb plan this could be the perfect eating plan for you.
• You can lose weight on it if you follow it and tweak your Reward Meal to allow you to lose.

Cons

• Two meals a day must be low carb, can be difficult for some to follow (you could eat one low carb meal and one Reward Meal for those that only eat twice a day.
• A very specific plan that might be difficult for some to follow – although you can change your Reward Meal around, if something unplanned comes up you need to stay low carb if you’ve already had your Reward Meal.
• No snacking allowed – only 2-3 meals a day.
• If you want to have an alcoholic drink it must be done during the Reward Meal hour.
• Reward Meals can turn into binges.
• Although cravings can be cut if you follow the plan correctly, I still had cravings and noticed that they usually occurred when I would only eat 2 meals a day.

I was able to follow CAD for a month, give or take a few bad days.  I lost about 3 lbs., but keep in mind, I am very close to my goal weight, making 3 lbs. in a month pretty good.  Had I started my weight loss on CAD I would have probably lost at least twice that amount.

Towards the end of the month I was eager to start something else.  The time I ended up going off CAD after over 2 years on plan I was hankering for oatmeal.  This time it was grits.  I didn’t want to have the grits during my lunchtime Reward Meal, I wanted them for breakfast, but then breakfast would have been my Reward Meal, which I didn’t want.  So having a craving for one meal can throw you off plan if you let it.  I didn’t have grits until this morning, my first day of Weight Watchers.

If you like eating lower carb and can control your carbs to one meal a day, this could be the best plan out there for you.  This is not a no-carb diet plan, it is low carb.  Many people start plans like Atkins and continue eating the Induction way until they reach goal.  Atkins is not really set-up this way, but people used it as Induction to goal.  This is a more relaxed low carb program.

I was getting bored with my low carb meals.  Breakfast was pretty much eggs and either bacon, Canadian bacon or sausage every day.  I didn’t get involved with the low carb “pancakes” this time around.  Thank goodness I like eggs and bacon (organic, uncured).

I had my Reward Meal for lunch and was getting to the point of eating more treats than meal.  Although it allowed me to still lose weight to contain snacking to one meal, I didn’t feel like I was eating healthy.  That was my own fault but I couldn’t control it.

Dinner was becoming boring with a serving of meat and a low carb veggie or salad.  Some people would be just fine with that kind of meal, but it was getting to me.  I made a stir fry one day and cooked organic jasmine rice for the rest of the family to use and all I ate was the stir fry portion.  I felt deprived not being able to have a stinking 1/2 cup of the rice.

I wouldn’t mind going on CAD again in the future to curb weight gain or to help maintain.  But I could not eat that way long-term like I did in the past.

Because I get bored with eating the same way all the time.  Every plan has some kind of repetitive rules to abide by, even if it’s just counting calories.  Some plans have rules besides calorie intake, and it’s a wonder how one diet plan with completely different steps can still help you achieve your goal.

It seems that every time I start a different eating plan I can lose anywhere from 1-4 pounds quickly.  With some of the diet plans I’ve been on, I keep losing and gaining those same 4 pounds until I give up.  It seemed good in the beginning, but it didn’t work long-term.

I started this new phase of weightloss starting out with juicing and eating mainly vegetarian, eating meat rarely.  Some refer to this as being a Flexitarian.  But I was diagnosed with cancer and went through surgery and radiation, and was told to stop juicing and eating raw fruits and veggies during the radiation treatment.  I haven’t gone back since the treatment has ended, but I’m thinking of doing it again.

After the treatment was over, I decided to try The Carbohydrate Addict’s Diet once again.  But the regime was getting to me, which happened even quicker in the past when I would try to eat the CAD way again.  I am at the end of the month for CAD and will be starting Weight Watchers again for the month of October.  That was my other successful diet plan, that allowed me to get into a size 4 pants (I am pear shaped) in my late 40′s.

If Weight Watchers brings me to my goal weight next month, which I doubt, then I will go over other diet plans I’ve used.  I would also like to give a full month trial of my latest diet book, The 4-Hour Body.

Thanks for joining me on my journey to reach my goal weight and hopefully my experiences will help you achieve the same results.  I don’t care to keep a typical diet journal, so this is hopefully my way to reach goal and keep me on track with maintenance.