One week in

As crazy as this may sound, I am thrilled to be maintaining my weight right now. I don't actually want to lose any more until I join Weight Watchers this coming weekend. I know that probably sounds nuts, but here's the thing: the first few pounds usually come off rather easily for me. I need to use that fact to my advantage -- kind of like coasting fast down into a valley in order to get more of a boost to get up the other side. Once I actually start WW, I'll need that potential quick loss (and any incentive stickers that come with it) to give me a boost for the long haul. If I start losing weight before I get there, I won't have that "launching action".

I have, however, been getting into better habits this week. Aside from when I was away (part of Friday and most of Saturday), I have faithfully logged my daily weight and all of the food I've been eating into my computer program. It does a lot more than I thought it did -- I can even set it to track points as well as nutrients. One thing I have become in this past week is more conscious of what's in the food I'm eating. I like the WW points system for keeping easy track, but combining it with my software (that tells me recommended daily values/limits) is already making me more conscious of what I'm getting too much of (sodium) and what I'm not getting enough of (calcium, vitamins). And that's got to be a good thing.

Another thing it does is that it estimates my caloric needs based on activity (or lack thereof) and keeps a running total. According to the software, it's recommended you only trim 500-1000 calories to avoid slowing down your metabolism, so when I'm actually losing, I'll try to keep my "blue numbers” around -500 to -750 at the end of the day. The fact that I'm doing all of this mathy stuff might surprise some people, but part of the reason I got this way is because food became a "drug for the emotions" thing, rather than a "fuel for the body" thing. The more mathy and scientific I can make it, the more interesting it becomes, and the less emotional it is.

Now that I've gotten into the habits of meeting Frank daily, journalling, and watching the calories, I think the project for this week will be meeting up with Jim on a regular basis. Let's see how it goes. Easing into this, rather than going "hell-bent cold turkey" seems to be working so far.

I certainly didn't get this way in one week, so if I have to start implementing things gradually, then so be it.