I may also rant on about our Fearless Leader later in the day, so take a look back for that. This is more on eating and that crap. Sick of it yet?I don't think I'm actually obsessed with this; I just think about it a lot. I think I have to, at least now, or I can't make it work. It was when I stopped thinking about it all that I gained the weight back. I suppose that if you want to maintain your life in a healthy way, then it's going to require thought, on some level at least, all of your life. Another lesson learned.
So I was looking around on the WW message boards yesterday, something I've only done a couple of times before, and I came across something called the Wendie Plan, which tells you that you have to use your WW points in a thoughtful way that avoids having your body think you've gone into starvation mode. Think about this. Experts will tell you that if you cut 500 calories out of every day, you will lose weight, case closed. The Sibs believes this, and her husband, who is a mathematician (who weighs the same as he did in high school), swears by it. It's numbers, so it must be true. But I don't believe that it is. It's only true if your body maintains a consistent, average rate of metabolism. If your metabolism is slower or faster than average, or fluctuates, then it cannot be true. In addition to this, there is a known phenomenon in which your body, abruptly getting 500 calories less a day, comes to believe that your food supply has dried up (as if you were a cave-dweller looking for better hunting grounds) and purposely slows down your metabolism so that you don't die of starvation.
What you need to do then, according to this Wendie thing, is adjust your points so that a couple days a week you eat a little higher, and one day a week, you eat a lot more, using up your flex points in both cases. The other days you stick to your points limit. (There's more specific information at the website.) Speaking as someone who's sticking to her points and not losing, I'm thinking, hmmm. Maybe this is a good idea. So I'm going to try it a bit, and at least just eat more one day a week for starters. Not more crap, just maybe a bigger portion of some of what I'm already eating.
Which is not to say that R and I didn't go to IHOP for lunch today and have funnel cakes. I didn't eat the hashbrowns, and left half the funnel cakes, too. But they were delicious. And she had a good point: now each time we see the commercial, it won't drive us crazy and make us want to rush over there, because we've already satisfied that craving.
Now, R is also changing her diet over the last few months, not so much to lose weight, but to be healthy. But she has lost about 10 pounds, and consequently lost the saddle-bags off her thighs that were a genetic gift from the MIL. (I have my mother's no thighs or rear, not even as much as a normal person is supposed to have. That's not my particular problem. My poor daughters, unfortunately, got the MIL's thighs and my family's boobs, so they're doubly cursed.) Anyway, what this means is that we have meaningful conversations about nutrition all the time, because it's something that interests us both.
She may have converted me to yet another healthy belief today: I've already had two cups of water. Well, it's a big deal for me! I a) hate drinking water, and b) already have bladder issues. (Really, I wondered how I was going to put that into words.) But I've agreed to gradually up my water intake. I put a slice of lime into it, so it tastes like a drink, and not like water, which I just don't like. And now we'll see what happens. I promised her I'd drink one cup a day every day this week, two next week, and so on, until I get to a reasonable amount. I still don't believe that 8 cups a day could possibly be the same goal for me and for Refrigerator Perry. It defies reason. And I did in fact lose 20 pounds on WW last year without touching an extra drop of water, so there.
I also made this year's mammogram appointment today. I'll rant about that another time.
