Amster’s Weight Watchen Blog

Hungry Girl, I have a bone to pick with you.

 I’ve been an avid reader of yours for a few years now, and whenever I’ve come across fellow weight-conscious females, I’ve recommended reading your site.  “It’s cute and informative,” I would say.

But lately you’ve become more popular.  You have a cookbook coming out, and you guest-post on WeightWatchers.com as well as on Yahoo!  Congratulations.  This is excellent for you, as positive publicity is the dream of many a blogger.

Changing your site for the masses, however, is not.  So why have you done it?!

“Cute and informative” has become blatantly valley-girlish.  I’m a 20 year-old girl; I should know.  (While I may not always practice it) I understand the art of writing to a net-based, recreationally-reading audience.  It’s not the same as writing a school paper.  However, there are limits.  I just read your WW article on diet-friendly brunch choices, and you had this nugget of genius to impart:

“Keep it on the DL. (For those of you not familiar with the fancy lingo, DL is short for “down low.”)”

Really, HG?  Anyone young enough to be wooed by your adolescent lexicon is “familiar with the fancy lingo.”  Which, by the way, isn’t fancy.  I used to look up to you, HG.  I used to think you were a witty, clever woman who knew the ins and outs of dieting.

But you’ve slowly started to lose my interest.  Things like this (below) also really get my panties in a twist:

“Watching what you eat? Mums the Word!
This one is very important. Try not to make a big deal out of the fact that you’re counting calories or POINTS® values. Trust me, the second you announce that you’re going to be careful with what you eat, people will be all over you trying to convince you to indulge, and/or going on and on about how great you look and telling you to live a little.”

There are a few exceptions, but for the most part…

 …you’re utterly wrong.

Years of dieting experience, anorexia, and living through my (formerly) pain-in-the-*** relationship with food has taught me one thing, if nothing else:

Other people will always react to what you stick in your mouth.  If you eat fruit instead of pancakes, they will say something.  If you eat eight pancakes instead of one, they’ll say something.  If you eat anything other than what they’re eating, they will probably comment on your choice.  It’s human nature.  And you know what?  If you’re not ready to face the fact that friends and family (it’s been proven) will either consciously or subconsciously attempt to not just comment on but also sabotage your attempts to change your figure, you’re NOT READY TO LOSE WEIGHT.  Learning how to deal with a family that has a different image of what you should be eating than you do is not only a skill vital for most people to lose weight but also the life story of many a person, including myself.  And you know what?  My boyfriend’s family has a completely different set of standards than does mine.  So now they all comment on my food choices but in a different way.  And I deal with it.  Because that’s what dieters do.

We don’t, however, hide.

Furthermore, social eating is part of life.  It is — in part – eating, but it is also a practice in social etiquette.  What I’ve noticed (especially with my boyfriend and his family) is that if I decline non-diet-friendly food (a box of chocolates, an alcoholic drink, a cheesy casserole, etc.) without specifying a reason for doing so, the person offering will assume that either I don’t like their cooking skills or that I’m an ungrateful snob.  If I do, however, mention that I’m cutting back, I may get a comment or two about how I’m “missing out” or “are skinny already,” but I will not, however, offend anyone’s cooking.  If the person offering the food (or any onlooker) is worth his/her two cents as a friend or family member, he/she will care enough about you and your feelings not to take it personally.

So you know what, Hungry Girl?  You can call me Angry Girl.

And, as you’d say, AG out!

P.S.:  I happen to like cold cereal.  Especially Lucky Charms.  So keep your carb-hating, cereal-discriminating opinions away from our happy, portion-controlled-marshmallow-loving selves.

In January, I was at a very desperate point in my weight loss.  I was at my highest, so I had this sense of urgency — I’d try anything.  (I bought Wu Long Tea, diet pills, you name it.)  But one thing I also did was to purchase the “10 Weight Loss Rules for Idiots” program that generates 11-day “calorie shifting” meal plans.  You might have seen this advertised under the tease, “Lose 9 pounds in 11 days!”

There are two parts to the plan.  The first is a “handbook” (both parts can be found online, so no need to print) that has 10 or so pretty basic weight loss rules.  The second part is a meal plan generator.  You pick foods you like from two lists, and the website (which you can access indefinitely after purchasing the program) spits out an 11-day plan for you.

Here’s my thing.  I love carbs.  I  know the metabolism of protein requires more energy than that of carbs (hence Atkins) and that eating too much refined sugar/flour can spike your blood sugar levels (causing extra calorie-storage), but in moderation, a calorie’s a calorie.  Weight management is just paying attention to your net calorie intake.  My point is that I really DON’T like the idea of sacrificing my morning cereal or my English muffins (I heart them).

The plan isn’t Atkins, don’t get me wrong.  But there are NO carby foods on the lists that don’t come from trees or plants.

 So here’s my question, which I pose to all of you:

Have you tried this plan or one like it?  Does it work?  (Also, how much did you lose on it, if I might ask, please?)

 Thanks!

 P.S.: My last week or so, in review:

Last week, I ran 4.25 miles without stopping outside in 43 minutes.  I was pretty pleased with myself.  But I also had a kind of bad “body image issues” coming back week, so I was only able to maintain (despite pretty heavy excercise throughout).  Good sign, though: the boyfriend was *super* impressed when he saw my tush.  My review was, “Wow, girl, working out really agrees with you!” :) 

Tomorrow I should dip just under the 125 mark, too, so that’s good (finally, right?).  I’ve noticed that every time I near a milestone, like losing 5 pounds, or now 10 pounds, I have a harder time with the last of the pounds than with the others.  I seem to remember reading things about people sabotaging themselves, but on a certain level I think I just get that much more comfortable in my own skin.  I’m very happy right now.  I’m thinking I’ll aim for 115 and see how that feels.  That would mean I’d be half done with my weight loss!  Yippee!

A few unrellated topics today.

Topic #1:

One thing I wanted to mention on this site was my experience with Alli.  For those not familiar with the drug, it’s the only FDA-approved diet pill on the market.  It works in your intestines by deactivating some of the fat enzymes found there, preventing about 1/4 of the fat eaten from being absorbed by the body.

In practice, Alli is a phenomenon to behold.  It really does work, which you will unfortunately witness while you adjust to the pill or if you consume too much fat at a meal — when you go to the bathroom, you’ll witness that unabsorbed fat pass right through.  Mathematically, though, what looks like a lot of fat turns out not to be so much.  Here’s why:

To avoid “treatment effects” (it’s orange fat in your poop — let’s be frank), you should consume 15 or fewer fat grams per meal.  One fat gram = 9 calories.  On the plan, you have three meals a day with which you consume Alli.

9*15 *3 = 405 grams of fat eaten per day

405/4 = 101.25 calories Alli prevents you from absorbing per day

Now I’ll admit, -101.25 calories is better than 0 calories.  But considering that you have to burn off 3500 calories to lose a pound, that’s just not good enough.  Following the plan (without changing anything else), it would take you over a month to lose one pound.

Now, that said, I also know people who have taken 2-3 pills per meal and have claimed to have lost weight.  I tried this, too, and it definitely looked like it was working, but I was super afraid during my workouts (for fear that I would have a little orange accident on the elliptical).  By the way, I am in NO way promoting improper use of Alli.  I’m just saying what has happened to me in the past.

In fact, here’s my reduced two cents: use Alli as directed, but only as a supplement to a healthier eating & fitness plan.  You’ll burn far more calories in an hour of cardio than you will by depending on Alli (with Depends, no  less) to do your work for you.

Topic #2:

Anyway, in less yucky news, I went running today for the first time in a while.  The new gym I go to on campus (I moved) isn’t open on weekends, so I walked a 4-ish mile loop in the hills we have in the area this morning (me now = very pink) AND ran about 3 miles tonight.  The running is somehow very liberating.  I’m always excited to find something new and fitness-related that my body can do.  Will do same workout tomorrow, since it’s Sunday and the gym will still be closed (sad face).

Oh, one more thing (I’m clearly not showing off my writing skills today; sorry folks): there’s something to be said for being the cool kid who goes to parties on weekend Friday and Saturday nights and gets drunk.  But (to me) it feels way, WAY better to run into people you know who are drunk when you have just gone on a run and are brilliantly coherent from a “runner’s high.”  I don’t care if people think it’s lame — my socialization this weekend has centered around exercising with friends/walking through the hills around campus with them.  Hey, it’s way more diet-friendly than drinking a bunch of beers.

 Much love,

‘amster

I don’t remember which post it was in, but Roni once noted non-weight triumphs — you know, the sort where you accomplish something important but don’t attach a number to it.  Well, so far I’ve had four today:

 1) The short size 6 jeans finally fit.  Even considered WEARING them (will admit, am still ambivalent about wanting to wear a tight tank top on top of them for fear of it looking weird).

2) Saw a grossly skinny girl checking herself out in a dorm mirror.  Didn’t want to be her.

3) At lunchtime, was content with my diet-friendly food and didn’t in the least bit crave the 4-lb focaccia sandwich a 10 year-old was eating nearby.

4) Saw an ex of mine (for the first time since I broke up with him).  Felt fabulous about myself.

So…yay!  Also, thanks to everyone who’s quoted me or commented on my posts.  I appreciate the support!

Also, just to comment further on Roni’s post about readiness:

Every day I have to make the choice to lose weight.  It is not one decision, but a sum of a million decisions made throughout the day.  I am going to lose weight today.

Not easy, but a choice, nonetheless.

Okay, everyone goes through this, right?  “Oh, look, I’m skinnier today!  Yippee!” “Oh, shoot…the next size down still doesn’t fit.” “Oh, yay, more muscle definition!” “Oh, bummer…She’s thinner than I am.” For serious, wouldn’t it be nice if we could have the results and then do the work?  Because I think we all know that it’s way easier to not eat if you’re happy.  I liked Roni’s post about being ready for this reason precisely because it’s just totally the way life goes.  Sometimes in life, we don’t get what we want, it’s true.  But with some things, like weight loss, there’s a way to go about things that ensures that — eventually — we will get what we want.  And once you find what works for you (which is half the battle), you still have to be ready.  Your mind, your heart, your little angel who sits looking fabulous on your right shoulder as she Jedi-style strangles with her concentration the little devil on your left (though the devil probably has a very, very tasty looking cupcake in her hand).  So what?  The angel’s thin, and that’s what matters.  My friend Michelle once said, “Nothing tastes as good as being skinny.”  Don’t you just kinda wish we could “taste” being skinny while dieting? 

Even so, my belief is that in heaven we get to eat whatever the **** we want and still be waifish.  Ah, the beliefs that keep us going.

 My mommy taught me to be a “can.”  I’m the little can that could.  So I’m gonna keep truckin’.  I’m going to a counselor on campus to make sure all the anorexia’s out of my system, and she says I’m pretty much at my “set weight.”  That made me really happy.  I’m 125-126 right now, and I’ve worked really hard to lose those ten pounds (especially in the sense that I had to go through the anorexia first, which was miserable, and then the weight snap, which was even worse, and then the finding out what works for me bit, which also sucked).  So I’m almost at the ten-pound mark!  Yippee!  My boyfriend doesn’t understand the joy I get from wearing the SHORT size six jeans (which are indeed tighter than the regulars).  They’re a squeeze, but I’ve come down from a loose-ish 10, which is a long way for me and my history.  I’m proud, and I’m gonna keep truckin’.  And I’m even more proud of anyone who’s lost more weight than me, because that’s awesome.  I really like this community. 

One problem dieters (who exercise, like they should) have sometimes is hitting weight plateaus because of overeating after workouts because 1) exercising makes them hungry and 2) they subconsciously “reward” themselves with too much/too high-calorie food after they got their sweat on.  There’s a lot that’s been written on this, but the main point is three-fold:

1. Eat before your workout.

2. Eat after your workout.

3. Don’t eat too much.

 For example,

Diet Princess: banana before, 100-200 protein & good-fats-containing snack after (apple with 1 tbsp. peanut butter or maybe a nutrition bar) (you can have 2 tbsp. Better ‘n’ Peanut Butter, which you can find at Trader Joe’s, ’cause it has half the calories — yippee!)

 Diet Joker: nothing before, seven cartons of take-out afterwards (or any other ridiculously bad for you food you can imagine)

The point is, your body needs fuel to maximize caloric burn during a workout, but it also needs protein after to repair itself, especially if you’re strength-training (which you should be, because muscle burns more calories than fat).

But now I’m rambling — I was getting to a food review.  Fuze Slenderize in Blueberry Raspberry is God’s gift to dieters.  It tastes just like a blueberry (”Violet!  You’re turning violet, Violet!” anyone?).  The best thing about it is of course that you will not resemble a blueberry after “indulging” because the whole bottle only has about 20-25 calories.  There are other flavors (check ‘em out at their website), but I like this one best.  [Weird sidenote: the others made my tummy hurt (my tummy is really sensitive, so it probably won’t do the same to you, but I thought I’d warn you.)]

 Also, here’s my dieting dogma (if you will): if you want to lose weight, abide by the law of calories in < calories out.  If you’re really curious about that second number, go to a nutrionist and have him/her administer a metabolic test (you breathe into a machine for 10 minutes) or buy a Body Bugg (get ‘em at 24-hour fitness.  The nutritionist you might get your insurance to cover; the Body Bugg is around $200 (I know, right?). 

So, if you have some money to spare, which one’s better?  While the metabolic rate test is a doc’s go-to method for telling you your basal metabolic rate (how much you burn when you’re sittin’ on your tush), it only provides an estimate for how much you burn off during a full day.  If you’re sedentary (for job- or health-related reasons), you’ll burn off a number of calories closer to your BMR than will someone who is chasing after a toddler all day.  My point is, how much you add to your BMR depends mostly on your lifestyle, and the test can estimate that number for you (mine was nicely broken down into “daily activities,” “exercise,” etc.), but only you know how active you are.  The nice thing about the Body Bugg is that, while it’s annoying because you have to wear it all day, it will tell you exactly how many calories you burned.

That said, I don’t own one.  That thing would drive me nuts.  (But I’m not everyone, so I’d love to hear about success stories people have had with it.)  Back when I was anorexic, my BMR was just under 1200 calories per day, and my estimated daily caloric need was 1700.  Now that I’ve put on some weight, part of which is in muscle (yay!), I feel safe concluding that I need 1800 calories per day to maintain my weight.  There are sites out there that will ballpark a number for you based on your stats, so if you want to save money (and be conservative with your dieting), I’d suggest going to a few of them and picking the lowest number.  They usually take into account your weight, activity level, gender, etc.

Also, I’m a big fan of some perhaps odd foods (Shirataki tofu noodles (made super-famous by Hungry Girl), Lunchables Jr.’s, Gerber products, and pre-made grits), so I’m here to say…

If you’re on a diet, be open-minded about food.  Fruits and veggies are great, but even those on raw food diets don’t just eat FnVs.  They eat other weird stuff (it’s just raw).  PS: I’m fascinated by the raw foods way of life — if you have recipes, please e-mail me — I’ll post them, if you want!  But, as I was saying, the excitement in dieters’ lives comes from variety, and many of us have experienced Frozen Foods Fatigue.  So if you have some spare time the next time you’re grocery shopping, scour the aisles for low-cal finds (yes, read the labels).  Trader Joe’s, for example, has polenta-style pre-packaged grits, and you get the whole package for only 250 calories.  Spice it up however you wish, even dip it in ketchup in mustard (if you really want to).  I think it’s amazing texture-wise, though it’s a little bland straight out of the package.  Also, TJ has a few types of freeze-dried fruits that come at 190-cals per package, and those are amazing, as well.  Everything by Gerber (that is NOT pureed) is yummy and tiny.

 Moral of le story: open peepers = happy eatin’. 

Jamba Juice marketed their breakfast smoothies w/granola today by handing them out free before 10 AM, and I snagged a Mango Topper.  Their nutritionals are sad (390 calories for 12 oz), so I just had half of mine, but my general opinion was that it still wasn’t worth the calories.  Maybe the Berry Toppers are better?

 I did, however, try one of their Brownie Cookies (150 calories per cookie), and it was amazing.  Will try the Oatmeal Raisin Cookie soon (same stats).

Has anyone seen Martian Child?  I’ve seen it twice in the last two weeks, and it’s so adorable.  The child only eats Lucky Charms (which I consider to be the best food on the planet).  I know, I know, they’re high in sugar blah blah blah.  But if you cut them with regular cheerios, you end up with a 2-cup treat that’s only 240-250 calories.  Yummy!  I also enjoy Goldfish (”It’s the snack that smiles back until you bite their heads off!”).  I’m like a five year-old.  But, seriously, there’s a reason those five year-olds like those foods — they’re tasty!  That, plus caviar is really expensive and Lucky Charms are super cheap.

 Now for the gym goods.  I’m a firm believer in the elliptical.  I’ve been doing an hour on the machine every day for the past couple of months, and I (and my boyfriend) have seen/commented on significant changes in firmness in my tummy, butt, legs, and arms.  (I’m happy because my boobs got a little smaller, but that’s mostly weight loss, not just working out.  I mean, boobs look nice to boys, but they’re kind of heavy and make finding clothes more difficult.  I’m a small C, and even that change, from a B, was enough to make me want to lose weight.)  But, back to the elliptical: I’m used to the Precors with the short moveable silver arms (where you can’t adjust for incline/crosstrain) but lately I’ve been going to a different gym on campus and using the ones where you can.  It’s AWESOME.  I’ve seen changes in my thighs over just a week and a half.  It also allows you to diversify if you don’t always want to feel like you’re lifting weights while ellipticizing.  There’s something to be said for resistance because it tones, but if it’s your only option for increasing calorie burn, you end up with a resistance level of 17 and you feel like you’re walking through quicksand.  And that’s great.  Some of the time.  Plus, in general  it’s considered a good thing to diversify your workouts because it prevents your body from growing too efficient at or accustomed to any one type of workout (which reduces calorie burn).  So I’m happy for the new ellipticals.

Age-old question, right?  “What do you want to do when you grow up?”  There’s a lot you can do with an Economics major, but since the eating disorder I’ve become such a little calorie count manual/diet aficionado that I think I’d rather become a nutritionist or go work for Hungry Girl than do anything actually related economics.  But there’s two sides to that coin, right?  Good for me that I know as much about food and dieting methods as I do, but sad that I, as my boyfriend calls it, “beat the dead horse…to the bone.”  A dorm flyer I saw today says, “Restrictive dieting is boring.  It makes you boring.  It becomes all you can think and talk about.”  I felt ashamed.

 But wouldn’t it be good, then, to find an outlet for it?  To become a normal member of society that way, instead of forcing all excessive thoughts about food out of my mind?  My doctor wrote a note once that said that I had “recovered physically but not mentally” from my anorexia.  I guess that’s true.  But in a way maybe people with eating disorders can never really recover.  Maybe it’s like being an alcoholic — maybe you’re always recovering.  I have a bulemic friend who counts days since a binge like alcoholics count days sober.  Some people, by nature or nurture, are prone to become alcoholics, and some people, by nature or nurture, are prone to have eating disorders.  (By the way, there’s this show — I think it’s called “Starved” — that was super-grim but very funny.  Sad to say I could relate.)

 I’m sure there’s a lot of literature on eating disorders, most of which I definitely have not read.  Not because I think I’m smarter than the people who wrote it (’cause I’m not) but because food and being thin is in my head about 23 hours a day and I don’t want to think about it all anymore.  And I feel so abnormal, I guess, but in a way I’m sadly representative of what has happened to our society.  I  mean, when you get to the point that you wish you’d get the flu or some exotic but non-permanently-damaging-and-non-fatal disease so you could lose weight, you’ve got a problem (which clearly I do, I get it).  But also…I’m all about avoiding obesity for our health and for our kids’ health, but curvy women were considered hot back in the day.  Marilyn Monroe was one of the most beautiful people to walk the Earth, and she wasn’t a size 2, was she?  And now it’s all about the Paris Hiltons and the cracked-out Lindsay Lohans and the Olsen twins (who together weigh as much as one normal woman and yet STILL I kind of wish I were their size).  And Nicole Richie, and even Angelina Jolie is looking rather skinny these days.  So it’s not just me.  It’s our whole society, and I should have seen it coming.  It’s not wrong that they’re skinny.  What’s wrong is what we let ourselves DO to ourselves because we want to be skinny.  There’s a right way to be slender, and I clearly chose the wrong way over the past few years.  I’m doing it the right way now, but seriously, I wish I had known the first time around that doing it the wrong way would affect me so much down the road.  Bad me!

Ahhh!  I’m stuck indoors at my boyfriend’s apartment.  He’s been at work since 5 am, and I’m  a total feminist, but I don’t go on walks where he lives without him (it’s sort of a shady area).  And, to make it worse, neither he nor I has a gym membership (I usually use my school’s gym), so here I am, sitting on my butt, avoiding a reading for one of my classes and watching Netflix.  I’d much rather be on a long walk.

 It wouldn’t be so bad, but today and yesterday were “maintaining” days for me, so now I just feel gross.  I walked for two hours yesterday (according to one of those online calories-burned estimators, I have to walk three to do the same as one hour of my ellipticizing), and I really wanted to do another hour today.  The boyfriend’s not going to be happy about that.  He promised me, though.  I’m pretty sure I’m the annoying high-maintenance girlfriend who orders a salad and a Diet Coke.  Whatever.  He likes my butt, so he shouldn’t complain.

 So instead of doing something productive today like, say, reading for class or going on a walk, I’ve been watching TV.  All day.  Major sin, I know.  And what’s worse is that most of it’s pretty terrible, except for Funny Girl and The Hours.

I wonder if actresses would rather be like us.  I wonder how difficult it is to be in the public eye with dieting.  Wouldn’t that make it easier?  Extra motivation, I suppose, but also extra pressure.  Kind of like braces, you know?  Makes your teeth straight, but kind of uncomfortable.

Well, here’s my first post.  Here, I’ll go by “Amster.”  I’m 20, I go to an Ivy League school, I’m recovering from anorexia, or something like it.  My senior year of high school through my sophomore year of college, I ate 1000 calories per day and would binge eat every once in a while to compensate.  Once I got down to 98 pounds (I’m just over 5′3), my skin was dry, my hair was falling out (sad, I know), and my dorm, which voted for “Best Body,” did not pick me.  Which is weird, right?  I got Best Dressed, Biggest Flirt, blah blah blah.  Why didn’t anyone find my body sexy?  All I ever wanted to do was please everyone by being as skinny as possible.

I went to see a nutritionist, which was a dumb idea for an Ivy League kid who had spent the last two years spending substantial free time looking at KrispyKreme.com like men look at Playboy.  I don’t know when this “One Day (I’ll Eat That)” was going to come, because I usually wanted to be as skinny as possible.  But once I dropped under the 100-pound mark, I knew I was in dangerous territory.  Seeing the nutritionist didn’t work for two reasons.  One: everything she said was obvious.  Two: everything she said was Greek to me.  Objectively, I knew everything she told me.  But the part of me that really wanted to hover around that 100-pound mark didn’t “listen” to a word she said.  That was my freshman year; clearly, I didn’t care enough to change my eating habits.

My sophomore year, the shame from bingeing (my purges were starvation-driven — I’ve never thrown up my food) became too much for me to handle, and I went home (last February) to get help from my doctor.  He put me on Lexapro, which is an anti-depressant.  It made me care less about food, about starving myself.  I had developed the uncontrollable tendency to wake up in the middle of the night (several times) and eat, then starve myself during the day.  This stopped on the medication — only, instead of sleeping through the night, I would still wake up, but then still be hungry during the day.  I never ate more than I should (say, 1800-2000 calories a day at most), coming mostly from veggies and cereal, but the weight went on faster (and more heavily) than I wanted.  I went up to 130 over the course of three or four months, and have been trying to lose it since the beginning of last summer.  My various trials, paired with too much medication (then going off it — no more meds for me), I gained another five pounds, so I hit 135 at one point.

 I’ve started succeeding at losing weight this year, which I’m really proud of.  I’ve lost seven pounds, so I’m 128 now, and I want to be 110.  So that’s another 18 pounds.  I think 110 will be skinny, but healthy.  Plus, I spend a lot of time at the gym and don’t starve myself.  Much healthier than before, eh? :)  Wish me luck!  This blog will document my journey.