WW Wednesdays

So I jumped back on the Weight Watchers bandwagon, and I am really pleased with my results so far – 13 pounds in roughly 3 weeks. I have exercised a bit, but I am stepping that up this week. I really enjoy WW because it doesn’t involve eating vastly different foods (although Chocolate Frosting as a PMS cure isn’t advised 😉 ) , just eating smaller portions. I have also been doing WW with a twist – it’s called the Wendie Plan – I can’t explain it-well, I can, but she does it SO much better than I do, and all I know is that it has worked well for me so far. The gist of it is that you vary the number of points you eat each day, while your total number of points over the course of a week is the same, which keeps your metabolism on its toes. I will be checking in each week with my progress (or lack of) and any tips or good recipes I come across.

Here are some of my favorite motivational sites and resources:

• Fitarella – My friend (and client!) Jacq has developed a program to provide personal training and nutritional advice by email and phone! Her site is a wealth of information, and she even has a great fitness support network to go along with it
• Elastic Waist – great stories, articles and resources
• Roni’s Weight Watchen Page – an amazing inspirational site with great information from someone who has been there
• Half of Me – she has literally lost half of her body weight, and not only does she look great, she just put out a book all about it!
• Mom-o-matic – My buddy Lotta has lost a bunch of weight over the last year, and her “gin in the apron pocket” posts are not only funny but inspirational too…

One of my newest discoveries are these new Spray salad Dressings – Ken’s makes them and so does Good Seasons. They are intensely flavored, which makes perfect sense since you aren’t using as much, and one of those tiny bottles goes a lot farther than a regular bottle of salad dressing. So far my favorites are the Asian and Caesar, although the Balsamic is right up there too.  The only drawback is that they contain corn syrup, but at 1 calorie per spray, I am not going to worry too much.

One of my other favorites are the new Progresso “0” point soups – the Italian-style Vegetable and the Vegetable and Noodle are my favorites – and they are SO filling! One half of a can is actually zero points – zip, nada, zilch. Crazy right? So conceivably, you could combine the soup and a salad (veggies are zero points too) and totally fill up for next to no points!

I am trying to keep things as real as possible – I substitute wheat flour for white when I can, use butter or olive oil instead of margarine. I have never been able to tolerate artificial sweeteners (aspartame makes me barfy), so I still use sugar, brown sugar, unsweetened applesauce, local honey or molasses, just in MUCH smaller amounts. Sodas are all but gone. Fruit, veggies, string cheese, yogurt & granola, and homemade oatmeal cookies are snacks now, although the occasional goldfish sometimes sneaks in there. The boys are happy with it, thankfully they are NOT picky eaters, but the Mr is more of a meat, potatoes/pasta, and green beans/peas/corn kind of guy, and grilled chicken/brown rice/grilled veggies is a once a week concession – but I will make it work! (said in my best Tim Gunn voice)

If you have any tips that worked for you, or great ww recipes, leave them in the comments – I will add them to future posts!