Successful Start

Well I just went and weighed in and was thankfully 1.5lbs lighter. This is very good news, not only because losing is always good news, but because I felt so sure that the Core Plan wasn’t working. For those who don’t know I shall explain the plans.

Most people think of counting up “points” when they think of Weight Watchers. It is true that this is one of the methods of losing weight that they offer, however they now offer an alternative plan called the Core Plan. The Core Plan involves eating only foods from a (very wide) list of healthy foods. You get 12 points per week to spend on things that don’t appear on the list, such as sweets, chocolate and alcohol (so you don’t really feel like you’re always missing out). To be perfectly honest, the Core Plan isn’t a restrictive diet. It’s supposed to be…how normal people eat - mostly healthily in moderate portions and the odd treat now and again.

It’s a course in not being a fat biffa for those of us who seem to have no clue how to manage their eating themselves. This isn’t the same as saying that I didn’t know what I was and wasn’t supposed to eat. I think you’d have to be quite a moron these days to not know what foods are fattening and which are good for you. Somehow, coping with managing this on my own is difficult and I think it’s probably hard for some people to imagine. I can’t understand how people can get addicted to smoking though - I never have. It’s a fact of life that everyone is different. I respect the people who recognise their faults and do something about it.

Core is obviously quite a bit more restrictive, say if you knew you were going to be going out for 3 meals in one week. If you knew you were having an Indian takeaway at the weekend, then you’d do points that week and save up the points to eat what you like for your Indian meal. You can’t do that really with Core because 12 points will never be enough to do that. I have spent 45 saved points on an Indian meal once, and yes, I still lost weight that week. That was pretty sweet. Anyway in theory this is how it works.

I’ve been doing the Core Plan for about 3 weeks now and so far I’ve quite enjoyed being on something different. It has focused my mind a bit more. For a change, it’s also quite nice to be able to actively say “No” when offered things. For a while I had slipped into saying “yes, I’ll have that cake / biscuit / chocolate, and then reduce the points value of my dinner tonight” and guess what, that never happened. You can see from my graph below that for pretty much a year now, I’ve remained at the same general level. I lost 2 stone and stalled.

Today I lost another 1.5lbs. I had said that if I gained or remained the same I was going to go back onto the Points Plan. I’m glad that I did lose, for obvious reasons, but also because I have been enjoying the Core Plan and I’m now going to stick with it. I do think I have been eating portions slightly too large however so this week I intend to reduce the portion sizes that I eat.

I wasn’t perfect all week. I tried my best. We went to Becky and Dave’s at the weekend and Becky and Rosie had cooked a delicious meal as a birthday surprise for me. It wasn’t totally core but Becky is wonderful whenever I visit - buying skimmed milk and thinking about which foods are Weight Watcher friendly. I know I have nothing to worry about whenever I visit her!

Let’s see how I can do this week.