Weight Watchers v. Calorie Counting

Because I have too much time on my hands right now, I am using both Weight Watchers and my favorite calorie counting app, Tap&Track, to record what I am eating. I am pitting them against each other and judging them in the following areas:

1) Ease of Entering in restaurant foods
2) Cost (Tap&Track wins this, it is 3.99 for a lifetime, WW is about18 bucks a month)
3) Ease of entering in specialized foods and recipes
4) Accuracy
5) Usefulness of nutritional information available from app/website
6) Helpfulness of community forums/posts

I think this will be an interesting project, because most reviews concentrate on whether the darned thing makes you lose weight.  I think this is important, but the ability to use and stick to the tracking system is what makes the difference in long term success. If you lose weight, but get annoyed at having to enter your information and give up tracking, you are way more likely to gain the weight back than if you find the process easy and unobtrusive.

Also, I am interested to really delve into the support options on Weight Watchers. These features and the nutritional information are really what make the program cost more, so my question is: is  all of that extra stuff worth it? 

Redlissa's Diet Plan: Part II, the sedentary diet

I have been racking my brains over how to continue to eat tasty food, not gain weight (and thereby make my back even more useless) and not exercise for the next six weeks. We will see how it goes, but gleaned from my diet/food policy books and personal experience, this is how I plan to not exercise and not gain tons of weight. Given how much I ate and exercised, I have had to shave off 1000 calories a day to maintain my weight.  I am hoping that, if this works, my ideas might help other people that have to be sedentary.  I have not gained any weight over the first two weeks of sedentariness, and hopefully I will be able to keep it up.

Here is the outline:

1) Figure out what you are willing to give up entirely and what you are not willing to give up while unable to exercise.
2) Eat lean protein and lots of fruits/vegetables
3) Find mindless activities to take place of mindless snacking
4) Drink a lot of that clear liquid beverage with the magical hydrating powers.
5) Track every darned morsel that goes into your mouth.

Here is how I am going to do it:

First, I have had to decide the things I am just willing to give up completely while I am injured as well as the things I am NOT willing to give up, ever, under any circumstances.  I am completely giving up alcohol. I love my microbrews and tasty glasses of wine, but I am on narcotics and I have no interest in seeing what the combination will do for me.  At 100-180 calories a pop, it just isn't worth the extra calories. And on top of the increased caloric intake, the nice buzzed feeling makes most people, including me, very interested in eating more crap. I am also completely willing to give up pastries. I LOVE sugar, I LOVE everything about sugar, but I realize that for a significant decrease in calories I can have myself a nice piece of melty dark chocolate instead. A typical cookie that I would eat (think, the nice big chocolate chip cookies from the bakery or local restaurant) has 500 calories. Even the most indulgent chocolate bar has 400 or less and I can usually get my fix at 190 calories of chocolatey goodness(the equivalent of 190 calories of chocolatey goodness).

When I am sick, I like my damned comfort foods. I like hamburgers, fried chicken, fish and chips and french fries. I am not willing to give fried crappy food up just because I am injured. But I am willing to do the following nerdy activities to lower the cost of comfort. I order the plate of comfort and then have the waiter take the plate away when I am half finished. In the case of fast food, I just toss half the food before I start eating (I know its nerdy, but it works).  Half a hamburger at red robin is like 500 calories, doable, a whole hamburger is like 1/3 of a pound of fat added to my already broken back. I am also willing to restrict my emotional fried food eating to when I really, really need it (only once or twice a week, not every time I feel sorry for myself because I am injured.)

Second, I have had to up my percentage of healthy foods.  These are the foods with lots of nutrients and very little calories. I am eating at least one or two servings of fruit or vegetables at every meal and I am always including a protein so that I feel satisfied at the end of my meal. This morning, for breakfast I had an apple, a yummy serving of almonds and two chocolate infused rice cakes (I actually like rice cakes)

And I am increasing, if it is possible my intake of seafood. Salmon, halibut and shrimpies have lots of protein and not very much in the way of calories(3 oz of smoked salmon is 100 calories, 9 huge, beautiful US gulf prawns are 54 calories and a quarter pound of halibut is 158 calories).  For lunch, I am going to have a local greens salad with green goddess dressing, smoked salmon and some tasty dark chocolate all for 400 calories. mmmmm......yes seafood and chocolate are the world's perfect foods.

Third, I am working to find new and exciting mindless activities to engage in that are not snacking.  I think I am going to learn how to knit while I am sick (my mom bought be the tools a couple of years ago and taught me how, I just have to use them), I have mass levels of angry birds and plants v. zombies to play(thank you Wendy) and there are always scrabble and pencil puzzles.

Four:  I am going to start utilizing that drink you all call water. It comes out of the faucet and some people drink it instead of diet coke. Apparently, the lack of caffeine and hydrating powers of this mystery substance will make me less hungry and more able to function. We shall see......

Finally and MOST IMPORTANT: I am tracking every darned thing that goes into my mouth.  There are  100s of apps, journals and online universes for this purpose. I really like Tap&Track on the ipod. I have the time to track since I am not spending time exercising and I know exactly how much is going in my mouth.  Excepting one very deep fried and chocolate covered day, I have been averaging around 1500 calories a day while ill.  I am going to try and drop that to 1400, but I am not going to stress if I fail.  

I track because there is little margin for error while I am sick. If I eat too little, I will just start feeling sicker and weaker because I am not eating. And every pound of weight I carry causes increased pressure on my spine, knees and all of those joints I am going to need in the future.

Moping, back injuries, sports and attitude

So, I have been laying around my house brooding for the last week and a half. Somehow, I managed to herniate 3 of the discs in my lower back, one of them enough that I will likely have to have surgery.  If my pain isn't better by monday, time to go under the knife.  Because I am into running, yoga and have been working out 6-10 hours a week for at least a year, the last two weeks have been slightly hellish.  I have been told that my job is to lay on the couch with a pillow between my legs for support.  And because I am on vicodin and in pain, I can't concentrate well enough to do things like read books, make intelligent conversation (though I have made plenty of unintelligent conversation) and clean the house.

So basically, I have spent the last two weeks moping, brooding and fishing for sympathy. You would think that this would have gotten worse when the surgeon told me that I could not run anymore, ever.  I gave him these puppy dog eyes and pouted a little, thinking that this might change his mind, but he wasn't up for it. Instead he told me that after my six weeks of complete absence from exercise, I could take up swimming.  He mentioned swimming like five times in between discussions of the recumbent bike, stair master and possibly after a while the elliptical.

At first, I was not pleased, I pouted on my own for a bit and then his discussion made something click. I realized two things in about five minute period while illicitly driving home from my appointment. 1) The reason I like running is because I love movement, I love seeing how far my body can go and what it can do and 2) I needed to quit my damned whining.

So, I have turned a corner both sports and attitude wise. I have now found a sport, swimming, that will allow be to continue moving and possibly give me the chance to push my body to do new and exciting things. They have open water swimming events in the sound, I can join a master's swimming team if I get good enough. I have found private lessons at my gym for when I am ready to start training.  And swimmers can get their bodies into hella good shape with relatively low impact.

All my attitude needed, it turns out, was something to look forward to. I was brooding because I could only see a future of eating fries, gaining back the pounds I worked to hard to take off, and eventually losing a lot of my mobility to weight gain and back problems.

 Now, I am excited about the weeks of painstakingly watching every movement I make and tracking every morsel I put in my mouth until I am well enough to learn how to swim.  As I get better I can read books about perfecting my freestyle stroke and maybe I can start figuring out what gadgets I can take with me in the pool.

Speedos, googles and swim caps...here we come .... and I am sure I will have plenty of missteps and adventures to blog about in my new sport.