Project Fatass Heads into Winter

Check it out, it’s Michal Keach again!  Still no idea who he is, but he’s still serving a purpose for me.   For the 2nd time in the past 3 years I am once again down THIRTY POUNDS (14 kilos / 2.1 stones)!!  Well, 33 lbs as of today, but 30 lbs as of my last weigh in on Monday.  So we’ll go with weigh in day so I don’t jinx it!

Only this time it didn’t take me 2 months to lose the 5 lbs between 25-30 lbs lost, and I have Weight Watchers to thank for that!  It has taken me a little over 3 months to lose the 30 lbs and I’m keeping my fingers crossed and working hard in hopes that the next 30 lbs goes just as quickly.

Look at the size of that fish!  That’s how much of my body I am not carrying around anymore!  I wish I could say I found it to be really noticeable, but I don’t.  There is some difference in my face, and some clothes fit a bit differently but I have not yet reached the point where people go “HEY!  You’ve lost weight!!”.   That can be a bit disheartening, but I will get there.   I try to tell myself these little things to keep me motivated…

Did you know that 30 pounds is the equivalent of 120 sticks of butter?!

I have lost the weight of an entire average two year old!!

The 30 pounds I’ve lost could make up an entire average sized Beagle!

Ok, so it’s not so noticeable.  It still feels pretty damn good!

Any longtime follower of my blog knows that Project Fatass has been going off and on for the last number of years.   Each year it follows the same pattern… in the winter I feel rotten and eat my face off, gain 10-20 lbs then I feel rotten about it and in the spring I am all gung-ho to do something about it.   I diet / exercise from about May/June – Nov / Dec and then somewhere between December and January it all falls apart.  Repeat.

I think this year will be different.  I know I’ve said that in previous years but I’m basing this on the fact that my experience over the past few months has been different than in previous attempts.

I am not going to be foolish and be all I AM GOING TO DO IT like years before, because then I feel like such an asshole when I fail.  I’m just going to say that I feel positive about the fact that I am in the right state of mind for it and have finally found a program that works for me.  I’m hoping that this will make my attempt to get through the coming winter more successful than before.

Since June 15 I have been following the program on WeightWatchers.nl and it’s taught me so much about what I should and shouldn’t be eating, and most importantly, portion control.   In the past I’ve followed the general eat less and move more method, and I’ve also followed the program on Sparkpeople, both of which failed me terribly.  Not that these don’t work for other people, my mother lost over 80 lbs on the eat less and move more method, and I know a lot of people reached their goals with Sparkpeople as well, but they weren’t for me.

The eat less move more method didn’t work for me because I can rationalize my way into anything.  I generally ate less but didn’t eat MORE of other things to make up for it.   I cut back on what I ate, but often it meant skipping breakfast so I wouldn’t feel so bad about what I ate at lunch, or having a smaller lunch so I could still pig out at McDonalds that night.   So didn’t work.

Sparkpeople was fantastic in regards to community and moral support but I found their method of tracking food so tedious.  Partly because of the system itself, having to find that delicate balance between carbs, protien, fats and calories, but also because the program is largely aimed at Americans so very few (if any) Dutch products were on their lists.  So for everything I ate, I had to sit with the packaging and enter it detail by detail.   Their system was an activity vs calorie intake program where you had to track all your activity and calculate how many calories were burned, which required you to do a certain amount of physical activity every day.   It also got extremely irritating trying to put the puzzle together of all the different nutritional values.  I’d set up a meal and one thing would be too high in fat so I’d replace it with something else and then it would put my carbs too high, so I’d try something else and then I’d have too much protein.  It was like a jigsaw puzzle, and I don’t like jigsaw puzzles.

I love Weight Watchers because they make it easy.  Everything has a point value and while there is still some calculation involved it’s nothing like with other programs.   It makes it easy for you to still fit in the foods you love while maintaining a healthy diet.  It also encourages you to eat a lot of fruit and veg as they are very low, or even zero points, so you eat those when you can to save points for other things you enjoy.   It’s quite idiot proof and it works for me.  It’s not so strict that I feel miserable, and while I can earn extra points through activity, the program doesn’t require me to do any certain amount of exercise per day.  Instead, it calculates your points based on your activity level so if you aren’t very active you will still lose weight, but if you want more points then you need to exercise to earn them.   Although, I earn extra points through my aqua jogging and other little exercises I do but I rarely ‘spend’ them anyway.

Wish me luck over the next few months!  If I can get through this winter I’ll know for sure I can really do this.