Bringing the snark back to snacking

Bringing the snark back to snacking
Lots of things taste better than being thin feels:
A gooey, cheesy, greasy pizza
A chocolate eclair
Ice cream and gelato
Movie theatre popcorn with extra butter
What's yours?

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Product Review Tuesday: Trader Joe's Mini Cones - 2 WW PP

Oh. My. God.

If you're looking for a quick, low-point chocolate fix, look no further. The chocolate Mini Cones from Trader Joe's are the best diet snack I've found.



They're tiny, so they're not going to be very filling. But if you're just craving chocolate now, now, NOW, this will silence that craving. The chocolate shell is rich and melts on your tongue, and the chocolate ice cream is so perfectly creamy. I love ice cream. I always crave ice cream. It could be -40 degrees, and I'd want ice cream. This is good ice cream. The cone is soft and chewy, which actually goes well with the creamy ice cream.

Why should you listen to me? I come from a city FAMOUS for ice cream. Graeter's ice cream in Cincinnati is beloved by celebrities and regular folk for being rich and creamy. THIS ICE CREAM RIVALS GRAETERS. It feels so naughty, which kinda feels good.

These cones come eight to a pack, and they're not individually wrapped. Good for the planet, bad for temptation. Of course I don't want to stop at just one, and at only 2 points, I could probably get away with having two. There's better things to spend points on, I have to keep repeating. These are a treat you don't have to feel guilty about!

Monday, July 25, 2011

Monday Weigh In: Week Two

So I weighed in this morning!

It was....not good. I was perfect on Monday and Tuesday, but then when I got sick, I got lazy. I wanted comfort foods, and it hurt too much to exercise. This weekend I was feeling better but still didn't get right back on plan, and now I'm paying for it.


Mostly I'm just mad at myself because I'm freaking paying for WW Online, and I basically just wasted a week's worth of money.  Looking at it that way suddenly made it a lot easier for me to get serious.

I start a new job today, which will also help. Getting out of the house and not sitting on my ass with the kitchen calling "Penny....come eat me..." will be a tremendous benefit. I've started running/walking in the morning (I've been perpetually stuck on the Couch to 5k week one plan -- I can't run longer than 30 seconds right now), and during my break this morning I went back to Zumba class! Hey, I've earned six activity points! Awesome.

Check back tomorrow for an AMAZING food review. Crave chocolate? You're gonna want to find these!

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Giving In

I won't go into too much detail (I save that for my lucky LiveJournal friends), but Tuesday night I took a new-to-me pill and had a BAD reaction to it that left me up most of the night sitting on the couch whimpering in pain.

Sitting in the living room at 4 in the morning, watching anything at all on TV to get my mind off the pain, I gave in to cravings. I ate a bag of microwave popcorn, a Cadbury Creme Egg, and a bowl of shredded wheat. I tracked it!

Late Wednesday night the pain came back, and I spent a few hours in the urgent care. They gave me Oxycodone! God bless those doctors and their liberal pain medication policy. I knew I needed to eat something substantial before taking the Oxycodone or I'd just throw it all back up. When Boyfriend offered to get me Sonic, I didn't think "Hmmm, I should stick to my diet;" I just said "Popcorn chicken and mozzarella sticks, please!"

And I tracked it all. I went WAYY over my points, but amazingly I still have some flex points left for the week.

Frankly, I don't want to live in a world where the kind of pain I was in is not rewarded with a cherry limeade.

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

The "L" Word

This might be my biggest pet peeve in all the diet-verse. It’s Hooked on Phonics 101, people. When you lose weight, your clothes become loose. Nothing makes me judge you harder than misspelling this word (unless you spell "dessert" as "desert." I live in the desert. It is not a sweet treat). One “o” makes the z sound. Two make the s sound. It’s so prevalent throughout the online weight communities, that I think smart people are actually beginning to doubt themselves and start using the wrong word.

Nowhere, however, have I seen anything as bad as this one acquaintance I used to know. She was successful on Weight Watchers, and even became an employee. But she always used to say both online and out loud that she “loss” 50 pounds. A friend of mine used to joke that she must have lost the “t” somewhere in there too. This was the same girl who told us she didn’t want to eat at a Thai restaurant because she didn’t like “thigh” food.

I'm not saying everyone on the internet needs to be a spelling bee winner, but if you're a part of a certain community, it would behoove you to be able to properly spell key words.
My boyfriend would like to add the point that we shouldn't be saying "lose" weight anyway, as that plants the thought in our mind that it's something we need to find and get back, generally in a half gallon of ice cream. He recommends switching to "closer to my target weight." All hail the power of positive thinking!

Monday, July 18, 2011

Junk Food Withdrawal


I hate aspartame. I hate fake sweeteners. And yet, I just gobbled up a Yoplait Light Fat Free Strawberry Shortcake yogurt like it was a dish of Ben and Jerry’s Volun-tiramisu ice cream (have you tried that shit yet? BEST. ICE CREAM. EVER.) I would have licked the inside of the yogurt container if I could have gotten my face all the way in there.

What is it about “officially” starting a diet that makes the food panic come? Suddenly today I’m starving. But I’m not starving. I’ve been binging for weeks, to the point that I make myself ill. Yesterday I ate moderately, trying to follow the plan, but still had some treats. Today, being no-more-excuses day, I am starving and panicked about getting enough food.

Also, my body is acting like I’m torturing it. I assure you, I’m eating plenty and including fruits and veggies – it’s only halfway through the day and I’ve had an apple and a banana. Yet when I tried to do a mere half hour of Zumba, my favorite go-to workout, my body tried to poop out at 10 minutes in. Shaking, tummy growling, I finished the half hour and earned my two damn activity points. If the afternoon storms cool the temperatures down, I’ll try and go for a walk later (it’s summer in the desert, no one does anything aerobic unless the sun is down or it’s storming).

It feels like the sugar/carb withdrawal you get with the South Beach Diet. I’ve had plenty of sugar and carbs today, but I haven’t overdone them. I didn’t realize how badly I’d messed my body up with the weeks of binging L Just trying to make it through today, and hopefully tomorrow will be better.

Dieting – You’re Doing it Wrong


Nothing makes me snarkier than listening to someone who doesn’t know how to diet try and explain to others how their way is “totally gonna work” and obviously makes perfect scientific sense.

The basic premise of losing weight is Eat Fewer Calories than You Burn, but it’s not quite that simple. Last week I was having lunch with my aunt, and she was telling me how she was so bummed because she’d been working out two hours per day and only eating 1000 or fewer calories, and she still managed to gain a pound. NO SHIT. You are starving your body and sending it in to starvation mode. It’s going to hang on to every precious calorie you allow it. Not to mention you’re messing up your metabolism so even if you eat “normally,” your body will still want to hold on to calories.

An old college acquaintance of mine has recently begun following the new PointsPlus program, and is documenting her progress on FaceBook.  The last time I saw her, she was in the upper 200s. She is assigned 29 daily points, just as I am. The first three weeks she had very large losses, over 3 pounds each week. Last week she only lost a pound. So she has decided to take it into her own hands and cut down her points – now she’ll only eat 26 points until she’s over this “plateau.” I want to shake her.

  1. One week does not a plateau make.
  2. Are you exercising? At all? You might want to start there before you start cutting out points.
  3. Normal, healthy weight loss is 1-2 pounds a week. YOU ARE DOING FINE. Losing more several weeks in a row is unhealthy, and if you couple it with no exercise, you’re gonna end up with a lot of loose skin. Trust me.
  4. Going from 29 to 26 points is probably not going to mess up your body. But what about when  you hit a “plateau” on 26 points? How low are you willing to go?
  5. Suck up a low loss week, eat a different variety of foods, and exercise more. Trust the damned program.

Look, I’ve been there. The Weight Watchers program can be particularly triggering to eating disorders, even if you’re not prone to them. I remember playing the “how few points can I eat in a day” game with the old system. The answer was eight. That is about 600 calories. That is fucked up. Starving yourself never leads to anything good. It either turns in to full-blown anorexia or it leads to a binge. Whatever diet plan you’re on, it was designed by marketers experts, so can you try to trust them for a measly four weeks?

Sunday, July 17, 2011

The Food Log Dilemma


I went back and forth for a few days deciding whether I’d post my daily food log on this blog or not. Yeah, it’s good for keeping me accountable to the entire internet, but is it sufficiently snarky? I finally decided to go ahead and do it, and here’s why.

There’s lots of people out there who find reading someone else’s daily food logs annoying, pointless and a waste of time. If you’re one of those people, have no fear, I’ll always post my log after a jump, which you are more than welcome to speed by without clicking.

But I know that I, personally, enjoy seeing other people’s food logs. It gives me ideas of what to eat, ideas of how many points certain things are and introduces me to foods I might not have known existed. If you enjoy any of those things, feel free to read and comment on my food logs. Let me know if you see a way I can cut a few more points (warning: I will never eat fat-free mayonnaise, so don’t even suggest it) or can recommend something you think I’d like based on eating patterns. I hope we can be of some help to each other!

Friday, July 15, 2011

The Continuing Journey

Here's the cliffs notes version of my last seven years of dieting.

I currently weigh 167 pounds, and my goal weight is 140 pounds. At 5'4", that's a moderate, healthy weight.
Looking taller than I really am on 7/10/11.

My highest weight ever was 265 pounds -- thanks to emotional eating and an abusive relationship.
Let's ignore the fact that I'm cosplaying...5/2002

I can't stop staring at my legs! They look like tree trunks!

My lowest weight was 147 pounds.
In French clothes, even! 1/2010


 I began making a concerted effort to lose weight in 2004.  I spent six months on the South Beach Diet, and I got down to about 240. I like the philosophy, but it just didn't work for me. I became hyperglycemic, shaky and ill. It defeats the purpose of avoiding sugars if it takes a Mountain Dew to bring my blood sugar back up.

I switched to the Weight Watchers plan in 2005. I attended meetings off and on, but mostly I did it on my own.

I was a hardcore Dance Dance Revolution player from 2005-2008, and I ended up in one of those supermarket magazines touting "Lose weight playing video games!" Jennifer Aniston was on the cover.
I am clearly not a professional model. 9/2008
My last two years of university in 2008/2009 were my most productive. I was going to class full time, working 30 hours a week, and still getting up at 6am to workout for a few hours before my 8:30am class. I'd get home from work after 9pm, do homework and crash. I was too busy to binge. On winter, spring and summer breaks however, when my frantic pace came to a crashing halt, I filled up the time with food.


I lived in France for the 2009/2010 school year, and my weight yo-yo'd from 164 to 147 and back to 164 by the time I got home. I was doing a lot of walking, but an eclair or chocolatine and a can of Oragnina do not a healthy breakfast make.

In fall 2010 I moved to Tucson. Grad school gave me daily panic attacks and dropped my weight back down to 150. A little extra work and I got it back to 147. But I've been unemployed for nearly 10 months, socially anxious, and spending a lot of time on the couch. When my boyfriend wants to eat junk food, I find it hard to say no. And so I've gained gained gained!

This is some crazy yo-yo'ing, yo. I'm ready to hit my goal weight and stay there. Sunday begins my newest journey with Weight Watchers Online.

What are your diet histories? Have you had success with WW Online or another plan? Let me know in the comments!

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Yet Another Weight-Loss Blog

 Does the internet really need another blog chronicling a woman's struggles with her weight? Maybe not, but  need an outlet where I can be completely honest. Surprisingly, that place is no longer my friends-only Livejournal that I've had for 10 years. I feel more comfortable seeking support from the entire internet than my small circle of friends.

For many years I avoided any sort of public blogging about my weight because I was afraid some of my old high school classmates would see it and realize I was *gasp* fat. I finally gave in and said screw it because...

5 Reasons I No Longer Care if Someone from High School Thinks I'm Fat


5. Fuck 'em.
Junior year photo - 1994
4. I'm pretty sure they already knew.
3. I compare the time I spent at that school to being in an abusive relationship, and I need to stop letting it control me.
2. My weight is no one's business but my own (and now anyone reading this blog!).
1. No, really, fuck 'em.

Here I am, fat, sassy and ready to get back on the proverbial wagon.

Thanks for joining me.