Life on the new points program

Between my business to a new company and the new Weight Watchers Points Plus program life has been nothing short of a huge adjustment lately. After following the old points system for so long I had all my favorite foods points values memorized making grabbing something on the go easy. Now that all the points values are different and the fact that I am gone from home for 8-12 hour stretches of time the actual number of days I've counted points has been very limited. I loved the old program and I trust that the new program will be just as great if not better than the old. Having to learn a new program has been a bad excuse to not bring food to the office and just grab lunch or dinner while I'm out. The result has been expensive and not nice to all the hard work I've already put in.

*

One of my favorite changes has been the permission to eat bananas. In the past bananas were way too big of a tradeoff for 2 points in my mind. There were tons of other fruits I would rather eat for half the points value. Now that they aren't so "high" in points I make sure to have one every morning blended in a green monster shake. It contains 1 cup of 2% milk, 1 banana and 1-2 cups of spinach all blended up. If I have bananas that are almost bad I peel them and place them in the freezer, older bananas taste better than green ones. If I don't have any frozen ones I throw in about 10 ice cubes. The GM turns out a bright green color but it tastes similar to a banana milk shake, other than the color there is no hint of the spinach. Click here if you are interested in learning more about the green monster movement.

Working from bed enjoying my 3 point Green Monster.

I actually look forward to drinking this more than my morning coffee. I won't admit this fact to my husband though because I love when he makes my coffee he hands it to me and says this is going to be the best cup of coffee you've ever had.

Current Favorite Food

Hello! I'm still here. I've lost just under 5 lbs since going back to meetings. I am so happy to be attending again since they really help me stay on track.

*

I figured that I would share with you a current favorite food I got from my Mom. She mixes a serving of low fat cottage cheese (2 pts) and veggies together with a dash of Lawry's seasoning salt. She likes to use celery and peppers but I truthfully can't stand either uncooked so I add in cherry tomatoes, cucumbers and the Lawry's.

It took some courage on my part to try this new creation but I have had it everyday since. For only two points it is pretty filling. You can really load up the cottage cheese with a ton of veggies for no added points to bulk up this up for a meal or snack. I almost triple the amount of food I'm eating rather than just having 1/2 a cup of CC. Cottage Cheese also has a great amount of protein and fat that will keep you full longer.

I have been working really hard lately to grow my real estate business. I am doing so by building a network of people who will hopefully refer deals to me someday. You may be asking yourself what does this have to do with Weight Watchers? Well the best most professional way I can see building a business relationship is by sitting down to a cup of coffee. I have made it my weekly duty to have at least four cups of coffee a week while still count my points and lose weight. To some of you this may be no problem but to me who loves a frozen coffee from our local coffee shop that is 6 of my 22 daily points. I have also had to start straying from my local coffee shop because everyone knows exactly where a *tarbucks is since there is one on every corner. I have finally figured out how to have a "cup of coffee" at every appointment without sacrificing my daily points and without having caffeine since I weaned off about a year ago.

Unsweetened Tazo iced passion tea!

Yummy, doesn't taste like tea and it can be sweetened with splenda without adding calories. It is also about 1/2 the cost of my typical coffee drink. I've enjoyed it so much I buy the tea to brew at home when I need something sweet but don't want to waste calories.

Weight check in

I've been attending meetings again for three weeks now and as a way to check in I've listed my weight loss stats.

1st week only .2 lbs lost because of muscle growth

2nd week lost 2 lbs!

3rd week lost .6 lbs

I had a crazy week and only got in 1 full day of point counting so the loss was a shock to me

The grand total lost is 2.8 lbs in three weeks

*

To wrap my head around this number I asked my husband to pull out some of his weights. The 2.5 pound plates weighted much more than I would have ever imagined. Mentally thinking about the fact that it would be my ideal to lose 10 times the weight of the two plates seems so mind boggling to me. I guess even .2 lbs can add up each week!

How to burn 4800 calories in a day

Today I burned 4800 calories or 71 activity points.

You may wonder how I did it, first know it took 9 hours and I'm absolutely exhausted.

I climbed from where the photo was taken to the peak on the left, back down to where they meet and over to the peak on the far right...

Then from there we headed to the peak in the middle of the photo below.

Then on to the peak in the middle of the photo below and all the way down.

If your counting that is a total of four 14ers today. (14er is a mountain over 14,000 feet)

I did it all with my little brother, so great to get to spend all day with him.

Climbing even one of these is so physically demanding that you must almost constantly be eating and drinking to keep your energy up. Between Gatorade and Peanut butter today alone I burned 26 point. While I didn't "count points" before I ate them I've added up what I've eaten and I still have about 50 activity points left. I'm not sure how this is going to affect my weight in tomorrow but we will see. Can't get much worse than my .2 loss last week.

*

I have to say one of the best side effects mentally of climbing 14ers is seeing how much your body needs calories and carbs for energy.

Sun Dried Tomatoes

Today at Costco I finally found an item I have been searching for...

Sun dried tomatoes not stored in oil!

If you measure out 1 serving they are 0 points because they don't have the added points from oil. I love throwing these in scrambled egg whites with spinach and a laughing cow cheese. They are also great in a salad.

These are also available in my local grocery and I actually gave in a purchased 2 bags of them this week because I had give up on Costco having them again. I wish I would have waited though because 2 small bags were the same price as about 5 times as much from Costco.

If you have any other ideas of what I could add these too I would love the suggestion.

Adding protein

At last weeks meeting I learned the importance of eating protein and that it keeps up full longer. As I am reincorporating it back into my major meals I am realizing how true that fact is. It can be hard to do at first though because these items can be higher in points because of fat.

One of my favorite ways to add meat lately is to add cut up 1 point of deli turkey to a salad with 2 points of light ranch or light blue cheese dressing. For three points I love it and it keeps me full!