WW Week 1 done! In which I eat a lot of food, but lose weight.

My weigh-in was great, and I was down 3.2 pounds the first week! That probably would have been more if I had not completely gorged myself at the Melting Pot last night. I saved up all 35 of my flex points and had a really light breakfast and no lunch in anticipation of the night out, too. But I did eat so much that I had weird dreams. Still, first night out without kids since the baby was born.

By the way, the Melting Pot is evil. Tasty Tasty Evil. I was trying to figure out WHICH course you could leave out, and Adam said "salad," but even the salad is so tasty that you wouldn't want to drop it out. Of course the least healthy is probably the cheese course. For pure price, you could leave out the main course and go for cheese fondue, salad, and chocolate fondue, but then you wouldn't have tasty tasty meats and sauces. Oh the Evil. Seriously.

Meanwhile, I saved up ALL of my flex points for that meal, and I was sure that I probably gained a ton, but I didn't! Most excellent.

I also found out this week that IHOP has a diet menu and it's pretty awesome if you're going to go out.

So anyway, I went to my meeting while Micah was in school today (since I have plans tonight). We talked about Thanksgiving. We all had to pick from a list of foods what we were planning to eat for Thanksgiving and then add up the points. Mine came to 35 so that sounds to me like just saving my flex points for Thursday next week, but other people talked about cutting back on stuff. I guess I could do that too. Also, I volunteered to make the stuffing so I can control what goes into it. Because I am clever. I shared this tip at the meeting too.

Liz (today's meeting leader) shared her recipe for Liz's Lazy Soup. This is what she does:

Saute onion and garlic in a couple of tablespoons of olive oil (it's for a whole pot and so each individual serving will have less than a point of oil). When it gets clear, throw in 2 bags of broccoli wokkoli. When they turn really green, throw in 2-3 boxes of mushrooms. Add 2 or 3 boxes of vegetable broth. Thow in a whole bag of frozen spinach. Bring to a boil and then reduce and cook for 30 minutes.

Now, you have a lazy 0 point soup. Store it in the fridge. Sometime after you do this, cook up some whole wheat pasta and refrigerate. When you are ready to eat, weigh out 2 points of pasta, scoop on some soup, and microwave it for a 2 point meal.

I think I'll probably do this :) It sounds lazy and easy!

I can't eat this many points

So...yeah.

I started WW and did my calculations and it came to 24 points, but I'm exclusively breastfeeding, so that means an extra 10 points per day, which is 34 points. THIRTY FOUR POINTS!

I can't eat 34 points per day. I really can't. I mean, I'm sure that I was eating way more than that before joining WW, but now that I'm eating healthy foods, I just can't get enough points. I like too many things that have zero points.

I think it comes from having done Core WW before, because those are the foods I gravitate towards.

So anyway, I got to dinnertime tonight and had 19 points left. I had a 9 point dinner. I swear I started thinking of going to get some ice cream, but instead for dessert I had vanilla granola and a peach yogurt, all of which came to a WHOPPING 7 points.

I really don't want to eat anything else. I had a glass of Gatorade (1 pt) so I'm down to 2 for the day. I guess i could have a piece of cheese. But I really don't want to.

I'm going to be in a lot of trouble when I stop nursing and have to give up those extra 10 points.

Weight Loss Attempt + Acorn Squash

So I joined Weight Watchers. The baby is 3 months old, and even though I am still nursing, I get an extra 10 points per day while nursing, so it shouldn't be too bad. I suspect my husband won't start losing weight until I am cooking for far fewer points. I get to start with 34 per day! I had an 8 point breakfast and it's an hour later and I'm still full, so that's a really good thing.

I also started putting some of my recipes into WW's recipe builder online, and honestly it's not so bad. I made an acorn squash curry the other night and, without the rice, it was 4 points per serving. AND it was really filling.

Now I just have to stop making pies.

Here's the Acorn Squash Curry recipe:

1 Acorn Squash

1 large onion, diced

1 clove garlic, minced

2 large carrots, sliced

2 T sweet curry powder (I used Penzey's)

2T Crackpot Gourmet curry mix

small amount of beef, trimmed of fat, cubed very small

1c reduced fat sour cream

1 can chopped tomatoes

Microwave the whole squash for 5 minutes. Slice in half, scoop out seeds and discard, and scoop out flesh & chop. Set aside.

Saute onion & garlic in cooking spray until onion is clear. Add squash, carrots, tomatoes, and spices. Continue cooking on medium until carrots start to soften. Add meat and cook until meat looks cooked on the outside. Add sour cream and warm through. Serve with brown basmati rice.

Serves 4. (4 points per serving before rice)