What Are You Eating/Doing Today (Tuesday)

Hi, y'all. I did something weird on Sunday for an RNY post-op. I rejoined Weigh****chers, despite having majorly mixed feelings about it.  I'm still not sure it was the right decision, but I'm going to see how it goes for a while.  Has anyone ever heard of anyone doing that AFTER weight loss surgery, to use as a complimentary tool? 

The reason I signed up is because lately I've been feeling kind of adrift food-wise. Nothing terrible, but my usual 5 lb maintenance yoyo (between 175-180 depending on time of the month) was turning into a 10 lb yoyo (between about 177-187) which is starting to not feel like "maintaining" at all, and that has given me a nice little scare. I don't want to let this slide.

I've been finding it very hard to track my food lately and I don't know, I'm just feeling structureless, even with the WAYEDT threads and all you awesome OH friends here.  The food patterns I developed when I was losing weight for the year after surgery don't seem to work for me as well now at 1 year and 10 months out, because they were so few calories, and I'm a lot more active now. I just can't seem to figure out the right combination of food to add, protein/carb/fat ratios, calorie levels, etc. I guess I'm just having a hard time figuring out maintenance.

So, I thought the structure of weighing in "officially" once a week, attending meetings and tracking food and activity would be helpful, and I can still focus on protein first on their plan. (I've done WW a few times before, as I'm sure we all have, so I knew how their points system worked before rejoining.)  Basically, I just really don't want to mess this up and regain.

Okay, so now the negative points to joining WW:

First of all, I swore I'd never give a cent of my money to them again. If I could have all the money back that I've spent on it in the past, just to regain all the weight and hate myself and blame myself...well.  I wouldn't be rich, but I sure could take one hell of a vacation with it!  I like what one website I was reading the other day said - WW has perfected the art of taking all the credit for the part of their program that works (the weight loss part), but shifting all the blame for the part of their program that doesn't work for the vast majority of people (the maintenence part) back on their clients.

I hate that the company exploits people so much. They have lots of negative propaganda about weight loss surgery on their website (which ticks me off, considering that WLS is way more effective in the long term than WW alone). I hate that they squeeze so much money out of desperate people with their exorbitant "add on" fees for tools that you either can't do the program without (like their points calculator) or difficult to go without (books and online tools), as well as their ridiculously overpriced food product lines.

The other problem with them is that you generally have to choose a "goal weight" within "normal" BMI range in order to achieve lifetime membership status, and I'm not really sure that I feel like I need to get down to 160 lbs. I'm okay with 175 even if it is labeled "overweight" by the BMI. And what really bugs me about the goal weight thing is that once you set your goal weight in the normal BMI range, you have to stay within 2 lbs above or below it in order to have lifetime free membership status. So, a four pound span or else you start paying again? That's ridiculous. It should be that you have to stay within 5 lbs ABOVE the goal weight or any amount of weight below it as long as it doesn't go below "normal" BMI. Or at least have the maintenance range be bigger, so that you can go 5 lbs either way.

So this is why I have mixed feelings about my decision. I want the accountability of the weigh ins and meetings. I like the idea of having a balanced food plan, which I think WW is for the most part, and which I can tweak to be a bit heavier on the protein if necessary.  And I wouldn't mind having a lifetime membership (which is free) if I can manage to get to the goal weight they want me to. And although the vast majority of people gain the weight back in the long term using WW, maybe the combo of weight loss surgery to get down this far and for the restriction, and WW for the last few pounds and then maintaining might be a good combination?

Anyhow, I got a three month membership and decided that if I can't get to a goal weight of 160 lbs (the highest in my normal BMI range) by then, I will consider it an interesting experiment and I won't throw good money after bad.  I weighed in at 188.6 at the meeting on Sunday (you can see why I was getting alarmed - eating's getting a bit out of control).  After following the plan on Sunday and Monday, I weighed myself this morning (to make sure this eating plan isn't completely messing me up) and I'm at 183 now (and my scale was the same as theirs on Sunday morning).  And I feel more in control than I have in months.  (Oh, and also, I'm not doing that wishy-washy "simple start" thing where you don't track anything and just eat their "power foods". The whole point of rejoining was to try and get a structured food plan!)

So, I'm cautiously optimistic.  Guess I'll see what happens.

Sorry for the novel-length post - that's what I'm "doing" lately! LOL!

P.S. I've also changed my ticker. If I'm going to set the goal weight at WW, I might as well put it in my ticker, too.

I have read people doing this. Also joining over eaters anonymous. If it works for you to re-start you I do not see a down side. Your decision to try it for 3 months is good. It gives you time enough to see if this is the direction you want to go in. I would never say any plan is wrong if it works for you. 

Good luck and keep us posted

If you are doing WW, are u tracking the points only or are u also tracking protein etc like on something like my fitness pal?  I am thinking of trying this as well, but am not sure how to track, points or both?

Hey Lizzie, I've decided to just track the WW points for now and make sure I include high protein foods. The dietitian told us at the 1.5 year follow up that as long as we're getting between 60-80g of protein per day, even if we're eating more calories, that this is enough protein. And I know I'm easily getting a minimum of 60g now that I'm eating more calories than I did during the first year, since I have protein-rich foods with every meal and almost every snack (I say "almost" because occasionally I'll graze on veggies if I'm hungry between planned meals and snacks).

What I'm finding though is that dense, high protein, filling foods are worth A LOT of points, and I'm only allowed 28 points a day! This is weird for me - I thought WW used to have a rule that no one gets less than 29 points a day for their regular points (not including your weekly extras) but now apparently they have a new minimum of 26 points. Those points are pretty darn precious now! LOL. I'm finding that sometimes I'm hungry on it. Which makes me wonder - I mean, I've had gastric bypass with all this restriction and I'm still occasionally hungry on this number of points? How the heck do people with regular stomachs survive on this thing at 26-28 points?  As you can imagine, I'm eating ALL of my weekly 49 points and ALL of my activity points. We'll see how that goes.

The other thing is, on their "simply filling foods" they include veggies. I don't know about you, but I don't find veggies all that filling. If anything, grazing on veggies actually makes me hungry, because it gets the digestion going and then I want something substantial to eat! So, I get the feeling I'm going to have to tweak this thing a bit to make it work for me.

Thanks Pat, I appreciate the response! I thought maybe I was nuts for doing this! Haha. I did a Google search on the Ontario Forum for "weigh****chers" and didn't find any posts by anyone talking about doing it post-op so I thought this was pretty uncommon! I'll let you know how it goes.

I joined WW with a friend about a year ago.....didn't help me much, but I enjoyed the night out with my friend...lol....and we weren't eating which was good.

I think what ever helps you going forward is wonderful. Maintenance is tough...really a lot more difficult then the actual losing.  Finding your set point for calories takes some trial and error.  I think you are really smart to get on the weight gain now rather then wait until its a big problem

I read people say that they never want to diet again...,.or they want to get away from a diet mentality,  For me I know I am on a diet for life.  I have to watch everything and focus daily on what I eat to keep my weight off.  Most of my thin friends also watch everything they eat, and I want to be like them.

Keeps us in the loop re your WW, hope it all works well for you

Thanks for the encouragement, Barb. I've been feeling pretty out of control lately, even without a major weight gain, and I'm glad to just be doing something structured to try and get back on track. Glad I'm not the only one who has tried this! I'm sorry it didn't work for you. I guess I shouldn't be surprised by that, since it doesn't work for the vast majority of people long-term, but even if it just gives me a little kick start back on the straight and narrow (or if I discover any new eating insights along the way) then I guess it will be worth it.

You're so right about finding my set point for calories - that's exactly it! It's weird, you know. It's all over the map for me. I've been doing the trial and error thing. For instance, for a couple of days, I'll go completely off plan - have less protein and more carbs (but still not going too high calorie-wise) and then I'll drop a pound or two. So then I'll think, okay, I guess maybe I can change my protein/carb/fat ratio, and then I try to replicate what I did and then something else works better. I see folks here talking about keeping the protein very high even when we are eating more calories, so I try that, and it might work one day and then make me gain weight another day. I have the dietitian at TWH telling me to stick to 60-80g of protein even though I'm eating more calories now and it can work out to as little as 20% protein overall, so I try that and it works for a while, but then it doesn't. And of course, food cravings are ba-aa-aack. Haha. :)

The other problem with WW and other "tracking" diets is that I spend all freakin' day thinking about food, which of course makes me want to eat. Strangely enough, I seem to do not too badly when I'm not even thinking about food and only eating when hungry. When we went to Europe, I lost 5 lbs over the 3 weeks we were there despite eating so much rich (and often carby) food there, lots of wine, and basically not bothering to track at all - because we just went out to eat when hungry, had a glass of wine when we felt like it (and believe me, we felt like it!), and walked a lot. But that's just about impossible to try to replicate when you're tracking!

I want to get away from a diet mentality too. But as you say, maybe I never will be able to. I guess that's okay. Wouldn't it be nice to be naturally thin and not have to worry about it? Oh well. Most of my thin friends don't track their food, but like your friends, most of them are careful and they make conscious choices of healthy food over junk, and limit their junk food to a bite or two on the odd occasion. 

Thanks again for the encouragement!