Weight Watcher's Diaries Part Two
By Carol Daelemans

6 PM – End of Day One with No Food
I made it through one day and managed to stay within the guidelines. It doesn't seem like much. I had to distract myself several times in the afternoon when my “afternoon munchies" came on. My workout partner says she has a diet Snapple at those times. That's nice, but what I usually want is a Snickers Bar or one full cup of salty nuts or dinner at 3:00pm. I can't see the diet Snapple filling the void. I guess I will have to give it a try though. I'm going to run out of distractions.

Dinner was healthy and I was the only one eating it. The 3 year old eats all day long and the 9 year old had a peanut butter sandwich. (This is only because we were out of hot dogs. She doesn't like much else.) Daddy went out with the boys. I'll bet his dinner alone is more than 24 stinking points. I looked up “uncooked cookie dough" and they actually have it in the Points Tracker! I sure was tempted to add it to my list but after getting the kids to bed by myself I was too tired to care.

Breakfast, Day 3
Here we go again. I must say, I'm not looking forward to counting food. Let's see how many points in the crap my kids eat for breakfast... Reese's Peanut Butter Puffs breakfast cereal is only 3 points. That's 2.5 points less than the “healthy" oatmeal breakfast I usually try to have. This morning I said, “To heck with it" and went for the Reese's. So that will be my “bad food" for the day. Actually, I can't imagine me not adding more “bad food" as the day goes by. Don't tell me I won't be as satisfied with the sweetened cereal as I would with oatmeal. In some ways I think I will be more satisfied.

Mid-Morning, Day 3
Why can't all the rest of my problems step aside when I have something else I need to concentrate on? You'd think that my family would put their “issues" on hold until after I at least get the hang of this. But noooooo! The 9 year old still has homework troubles and school woes, the 3 year old still demands attention and Princess Makeovers at the drop of a hat and my husband still has late work nights and out of town trips.

Here I thought the hard part would be eat less and it turns out the hard part is making it work in a real life. I suppose that's why so many diets don't work. “They" test them in theory and we have to live with them. I bet none of the diet researchers have Krispy Creams in their office lunch rooms and kid birthday parties to get through.

The First Weekend, Friday night, 9:30PM
I have my first official weigh-in on Monday. I find it hard to believe that it will be much different from the million and a half other weigh-ins I've had in the past few years. Oddly enough, the time that I lost the most weight recently was the first trimester of my pregnancy with my 3 year old. Too extreme a method for me to consider trying again.

I'm sure that I must have lost some weight just from laughing myself silly when I read my “target weight". I laughed so hard I fell off my chair. I always knew that I had a fair amount of weight to lose but it would seem that by Weight Watchers calculations I need to lose half myself. I'm 189 lbs and 5' 1". My “ideal weight", I was told, was 106 pounds!. Ha! I don't think I'll weigh 106 lbs. until well after I'm dead. I'll bet the last time I weighed 106 pounds I was too young to vote. I figure this means half of me has to go. I asked my husband which half he wanted me to get rid of and which half he wanted to stay. I kept imagining different ways to halve me. I think keeping the front half will be best. I'll get rid of my rear that way.

I see a problem ahead of me for this weekend. I have a children's birthday party as well as an adult get together to get through. At this monthly gathering of a half dozen families with kids we usually eat, drink and make merry. One friend makes brownies for every get together whether she's hosting or not. The girlfriend hosting this month makes a huge spread. The woman owns four crock pots and will use all of them to feed us Saturday night. The last party she threw had more main courses than I'd prepared at home all month. Let's just say, she likes to cook. Since I like to eat this is usually a match made in heaven. This time I'll have to come up with a new strategy.

End of the First Weekend
The first weekend is nearly over. Of course, the first weekend had to be Super Bowl Weekend. Luckily, we're not having or going to any gatherings. We're just eating at home. My poor husband. I was shopping today but decided since I couldn't eat chips and dips I wasn't going to buy any. We'll be trying baked tortilla chips and homemade salsa though. Actually, he and the nine year old are getting pizza and I will eat healthy. Not as much of a problem as you might think. I don't really like pizza. Now, if they get those cinnamon sticks I'm in trouble! I doubt carrots will suffice.

All in all I made it through the first weekend OK. I had one piece of birthday cake. It also got warm enough out that I could go for a brisk walk and earn some extra points for dinner with the Parenting Group. Turns out a one hour walk can buy you either an extra brownie or a margarita! This helped me learn something important. You need to choose your poison, so to speak. When I was at the party and I knew I could have one or the other I thought, do I go for the brownie which was good but not outstanding or the margarita which was very good? I went for the margarita and skipped the brownie. Don't get me wrong. The brownies were good, just not as good as the margarita. Next time maybe the brownies will win. I did not feel gypped because I still got a good bonus for my walk. There's still a lot of winter left up here. My trainer says I have to stop being cheap and shell out for that treadmill or come in to the gym more often. I'm also looking into a new Palm Pilot to make my PointTracker portable. It sounds cool and I love new gadgets!