So, yeah, I've been away for quite some time. Basically, I fell off the keto wagon and gained back every bit of the weight I had lost plus almost five more pounds. Yuck.
I did some hard thinking this past week. Considering I've been paying for Weight Watchers and not using it, I decided to check out the site again. I was so shocked! Their Zero Points list has expanded to a whopping 200 items. This includes very lean meats, eggs, non-fat dairy, and beans among other things. I felt an instant spark and energy return to my wish to lose weight and feel great.
My favorite grocery store, Bi-Lo, closed a few month ago. To think that I went through a literal depression over it. I'm not as blue as I was, but I do miss them! Now I check the ads for Lidl (which opened in my town very recently), Food Lion, and Piggly Wiggly. I made a list of each store's sale items for the week and built a menu based on the sales. Then I crossed out all of the sale items that didn't make the menu cut and hit the road to shop. My favorite sales were for cantaloupe, honeydew melon, and 99% fat free ground turkey.
I had no idea that when I was making out my menu, I would be planning for quite so much food! It really is a lot of food, and I need to keep that in mind when I make my next menu plan. I literally spent most of the day meal prepping. I am severely out of practice, so I need to streamline the process. This coming week's meal plan:
Breakfast: chucks of cantaloupe and honeydew with red seedless grapes and strawberry halves.
Snack: Protein Fruit and Veggie Bistro Box
Lunch: Pita with turkey bacon, thin sliced turkey meat, red onion, tomato, cucumber, red leaf lettuce, dijon mustard, and light olive oil mayo.
Dinner: Lean pork chop, asparagus, and sweet potato.
Snack: Skinny Stuffed Bell Pepper (recipe to be posted soon!)
See? It is a LOT of food, and based on the Freestyle plan with a totally new Zero Points list, my day's points total only comes in at 17. That includes 2 tablespoons of real butter used in cooking!
I decided I am ok with drinking skim milk and eating nonfat Greek yogurt, but I won't skimp on butter, as I still feel margarine is bad, and I won't use low fat cheese, either, as it just doesn't taste like cheese. I'll be increasing my water intake from 64 ounces to at least 90. I will also be taking a daily multi-vitamin. I will not be weighing in every week. In fact, I am going to try to only weigh in about once a month, so my focus is not on the scale, but rather on how my clothes fit and how my joints feel. I will allow myself a pseudo-cheat day once in a while, staying within weekly points.
Over the next few weeks, I will be fine-tuning my menus so that I don't dread eating huge amounts of food, as it seems I always over-plan. Feeling satisfied is good. Feeling stuffed is not so good. Last time I did WW, I was so focused on finding low point foods that I was struggling to meet my points every day rather than going over them. I'd like to find a happy medium.
The reason I have decided to no longer do keto is simple: I felt far too hemmed in. Sure, I loved the bacon and cheese and cream cheese, but I knew that eating even a single piece of bread could potentially throw me out of ketosis. This girl loves potatoes, grits, and bread, and I refuse to throw out an entire food group to satisfy any diet plan. Weight Watchers is about developing a healthy relationship with food, not about severely restricting any one food group. That being said, I am striving to move to healthier whole grains in the process. I've made steps in that direction already by planning to use brown rice over white. The next time I go shopping, I'll be adding in whole wheat pasta or bread.
Another thing I plan to try is to go a little outside of my comfort zone and try new foods. While I know it is not exactly WW friendly, I decided to try a box from Hello Fresh, which should be here Friday, I hope! I sat down for a couple of hours last night and recalculated the servings for each meal. Two of them will be split into three servings instead of two, which brings the points down to a manageable level. The third meal, a one-pot pasta deal, was split into four, and will be used as a side with tilapia. The first week is only costing me about $25, so I call that a win! All I'll need to purchase is some eggs, fresh fruits, and some lettuce and tomatoes for my next week.
I am truly excited abut starting anew tomorrow!
