I Quit!!

After 4 solid weeks of maintaining my weight, I've officially quit Weight Watchers!!! No more counting points! Yay! Instead I'm becoming acutely aware of how many calories I consume each day since I'm using the fitbit website to track my every movement. One obsession leads to another, right? At least in my case it does.

The most valuable lesson Weight Watchers has taught me is portion size. Before starting the so called diet I didn't realize that a full chicken breast is 2 servings, not one. And, I should only eat 3/4 cup cereal with 3/4 cup of skim milk. A steak is 3 oz, or about the size of a deck of cards, pasta is 1 cup and brown rice is 1/2 cup and supplement every meal with fresh veggies. And of course, the most important lesson learned is how essential exercise is. This was the hardest part for me but now it's just a part of my daily routine. Thank you Weight Watchers!

Me after goal June 27, 2010


Me before so called diet - February 21, 2010

Calories versus Points

Since I started using the FitBit (see previous post here) I am moving towards counting calories versus counting points. There is a complicated formula to convert calories, fat and fiber to points and since I'm no math wiz, I'm using the WW website to calculate the points for me and logging my food on both websites. According to Fitbit, I'm consuming on average 1200 calories per day and with Weight Watchers I am averaging 23 points. (This doesn't include my binge fest over the weekend because I lost count of what I ate and drank after a beer tasting.)

In order to determine the correct daily point usage I have to convert each item individually and then add up the total points. One would think that taking the daily intake of calories, fat and fiber would work but it ends up being about 4-5 points higher. Just a little time consuming, but it's cool to see how it all works out.


Skinny Italian Meatballs with whole wheat pasta
384 calories, 10.6 fat, 10.5 fiber = 7 points WW -
(1 point different using totals)

Chicken adobo with brown fried rice
500 calories, 10.3 fat, 4.8 fiber = 10.5 points
(same)

Pork chops with skillet gravy, brown rice and green beans
420 calories, 7.2 fat, 7.5 fiber = 8 points
(same)

Costco rotisserie chicken with sauteed vegetables
334 calories, 2.3 fat, 6.1 fiber = 5.5 points
(1 point different using totals)

Dieting for Geeks

I've officially hit super geek status with my diet. Not only do I blog about my WW online diet, I just purchased a Ftbit. This is a cheaper, but way cooler alternative to the BodyBugg sold through 24 Hour Fitness. I eyed the BodyBugg for several months, extremely tempted to purchase one but couldn't realistically afford the whole system. The total cost for a BodyBugg is $278 plus a monthly fee to use their system. My nifty Fitbit, as seen below, is smaller, only $99 and the online system to track your activity is free. I don't really need to know my sweat, heat, and exertion - I just want to know how many calories I'm burning in a day! Yesterday was the first day I wore my Fitbit and I burned 2,176 calories; 1376 calories eaten, took 5273 steps, and traveled 2.20 miles.  Not bad for Day One!

In addition to tracking my calories burn, the Fitbit tracks sleep quality. I think the sleep quality tracking is a really cool feature and it shows on Fitbit's site, how "efficient" my sleep was, which is a percentage of how much time I spent sleeping versus how long it took to go to bed and how many times I became "active."  As you can see last night I woke up 12 times! My sleep didn't feel very efficient, but I scored 91%.