Drown my sorrows? : My first run in with the new beer ProPoint values!

As mentioned in the last post, Friday was a hard day. I learned Thursday that my friend Judith was actually not getting into town Friday as I'd planned (she bought her train ticket for the wrong day), leaving me with probably the worst thing you can give a depressed person: an entire day of free, alone time. As soon as I learned J wasn't getting in as planned, I not only planned my run, but I also texted ALL my friends who hadn't left for the weekend, begging them to take me out. In the end, we got a decent group of about 7 total and, as my British friends would say, we got "merry."





We also went and listened to a free concert given by Seb (I teach in his girlfriend's class and babysit their kids). The concert was great. Seb sings what the French called "chansons à texte," which means his songs are more poetic and tell stories when he sings. Here's a link to one of his songs on MySpace. Since he sang in French (obviously), it was really nice that he tells stories and sings relatively slowly because I was able to understand and appreciate his songs. Only downside was that I had to PEE and eventually had to sneak out... The "sneaking" bit was ineffective since I kicked over someone's glass beer glass and broke it (loudly) on my way out... Oops.

We ended up in another bar afterwards and had a pretty good time. They all kept me constantly supplied with beer and, for the most part, kept my mind off things, so that was good. In the end, I entered the 2.5L I'd consumed (I'd say goal of getting very drunk was accomplished) and this was my dinner:


Yes, it was unhealthy to drink my dinner and WOW did beer go up in points. But at least I got out there. I'm very lucky to have made such good friends here in such a short amount of time (probably because I'm not shy). I may have woken up feeling just as sad as the day before but with the added bonus of a huge headache, but it was worth it to get out of the apartment for a bit.

Also: small victory = I tracked everything and am staying within my points for the week.

I know I'm blogging less about exercise at the moment and am not sure when I'll be more upbeat... but stick with me, I'm working on it I promise. Just trying to take it day by day. Chin up.

Next post: amazing French foodie pics and Judith's visit

Fabulous Tracking and a Shopping "Spree"

Today's WW investment: a spray bottle of olive oil. I'm sure I paid too much for it, but I can't find the cooking spray/olive oil I used to buy in the States, so a spray bottle of normal olive oil seems to be the next best idea. 10 sprays is 1 tsp, so since I'm currently without measuring spoons this will keep me accountable. I used it for the first time making brunch this morning (slept in today, bliss):


Ham, egg, cheese with a pot of my fave fromage blanc with homemade apricot jam and a cup of earl grey
Not a stellar photo, but it was delicious and really filling. Paired with one of those crazy 0 point bananas and this 8-point brunch was lovely. I didn't run today (I thought I might... it's freezing outside), but it already feels good to be really tracking and getting down to business.

Dinner was also a lovely WW event.


Since I ate that late and filling brunch, I had an apple as a snack and was good to go until dinner... with 21 points left! With that many points, I decided I should splurge for things I don't usually have enough points for (salmon and pasta). Using my roomie's scale I took my box of pasta and divided it into 5-100g servings (that's what the box said a serving was) so that have them at the ready for future dinners. Apparently 100g of pasta is also 9 pts and, as I've learned from this meal, WAY more pasta than I need, so I'll be dividing those pre-portioned bags in half next time! Still, I'm ending today with 28 points, not too shabby for official Day One and I was never hungry! :)

Aside from that, I indulged in a non-food way today: shopping. I haven't been at all while I've been here (since we don't make much money), but I went to H&M buy the dress for NYE that I've been eyeballing and ended up with so much more:


I don't know what is sadder... the fact that the only place I have a full-length mirror is in the elevator in my building or the fact that I actually went and got in the elevator for the express purpose of showing you all this dress... You decide.


Mine's actually navy... I need less black and it can do double duty for Auburn fun :)
Oh and I did actually get the dress, after a million visits to H&M to try it on in different sizes (Mine's a 40/US10!) I hadn't been able to decide between this first one:


Or this one:
Also in black
But then I went back today and they only had the first one in one size left, so I went ahead and bought the second one just to be safe... The choice might come up again if they ever get dress one back in stock. Then, I came home, shoeless, and found these little guys on sale for half off at Aldo online! I get ALL of my flats from Aldo, so I knew there would be ordering happening since my brown flats needed to be thrown out 6 months ago.


Plus, found shoes to wear with my bridesmaid dress for Katy's wedding!


All in all, quite the successful shopping AND eating/tracking day, even if it means now going back and readjusting my budget for December. It was more than I meant to spend, but I'm happy with what I've bought since they will all be nice pieces in the new "classy almost grown-up" wardrobe I want to create for myself. How was your day?

Today's the day! WW ProPoints!

Happy Monday!

This is what greeted me today when I signed online after work:



After spending more time than I'd like trying to get the site to work (apparently it doesn't yet work with RockMelt OR Safari, thanks Firefox), I updated my DP allowance and got down to the business of seeing which of my most often consumed foods/favorite foods had changed values overnight.

So far, here are my big "finds":

-New point calculations take into account carbohydrates, fat, protein, and fiber. Bye bye, calories.
-Fruits are now, wait for it, ZERO points. I tried to track a clementine and accidentally entered 110 of them... still zero points. That's obviously not to say that you should abuse this whole "eat more fruits and veg" thing, but it feel so nice.
-Wine and beer are even more points than before. Now, a serving of red wine = 4 PPs, white = 3 PPs, and 12oz of reg. beer are 5 PPs. Light beer takes the place of old points value reg. beer at 3 PP/serving.
-My favorite yogurt here in France is still 1 PP. For all intents and purposes, it's essentially greek yogurt.


-Starchy veggies still have points (can't get away with EVERYTHING for free on this plan, obviously)
-The eTools tracker now shows things in grams too (helpful)
-My daily points allowance went up from 22 to 29 and my weekly points from 35 to 49.
-Did I mention that fruits (INCLUDING BANANAS) are zero points? Oh, I did. I must just be excited.

Today was my first day tracking (though I didn't count points until I got home from work tonight) and I'm feeling really optimistic about this plan. WW's CEO David did a really good post about getting on board with the new plan over at his blog, definitely check it out. I need to hunt down a scale, but I'm ready to go back to being a newbie and track, track, tracking! It's here and I'm pumped! I'll let you know how it progresses of course! Tonight I've already stocked up on some lean meat, plenty of fruits and veg and more of my favorite yogurts! Let's kick this plateau goodbye! :)

ProPOINTS

I know a lot of my readers aren't WW members, but I wanted to talk about this anyway. After getting an email from WW announcing the debut of the new program ProPoints at the end of the month, I went ahead and googled it and found out it was just released in the UK this week. There's a really interesting article on it in the UK Daily Mail. I'm not sure what I think about it yet and it'll be really interesting to see how it gets introduced to us online only members. I think some of the ideas are really cool (ZERO point fruit? YES!), but I'm kind of nervous about having to relearn the points values for everything. Plus, now all my old cookbooks don't have the right points values in them anymore. Ick.

What do you guys think? Perhaps this'll help me get past this plateau (update on the challenge later!).