Taking the Smartphone Plunge

By Karen

Call me old-fashioned, but I think anybody who goes around with a phone stuck upside their head because they’ve lost the ability to function without third-party feedback are the worst kind of stupid.

If you ever eavesdrop (it’s usually hard not to), they’re usually describing their location…

“I’m in Food Lion. At the checkout.”

They never give the full story, which is, “Slowly unloading my groceries with one hand, backing up the line, and ignoring the cashier so I can babble about nothing on my phone.”

I had a sweet little blue Samsung cellphone with a slide-out keyboard — that was never on. It was for when I needed to make a call, not to make myself available to interruption 24/7.

But for just the occasional call, without texting or data, I was paying Verizon $45 a month under a 2-year sentence contract. They said texts were 10 cents each, but every month I’d get a 20-cent charge for some useless text they’d sent me. So apparently, it was 10 cents to receive, and another 10 cents to read.

A few months ago they dangled a Samsung smartphone at me, real cheap. But to take that bait started a NEW 2-year sentence and raised my bill to $80+.

So last week I went to Sears to check out Consumer Cellular. It’s AARP’s preferred cellphone provider and runs on AT&T’s network.

For $150, I bought a Huawei (pronounced Wah-way) 8800 smartphone. It only runs Android 2.2 (aka “Froyo,” for “frozen yogurt”), which isn’t the latest version. But who needs frills when you don’t even know how to use the damn phone?

I have no long-term contract, and 150 voice minutes, 1,000 texts, and 100 MB of data (WAY more than I’ll ever use unless I develop an addiction) is $25 + tax a month. If I need more or less, I can change the plan any time.

The biggest snag I hit was with Google. You need Google email to access apps. When I entered my Google address, it sucked over 600+ email addresses from my AOL business account onto my smartphone, when all I wanted was a short list of personal phone numbers from my old Verizon phone.

(BTW, nothing from a Verizon phone is transferrable to CC because Verizon phones don’t have the interchangeable SIM card other carriers use. Way to put one last screw to your customers, Verizon!)

My Huawei’s relatively primitive capabilities should lessen the learning curve, but I had to call CC twice for help the first day. The reps were rather condescending, with one telling me I should LOVE having hundreds of junk email addresses on my new phone because it’s supposed to be the repository of my LIFE.

This whole endeavor boiled down to 1) Reducing some bills since Anthem hiked my health insurance another $50 a month, 2) Having text/data capability if I ever need/want it, and 3) Breaking out of Verizon’s yoke.

So far, so good with the Huawei, although my first game download (Bingo Blast) was too big for the screen and I couldn’t figure out how to play it. And I couldn’t buy a cute case anywhere (it’s an iPhone and Galaxy world), but I did order one from Amazon.

I don’t feel compelled to use the smartphone any more than my old one, and I don’t keep it on all the time. Why smartphones are an American obsession is still a mystery to me — but now I have one.

 

Weight Watchers® Online: Reached the Dead End

By Karen

Part 8 — WW Offers Zip for Success

At Christmas, I was within 10 pounds of my Weight Watchers® goal when I hit a horrible plateau. Since then, I’ve averaged about 0.6 lb. a week, losing zilch MANY of those weeks — extremely frustrating.

But yesterday I FINALLY hit 130 lbs. In fact, I saw 129 on the scale for the first time in many years.

In case you’re just joining us, I’ve spent 10 months losing 48 pounds using only WW’s cumbersome, TMI-gathering website. I stuck it out with the site believing I would ultimately achieve “lifetime membership” and get breaks on future fees if I ever needed WW again.

Upon reaching my goal, the site showered me with stars, but the next step, this tiny token — lifetime membership — was conspicuously missing.

They buried it well, but I finally uncovered  this little nugget…

Lifetime membership is only for Meetings members.

WTF??!! ARE THEY KIDDING??!!

My theories on why WW deems online members unworthy…

1. Online membership is cheaper than meetings, so our obesity isn’t profitable enough.

2. WW doesn’t trust us. They need to personally weigh us to believe PointsPlus® actually worked.

3. WW knows their plan rarely works long-term (which is why they have “lifetime” members in the first place).

Well, I intend to beat the odds by staying slim. For the good years I have left, I don’t want to be fat. Besides, replacing my wardrobe has been expensive.

The bottom line: I invested $189.50 in WW online for 10 months and dropped 27% of my total body weight. It has transformed my life and my outlook in amazing and priceless ways.

In the same period, I could have spent this on food from…

Nutrisystem® – $4,125 (or $2,500 on sale)

Jenny Craig – $3,655 ($85/week)

Since those plans don’t teach you how to deal with “real” food, once off their controlled meals, you’re at great risk of regaining.

WW online has been relatively economical, but it would have been even cheaper if I’d realized sooner there’s absolutely no payoff for reaching goal.

WW is the biggest loser here. I’m a walking advertisement that even post-menopausal women can succeed on their plan. And now they’ve lost me forever with a penny-wise, pound-foolish policy.

If you’re considering Weight Watchers Online, go for it! But just stick around until you master tracking and gather all the points information you’ll need (most of it is available free on other sites, anyway).

Then cancel.

The WW site layout is a pain, the content redundant, with too much no-brainer info, you’ll find better recipes elsewhere, and the member message boards really suck.

WW products in the grocery store (ice cream snacks, Smart Ones® frozen meals) contain no magic. You get as much/more taste for the same/fewer points with The Laughing Cow® and Lean Cuisine®.

In case you’re curious, read the benefits for WW lifetime members.

Weight Watchers® “Almost-After” Pics

By Karen

In case you’re new here, I’ve been on the Weight Watchers PointsPlus plan since May 28, 2012 – 38 weeks. I’ve lost 45 lbs. and a few readers have asked for “after” pics, so here they are.

I’d still like to lose 5 more pounds and make it an even 50 (from 177 to 127), but that could take a while. I just came off an incredibly frustrating month-long plateau where pound 134 kept bouncing off and on and I couldn’t get past it, no matter how “good” I was.

But this week I finally broke through that wall and hit 132, so I’m feeling re-energized.

Without further ado, I’ll model for you some clothes I bought and wore just last summer. Seeing myself with them now, I can’t wrap my head around how big I’d let myself get…

As God is my witness, I’ll NEVER be mistaken for a shower curtain again!

Before losing 11” in the bust (don’t worry, I still have plenty – I’m Italian!), I was beginning to worry about buttoning this shirt.

I thought these shorts looked like clown clothes when I bought them — but they FIT!

I’m mortified that I actually walked around a cruise ship last spring in those clothes.

I call this my “Jared from Subway” shot.

Overall, I’ve lost about 34 inches. I’ve gone from size 18 and 2x to size 10-12 and medium/large (sizing is totally inconsistent).

As my sister says, “Valerie Bertinelli, eat your heart out.”

I don’t care what the foodies say. I’ve been on both sides of the fence now, and there’s no food delicious enough to EVER make being overweight (and the lack of attractive clothes and the way you ironically become invisible to people) worth it.

Why Chris Christie Should “Lose It”

By Cole

When Chris Christie ate a doughnut on Letterman last week, he claimed to be a really healthy fat person, and had everybody in stitches.

But the jollies disappeared when Christie told Bill Clinton’s former physician, Connie Mariano, to “just shut up” after she said she worries he’d die in office if elected president.

I agree Mariano was out of line speaking about someone who isn’t her patient. But let’s face it. The dangers of obesity are as proven as the dangers of smoking.

And they don’t call it “morbid” obesity because there’s anything funny about it.

Nationally, Christie has overcome the stigma of being a Republican by displaying common sense, directness, and a willingness to work with Democrats. He blew off campaigning for Mitt Romney to accompany Obama on a tour of storm-ravaged New Jersey, to cite just one example.

But if he blows this colossal opportunity to inspire the nearly 70% of American adults who are overweight or obese and do more to help the country get healthier than any garden Michelle Obama can ever plant, he probably doesn’t belong in the White House in 2016 after all.

All the guy has to do is stop making jokes and excuses and step away from the doughnuts.

Being fat has no valid defense. There are myriad excuses, some well-founded, but NONE of them make obesity healthy.

Christie should follow the lead of Mayor Kenneth Wright of Portsmouth, Va., who weighs 400 lbs. and took the opposite tack last week by announcing his intention to lose 100 pounds in a year so he can be a role model to Portsmouth’s 39% of overweight adults.

If Chris Christie could show us he can solve a problem as intractable as his girth, he’d have the Republican nomination — and probably the election — locked up.

Sure, the first few months will be embarrassing when the press catches him huffing and puffing as he gets moving. But men lose weight so much easier than women, he’d start improving quickly, and positive reactions would fuel his motivation.

And it would only get better.

I just don’t understand why he’s fighting it. Christie has nothing to lose by owning up to his weight problem, and everything to gain by losing it.

Besides, at Cats Working we say, if Karen can do it, anybody can…

Dropped a Pail of Tidy Cats on Weight Watchers

By Karen

Part 7 — Lose Inches, Regain Yourself

I buy 35-lb. pails of Tidy Cats® litter for the Cats Working crew, and it takes every bit of strength to get them from store shelf > shopping cart > car trunk > litterboxes.

After 27 weeks on Weight Watchers®, I have dropped 36 lbs.

And I’m wondering how on earth I, or anybody else, manages to tote around an extra load like that — or more — every day without dropping dead?

From 177 lbs., I’m down to 141 and, according to Weight Watchers, am no longer overweight.

(A recent Gallup survey found 62.8% adult Americans overweight or obese. It’s good to be in the minority.)

I can’t wait to see my doctor’s face (or even better, his skinny nurse who weighs me. She won’t be flinging that 150-lb. weight across the scale with mad abandon anymore.)

The sofa covers and circus tents comprising my wardrobe have begun migrating from my closet. In clothing stores, I beat a wide path around the “Women’s Dept.” (i.e., fat clothes) with the same aversion rabid ex-smokers have perfected toward anybody who lights up.

(Catherine’s Plus Sizes, delete me from your mailing list. You’ll never see me again!)

Before I get too carried away, 141 is still more than I ever weighed before I even began all previous diets, so I’ve still got a ways to go.

When I hit 100 lbs. at age 20, I felt fat even though I wore size 5. I’ll never be that thin again, but it just goes to show how all the sick messages we’re hammered with will distort our body image.

Now that I’ve seen myself truly fat, I’ve gained perspective, and don’t aspire to become a stringy old stick figure.

I’ve lost nearly 9 inches each from my bust and waist, and 6 inches from my hips. For the first time in my 50s, I look in the mirror with hope and pleasure (instead of dread and loathing) because my former non-fat self is peeking back.

The past 6 months counting points have been no picnic, but it worked. Wearing something attractive trumps the fleeting satisfaction of cramming decadent and fattening food into my face.

I have added one square of Lindt chocolate a day to the menu and I don’t count the points. I actually think it’s helping. In just the week since Thanksgiving (when I ate out twice and really went off the rails, although not at all with “bad” stuff), I’ve lost 2.8 lbs.

You just have to tackle it one day at a time and never give up.

Downsizing with Weight Watchers

By Karen

Part 6 – Getting Back Into “Normal” Clothes, Sort Of

So two weeks ago and 23 lbs. thinner, I walked into Macy’s feeling pretty cocky, wearing a pair of size 12 shorts I’d stashed away (pre-WW, I was wearing 18s).

I tried on a pair of size 14 slacks and couldn’t pull them up past mid-thigh. WTF??!! Got into some 16s, but almost fainted when I buttoned them.

A couple of XL tops fit OK but, on principle, I refuse to buy any more X sizes.

So I walked out of this HUGE sale empty-handed, feeling blimpy and demoralized.

But I think Macy’s sizes are all screwed up because 1) Lots of the stock is cheap quality, and 2) It’s made in Third-World countries where people aren’t super-sized like Americans.

Speaking of which, if about 66% of adults are overweight or obese, WHY do department stores cater mostly to the thin 34%? They don’t even carry much for regular women who would wear 10-14s. It seems like retail suicide, but it never changes.

Mainstream stores treat being large like such a shameful condition,  they often don’t even name the plus-size department. You have to hunt until you find a rack of X-sizes. If it has a name, it’s something like “Woman.” I think I’ve even seen a condescending “Missy” department somewhere.

WiseBread wrote more thoroughly on this.

But I digress…

Now it’s been 17 weeks and I’m down 24 lbs. I think I’m about halfway there. This weekend I bought 3 tops at Stein Mart that were Large and I was thrilled. My pile of discarded ridiculous-looking fat clothes is growing. A girlfriend tells me I look like I’m wearing my mother’s clothes — because they’re hanging on me. (For the record, my mother is tiny.)

I’m still unable to find any slacks because if they don’t have wide floppy legs and bag mightily in the ass and thighs, I can’t zip them. How the HELL do designers think we are shaped down there?

By WW measures, I’m only 12 lbs. overweight now, so I shouldn’t be having all these fit issues.

I’ve made my peace with WW so I no longer feel as screwed as at first — but preparing meals is still too labor-intensive.

On the other hand, the extra effort is worth it now that rejoining the 34% non-overweight minority is definitely on my radar.

And their clothes are so much cuter.

Weight Watchers® Update

By Karen

Part 5 – Strange Path to the 10% Sweet Spot

After 12 weeks with Weight Watchers® online, I’ve lost a tad over 10% of my starting weight, or roughly 19 lbs. They say this is supposed to yield an untold wealth of health benefits.

It does feel good. But I still don’t feel slim and nobody’s saying, “There’s something different about you. Have you done something to your hair?”

A 2.1-lb. drop last week, the most I’ve lost since the earliest stages, resulted from some weird eating.

First, my salty/crunchy craving made me demolish 3 bags of pork rinds at 16 points each (remember, I get 26 points/day).

Why pork rinds? Because I vaguely remembered they were a good thing on the Atkins Diet.

I also snacked on turkey pepperoni instead of yucky raw carrots or celery because 16 slices (of pepperoni) are only 2 points.

And I cut back on fruit.

Basically, I pushed back on the WW vegetarian agenda and increased fat and protein à la Ottavia Bourdain. (Maybe my next craving will be to beat up somebody!)

This morning I tried on my bathing suit and decided I wouldn’t die if I were seen in it, although I wouldn’t be proud, either. I still have Mr. Peanut’s torso — if he had enormous boobs.

The other day I treated myself to a dressy little top on sale in size large that fits like a sausage casing now, but I hope to wear at the holidays.

I’m walking or pedaling 10,000 steps or more every single day.

I don’t miss potatoes or sweets. Starch-wise, I’m having nothing but whole-grain bread and pasta, except for a Thomas’ thin bagel 3x a week with lox and light cream cheese.

But I miss do beef and pork a LOT.

I’ve considered quitting WW’s annoying site and continuing alone, but online tracking is keeping me honest, and I do appreciate the weekly canned encouragement, since the cats couldn’t care less what I look like.

My next weight-loss goal is another 5%.

At my next doctor’s visit, I want to see the nurse’s face when, for the first time in ages, she realizes she doesn’t have to fling that 150-lb. weight on the scale to get my number.

UnFoodie Copes with Weight Watching

By Karen

Part 4 – PointsPlus® vs. Reality

Jennifer Hudson says you can believe in Weight Watchers® Because it Works™, but Jennifer isn’t looking fabulous these days because it’s easy.

With WW, the first hurdle is to lose your interest in food. If you want stay within points and drop pounds, you can’t indulge in more than an infrequent bite or two of anything that’s worth eating.

(Note: WW PointsPlus® values in parentheses.)

I no longer cook in oil (4 per tbsp.) or use real butter (3 per tbsp.). Cooking spray (0) is my new best friend. Screw the ozone layer.

This brings me to my biggest gripe with WW. To play the points game and eat enough to stay alive, you’re compelled to embrace the chemically-engineered low-cal, no-fat, sugar-free foods that caused this obesity epidemic in the first place. Or go vegan.

And fake food is typically more expensive than the real thing.

In 10 weeks I’ve lost 15 lbs., but I’ve given up some of life’s little joys…

• OREO® cookies (5 – 3 cookies)
• Nutella® and peanut butter (5 – 2 tbsp.)
• McDonald’s Quarter Pounders with cheese (14)
• Fried calamari (11 – ½ cup)

Almost every meal includes stuff I don’t really like, such as cantaloupe, grapes, carrots, lettuce by the head, and truckloads of zucchini.

I’m almost always hungry. Sure, I could binge on bananas, but what’s the point? I’d be hungry again an hour later.

WW wants you to eat plenty of nuts, but it’s a Catch-22. Twenty-three almonds are 5 points.

When I’m not destroying the kitchen preparing meals (every bland meal-for-one seems to involve at least 30 minutes of intensive chopping and a sinkful of dishes and pans) I do 10,000+ steps a day, either pedaling my stationary bike, walking around, or stepping in place in front of the TV while I watch it.

Yes, I know it’s all good for me, but most days I feel like I could bite the heads off geeks.

I bought a WW cookbook thinking I’d find some different, flavorful dishes. Wrong. The P+ on anything worth fixing make it not worth eating.

Frozen meals aren’t a viable option, either. Weight Watchers® Smart Ones® frozen meals aren’t particularly low-point — and the portions are measly. Ironically, the few beef dishes seem to have lowest points (4-6) because they contain an ounce of meat in a criminally-empty tray. Most of the meals are white-pasta-based, although WW preaches whole grains.

Desperate for crunch, I tried Seapoint Farms Dry-Roasted Edamame with Wasabi (3 – ¼ cup). Light and dry, like I imagine eating bugs would be, and too many points for what you get. And the wasabi scorched my sinuses like I French kissed a blowtorch.

Some evenings I make popcorn from scratch. One-quarter cup of dry corn (3) in 1 tsp. of olive or canola oil (1) is only 4 points, and I’ve got the perfect bowl that makes me feel like I’m eating a lot.

For protein, it’s mostly baked fish and chicken (1 per oz.) and a lot of faux Boca® Burgers (3) and Morningstar Farms® Chipotle & Black Bean ¼ lb. Burgers (5).

I never eat potatoes (4) or rice (5 per cup, white) unless they’re in a frozen meal.

Only someone who’s nursing an eating disorder can eat this way indefinitely. The fact is that most of the American diet is fattening, unhealthy — and DELICIOUS. Anyone who prefers WW is a pervert.

But I intend to stick with this chronic deprivation until I lose the weight.

My first payback finally came just this past weekend when some size 18W pants I had bought in May wouldn’t stay up.

As disgusting as my meals have become, becoming too small for “fat pants” makes it all worthwhile.

UnFoodie Masters Weight Watchers PointsPlus

By Karen

Part 3 – What All the Counting’s About

Weight Watchers® has weathered every dieting fad since the 1960s and is widely recognized as the safest way to lose weight. If you stick to the plan, it does work — but you’ll never eat like a “normal” American again.

Weight Watchers translates calories to “points” based on certain factors, which change as nutritional science evolves. The latest plan is PointsPlus+™ 2012, and P+ values comprise, among other things…

• Fat
• Carbohydrates
• Fiber
• Protein

The other things are fruits and vegetables which, for the first time, have 0 points.

For the first two weeks, I became semi-anorexic, afraid to eat anything and blow it before I got a handle on points. And I lost 5 lbs.

I get 26 points a day, based on my starting weight of 177. Heavier people will get more points, which get reduced as they lose, but I think 26 is the lowest it goes.

I also get 49 mad points weekly, sort of an overdraft account I can tap when faced with normal food, like burgers and fries and birthday cake.

You can also earn exercise points to exchange for food.

P+ are higher on many foods than previously because WW is back-dooring fruits and vegetables. So even though they say some things are worth 0, there’s no free lunch.

Just to give you some idea of P+, a 3-oz. serving of chicken or shrimp is 3 points, but a 3-oz. steak is 7.

Here’s where it gets tricky: Sometimes when you double the quantity of a food, its P+ value more than doubles.

For example, a teaspoon of canola oil is 1, but a tablespoon (3 teaspoons) is 4.

Kashi Go-Lean Crunch cereal: ½ cup is 2, but a full cup 5.

It also happens with some Light Progresso soups, which bear P+ values on their labels — for half a can. If one serving is 2, the whole can may be only 3 — or 5.

Two Eggo whole-grain blueberry waffles are 5, but one waffle is 2. Two tbsp. Smuckers Blueberry Syrup is 3, but you can hit every waffle dent using only ½ tsp. worth 0.

WW claims you can eat ANYTHING, but you’re punished pretty severely for most carbs, even the healthy ones. A 2-oz. (dry) serving of any whole-grain pasta is 5 — this is maybe 4-5 forkfuls — and that’s before sauce or cheese.

So having embraced PointsPlus, I find myself thinking about food a LOT, and it’s mostly scheming to game the system to survive on the fewest points while avoiding total veganism.

I load a plate with veggies, add a lousy deck-of-cards-sized chicken breast, and my eyes are fooled into thinking I’ve got a huge meal for only 3 points.

It’s impossible to accurately calculate P+ in your head, so WW sells a special calculator for $14.95, which will keep you from making fatal errors at the grocery store. (Tip: Buy it at a local WW chapter and save the outrageous $8.95 shipping the site charges.)

With my calculator, I went through my kitchen with a Sharpie, writing P+ values on everything. When I discovered that one ultra-thin slice of Sargento cheese is 3, I gave it away. Now it’s Laughing Cow wedges for 1.

Next…PointsPlus vs. reality.

UnFoodie Joins Weight Watchers Online

By Karen

Part 2 – Meetings vs. Online

I’ve joined Weight Watchers® twice before, pre-Internet, attending weekly weigh-ins and listening to some ex-fattie-turned-evangelist extol the virtues of celery, à la Betty Draper on Mad Men.

Both times, I stopped going after amassing the literature needed to follow the plan alone. And it worked — until I stopped counting points. Then pounds came back, plus.

At meetings, what always struck me as odd was their effusive welcomes for returning members who were fat again.

Those people weren’t heroes. They were walking advertisements for failure.

Maybe I’m just too cynical.

But for years after I left WW myself, I’d periodically receive mailings begging me to come back, as if they KNEW I was regaining.

So now who’s cynical?

I’ve never needed clergy or some born-again stick figure to shepherd my spiritual progress and tell me in a group setting what’s good, what’s bad, how to think, and what to eat, so this time I opted for Weight Watchers® online.

So far I’m fine. It’s also cheaper — $18.95 a month. (Couldn’t find meeting pricing on the site, but a monthly pass is $42.95, where available.)

The site isn’t without issues. And the mobile apps are iffy, including iPad incompatibility thanks to heavy reliance on Adobe Flash, so can’t really use them.

For example, the cornerstone of Weight Watchers® is tracking and assigning points to every blessed thing you consume. The window for this task is small and not resizable. You can’t see a full day without scrolling. The pane of your past foods list, from which you can supposedly drag and drop to save time, requires so much scrolling, it’s usually quicker to just retype. It’s all very annoying.

So I track on paper and enter sketchy info on the site to make the “You’re not tracking!” exclamation point go away.

For speed, you’re also supposed to be able to group things into “meals” so they’re one entry. I’ve never gotten that to work.

The tracking itself goes into overkill. In addition to food and exercise (for Activity Points), there’s a grid for number of glasses of liquid, dairy servings, fruit and veggie servings, vitamins, healthy oils, and activity (again).

This has nothing to do with points, but merely earns checkmarks or smiley faces on your progress reports. If you need affirmation to such a fine degree, go for it. I abandoned the grid after a few weeks. Life’s too short.

The site is the repository for PointsPlus® values for lots of generic and name-brand foods. It’s virtually impossible to calculate P+ yourself. Exercise 4 Weight Loss is an unaffiliated and far superior source of WW points for restaurant food, listed conveniently by restaurant.

Next, I’ll explain PointsPlus®.