Shifting Gears

It’s not rocket science!  In order to lose weight, you take in fewer calories than you burn.  To maintain weight, calories in = caolories burned and to gain you eat like a pig as I did over the holidays – great food and drinks, plenty of parties to introduce me to lots of yummy stuff that I didn’t have to cook plus social eating always packs in more calories!  So why do I even think I can act that way and not gain?  DUH!

To add to my frustration, I finally opened the program booklet they gave me at Weight Watchers a few weeks ago (I go in monthly to weigh and as long as I’m <2 pounds over my goal weight, I don’t have to pay – great incentive for a cheapskate like me).  Seems they have a new formula to count your points and my daily allowance has DROPPED!  I need to start digging ditches or something physical so I’m allowed to eat more – but this day job is my enemy.  So – I’m back to counting points and feeling quite virtuous when I stay on track (hey, just 2 days – doesn’t take long for me to feel virtuous!!!) and knowing that next week I’ll have dropped AT LEAST one size – not really – I’m not THAT dense!  But counting points does appeal to my left brain and keeps me on track.  I even came home and cooked today – after adding up breakfast and lunch and figuring in dinner and then getting a treat of a bag of fat-free popcorn.

Much as I dislike January – cold weather, gets dark early, prospect of snow – I do like the return to “normal” after the holidays.  I can come home after work or the gym, eat dinner and then read or knit – and know that in a few months it will warm up and Mulligan (the world’s smartest dog) and I can resume our evening walks and pretty soon we can open the pool.   For now I’ll savor a good book in my easy chair tonight.