My company’s new cafeteria management has changed up the food choices and other features of the cafeteria in my building. For the most part this translates into slightly better, but more expensive food. Just to give you an example, it now costs more to buy a grande Starbucks coffee in the cafeteria than it does to go to Starbucks and get it.

Thus, I typically have been avoiding the cafeteria as my budget will typically not allow me to spend upwards of $10 on lunch. Yesterday I made an exception.

While getting myself some “free” coffee in the pantry kitchen, I was looking at the board which provides us with the weekly menu from the cafeteria and noticed that they were hosting a chef from Cooking Light magazine down there yesterday preparing the cover dish from the May 2008 Cooking Light. Cool.

Being on Weight Watchers and a fan of Cooking Light in general, I decided to go and get me some of that.

Chai-Brined Shrimp Skewers is what he was making…with a few variations.  First, they weren’t skewered.  Not sure if they didn’t have skewers in the cafeteria, but it may just be that it was easier (and a little safer) to serve without sharp sticks of bamboo.  The other addition was a lovely side of lentils and then the shrimp and mango were served on a bed of rice and topped with the lovely chai sauce. (WW Points: 6)

Yum.

So you can visit the link above for the recipe so you can try it at home if you like.  I would definitely recommend it…and clearly you don’t need to let a lack of skewers stop you.

So from April 26 through last Saturday I took it easy.  I kinda-sorta tried to stay on WW.  I kinda-sorta counted my points.  I kinda-sorta made decent (if not always good) food choices.  And then I felt like I could go back and get myself weighed-in again this past Saturday, May 10.  SUCCESS!!  In the 3 weeks since I had been in the last time, I dropped an additional 6.4 pounds!  Wahoo!!

The troops have officially rallied and I am completely back on board and feeling invigorated by this recent “win”.  In fact, I only have 6 more pounds until I hit my Weight Watcher’s goal weight (although that still puts me about 20 pounds above where I want to be personally).  This means that, in total, I’ve lost 28.4 pounds to date.  That’s a little over the weight of 3 gallons of milk.  Wow.

I also found this week that I’m really starting to gain back a lot of my wardrobe which is a HUGE thing for me (again, no pun intended).  I’ve had a lot of people say that I should go out and buy new clothes, but I’m not ready to spend money like that when I still have a ways to go, additionally I’m more excited by the prospect of being able to wear stuff I haven’t been able to wear in over a year.  To me, that’s almost better than getting new clothes.

Okay, so I’ll go again on Saturday – hopefully the trend will continue and I can hit my WW goal in the next few weeks and then on to the next milemarker!

Anyway, I’ve been having a tough time the last few weeks.  I’ve haven’t exactly fallen off the wagon (read: gone crazy eating pints of Ben & Jerry’s), but I haven’t been journalling or keeping track of my points.  Again I say, bad, bad Deb.

And so the last weigh-in I had (a week and a half ago) I had gained a pound.  This past week I didn’t go b/c I felt sure there would be a similar outcome.  I will definitely go this Saturday, but in the meantime I need to try and get my head back in the game – I’m just not sure how to do that.

Anyone have any suggestions??

I know I’ve been remiss in writing lately.  My bad.  Really.  I’ve been crazy busy doing stuff and work and then my WW has not gone terribly well the last couple of weeks.  2 weeks ago I had only lost .2 pounds.  Still a loss, I know, so I celebrated it just the same.  Last week, however, I was actually UP .8 pounds.  Now my roommate’s response to this was, “That’s not even a whole pound!” and she’s right, I know, but that still doesn’t make me feel good about it.

I know what my problem is, too.  I’m not sticking well enough to my points.  I find I’m going over my points by 3 or 4 every day, mainly because I’m still hungry.  I suppose I could try loading up on lettuce or something, but I really hate rabbit food – especially without dressing (which I’d have to do without if I was aiming for a zero points snack).  Sigh.

This week I’ve been doing pretty well, but still struggling to stay under my points limit.  Last week was a little tougher – I went out to eat at a Thai place, and I had my uncle’s famous Chocolate Chunk Cookies (which were TOTALLY worth .8 pounds if that’s what I gained it from! )

I’m just hoping that this week I’ll see a little movement in the opposite direction.

The blessings include:

• Being able to reach things on high shelves
• Being able to see over a crowd of people waiting in line
• Being able to carry excess weight without it being obvious.

The curses include:

• Finding clothes (and cute shoes) that fit well can be a challenge
• Finding taller men can likewise be a challenge
• Being able to carry excess weight without it being obvious.

As you probably noticed the last bullet on both is the same.  There is a a definite perk to being able to “wear” extra weight well which I think probably goes without saying, however the downside to this is that I find others to not be as supportive as they might otherwise be.

For instance, when I mentioned to some friends that I was going to start Weight Watchers, the general reaction was something like this:  “What?!  Why?!  You look fine!”  To which my standard response was, “Thanks, but you haven’t seen me naked.”

I do not think that the solution to this is to carry a naked picture of myself around to whip out whenever someone gets on my case by saying that they don’t think I need to lose weight.  I might get arrested.  However I do find that I end up defending my choice more than not.  This, as you might imagine, can get annoying.

Of course I would probably find it equally frustrating if the response was more along the lines of, “Well, it’s about time.”  Yes, I think that would indeed be worse.

What’s even funnier is how, when I lose weight, everyone is always equally shocked that I could have possibly had that much to lose.  For instance, since I’m currently 18 pounds lighter, you wouldn’t believe how mouths drop open when I tell people that.  “18 pounds?!  Really?!  Are you sure?!  I didn’t even think you had that much to lose!”  Yep.  I did.  And I’m not done.  There’s still another 30-some pounds hanging on these bones that needs to take a permanent hike.

Regardless of all this – and what I really wanted to say here is that it’s not about what anyone else thinks…  Rather, it’s only what I think that matters.  After all, I’m the only one that HAS to see me naked every day.  I’m the one who has to stand in front of my closet full of clothes that fit me perfectly once upon a time, but now I couldn’t squeeze into without a good slathering of Crisco and a crowbar.  I’m the one who needs to feel comfortable in my own skin.

I’ve been there before and it was a nice place.  I want to go back.