Farewell Footlong

I guess I really did burn out on HCG. I'm still supposed to be eating according to HCG protocol until Saturday, but I just scrapped it. (And this is my fault, not the diet's fault). Yesterday I went grocery shopping and got all stocked up on stuff to do the WW plan.

But the first thing I was going to do was get Subway. It's been a really long time, and Subway is the absolute only eating out I ever do. EVER. I'm not saying I wouldn't go to a restaurant or something, but it is definitely not part of our lifestyle to eat out. We have lived in Washington for 3 months and have never gone out to a restaurant here. Anyway, so I wanted Subway. And luckily, Subway isn't too hard to work into the WW plan. All I had to do was count the points and plan for it.

Now--I know that Subway is a great choice. And I always get the whole wheat bread and the healthy choice sandwiches, and if I get chips (which I always do) they are baked. And I never get soda. All I ever drink is water. Anyway, I also always get a footlong. It's so easy and convenient--$5 footlong and all that. I can't remember the last time I got a measly 6 inch.

Some of you may have your eyes bulging out of your head right about now. A footlong is HUGE. But you know what, it's okay--if you work it into your plan.

So this morning for breakfast I made a nice fruit salad with apples, strawberries, grapes and bananas. It was totally good, and zero points. Then when the kids ate lunch, I had some wheat thins. I calculated the points and decided I could "afford" them for four points. No biggie.

Okay, back up for a second--I am supposed to eat 28 points for the day. You can also earn activity points for your exercise, and you can use those, but you shouldn't really use them unless it's a special occasion. I mean, just because I earned 12 activity points yesterday doesn't mean it would have been okay for me to eat 3 four-point desserts. You can use those points if you need to, but in my mind, using them very sparingly is the best way to do it.

So back to today's food. After I got the kids fed and their lunch all cleaned up, I made myself one of my favorite things that I've been missing for a while--sauteed zucchini, summer squash and onion, with  minced garlic. I ate a big ol' bowl of it, and it tasted fabulous. Zero points.

At this point I was up to 4 points for the day. Jared and I had planned to have Subway together for dinner, and I found myself willing him to get home from work early, which has been fairly common since we got here, but becoming less so as they get their workplace back together. Anyway, I wasn't physically hungry. But I really wanted to eat some real, substantial food. And eating dinner early would be great, because tonight was book club anyway. It was hard! Psychologically I felt like I hadn't eaten all day, when I actually had eaten more at that point in the day than I had been doing on HCG. Anyway, finally at about 3:45 Jared got home, and I left to go grab Subway.

For me--a footlong turkey breast and black forest ham on 9-grain wheat, with American cheese. Lettuce, tomatoes, onions, light mayo and mustard. And a bag of baked lays. That, my friends, was a meal worth 23 points. Yes--23. I had calculated it in the morning, so I knew how big it was. And I planned for it--with the wheat thins, it brought me to 27 points. Not too shabby, right?

Here's what I learned--it's a bad idea to lump all your points together like that. I hadn't planned on doing that on a regular basis, but Subway days are special, so I figured it'd be okay. Well, it wasn't. I finished my sub around 4:30, and was out of points. I tried really hard--I ate lots of watermelon, and had some sugar free jello--all zero points. But for some reason, it wasn't cutting it. I held out for a long time, but in the end, I just gave up and ate some frozen cookie dough. And then when they served strawberry shortcake at book club, I ate some. !!!!! And then I came home and ate more frozen cookie dough.

This is a really bad thing to do, you know. I'm trying to make the best of it by figuring out what it is that makes the binge monster inside me tick. I mean, for real?? Why did I do that?

I have decided that I am done with the footlongs, first of all. I do love Subway, but if I would just get myself a 6 inch and skip the chips, it would be 8.5 points, and I can handle that. Fruit or veggies on the side, and I'm still good. I have got to change the Subway mentality from footlong with chips to 6 inch with produce. And I need to more evenly spread out my points. If I eat 7 points at each meal, that leaves 7 points for snacks in between. And with fruits and veggies being zero points, that should be fine. Balance. I've always been pretty good at balancing my food groups, but I have never been good at balancing my eating times. I usually just eat a banana for breakfast and nothing else, eat some vegetables for lunch, and do the bulk of my eating at night because that's when I really want to eat. Changing that kind of scares me, because I think I'm going to eat more earlier, and have less later, and I'll still want to eat a lot at night time. So I'm going to have to try and retrain myself to having smaller portions from every group at each meal. It's going to be difficult, I think, but I really want to try. I kind of tried when I tried the biggest loser plan, and I screwed it up big time because once I got started eating good stuff, I didn't want to stop. My portion control is all kinds of crazy. Totally out of whack. So I hope that balancing my eating times doesn't backfire on me. But I have to try it, because I think it's really important if I want to train myself to have good eating habits come naturally to me. I want to just eat like a normal person and not think I have to keep going back for more. I want one serving to be enough. I do not want one small, normal portion to be a trigger to just keep going.

I will figure it out. WW was supposed to be so easy after HCG. HCG is so, so super strict. I have really been looking forward to all I would get to eat on the Weight Watcher's plan, and this first day of counting points didn't really go the way I had hoped. So, farewell footlong.

Tomorrow I will post some concrete goals I've been tossing around in my mind--having to do with exercise, water, etc. I hate that I screwed up my day. I always end up feeling horrible when I do this. But I am trying to learn from it, and I am working toward healing myself of the habits that hold me back.

It's hard.