Apr 22 2008
Good to the Core
I’m still enjoying my bento boxes. And now I’m taking them one step further in the direction of healthy eating.
I know I’ve mentioned before that I’m a Lifetime Member at Weight Watchers. That means I got to my goal weight and maintained it. And I did that really well too. Unfortunately, I kind of goofed up my eating habits while I was unemployed for several months. I got back on track, but the weight-gain damage had been done.
No problem! I know what I need to do. I did it before. But I just couldn’t get motivated to stick with it this time for some reason. The things I’d found fun about Weight Watchers the first time around (like discovering low Point foods) weren’t inspiring me like last time.
So after some research and soul searching, I decided to try the Core plan. Weight Watchers offers two plans; Core and Flex. Flex means you have to count Points for everything, but you can eat whatever you want. Core means you have a restricted set of foods that you can eat until you are satisfied (i.e. not hungry) and you don’t have to count. That’s the nutshell version of course; I’d explain more, but WW tends to get twitchy when people give away their plan details for free. But if you’re a Weight Watchers member, ask on the website or at your meetings for full details.
Part of the reason I finally decided I might be able to manage the Core plan’s food restrictions is that I realized most of my bento box lunches were largely or entirely Core already. And the things that weren’t Core yet were things like white flour pasta and white rice, which could be easily swapped for whole wheat pasta and brown rice or other grains.
I’ve been doing the Core plan for a week now, and I’m very happy with it. I *feel* like I’m eating healthier. Lots of fruits and veggies, whole grains, lean meats. And I still have 35 “weekly Points” plus any extra Points I earn from exercise for the occasional treat of non-Core foods (I had french vanilla ice cream with banana slices and strawberries last night; it was decadent).
I won’t be weighing in until Thursday since I have yoga tonight, so we’ll have to see how the scale feels about the Core plan. But I think either way I’m going to stick with it for a while. I’ll let everyone know how it goes.
