Sunday, January 20, 2008

I switched to CORE

...for about an hour yesterday. I was running into the market for a few things yesterday. They had their soups on sale. I LOVE soups, but can never really get into canned ones. I decided I'd go home and make some chicken and barley veggie soup. I got some barley from the bulk bin and went home.

While it was simmering on the stove, I put all the ingredients through the recipe builder on WW. I was already thinking about CORE since we had talked a lot about it in the WW meeting earlier. Our leader was just encouraging us to eat more CORE foods since they are the healthier options anyway. I really was considering making that leap.

After I had all my ingredients in the recipe builder, I realized they all had the little blue checkmark by them to denote they were all CORE foods. I ate a bowl of the soup and thought, 'yep, I can do this. No more counting every little thing. Just stick to the list."

I cleaned up the mess from making soup and what was my next venture in the kitchen? Dinner. Ham. Roasted root vegetables. Corn. And BREAD. That was the clincher. I switched back to flex then and there.

I know that processed foods are NOT good for you. TURST ME I know that baked stuff makes me crave more and more of it. But that's not what I am talking about here. Last night with our dinner we had a loaf of wheat germ bread. It had freshly groud whole wheat flour (soft white, hard red and spelt), honey, molasses, yeast, water, olive oil, buttermilk and wheat germ in it. It was dark and rich and so good with dinner. I didn't put it through the recipe builder because it's not so different from the other wheat breads I have done that all came out at 3 points/slice. I'm not sure if that is giving me the max for fiber or not, because I KNOW this flour has way more fiber than the flour at the store.

But I really love baking. I love giving that to my family, too. How can I walk away from that now? I know I can use my WPA for that on CORE and maybe I'll decide to do that. But I also adore my vanilla Fat Free yogurt. It has no artificial sweetners so it costs me a point more than yoplait, but I think that's OK.

I should say that although I went to a meeting yesterday morning, I didn't weigh in. I know I'm probably up a little again. It's been TOM (again-what's with every 2 weeks?!) and I just slacked off on my water last week really badly. I am still a few (like 3-4) pounds about where I really want to be. I decided that I am going to really buckle down for 2 weeks, getting all my water and staying within my points. At that point I should be down a little and can try to be just "maintaining" again. I really haven't been in losing mode since sometime in November. That would be OK if I didn't gain those pounds during the week of Christmas. I really would like them GONE. Just so I can feel that sense of accomplishment that I really have lost the weight.

8 comments:

Kathy said...

I think you increase your WPA to 65 on maintenance...that's quite a few, but the comfort level just has to be there or it won't work for you. That's why we have a choice of plans! You know what I say about trying to wear that pair of great looking shoes that are the wrong size! They may look pretty but you're going to suffer every time you put them on.

noelle said...

Kathy, with maintenance the WPA is 63. Or if you do flex part time and core part time (which they give as an option) then it's 9 a day. that's 3 slices of bread...or 2 with jam! :0)

Swizzlepop said...

Have you tried baking with white wheat flower? Roni uses it and it seems to work well. I tried it once but the overall recipe didn't really work for my tasts. Try King Arthur's Flour http://www.kingarthurflour.com/

noelle said...

Swizzlepop, I'm trying to get away from purchased flours and making my own fresh. It's much far superior nutrionally. I am using different varieties of wheat to see what I like the best and what we prefer the taste of.

The KAF white whole wheat flour is still pretty heavily processed. And it comes from soft white wheat berries.

Anonymous said...

That's why WW worked for me. It's flexible and you can lose weight with whichever plan works for you.

I'm not a baker at all, but I found a nice whole grain german dark wheat bread that I enjoy. Two, actually. One is Arnold's (4 pts for 2 slices), the other is Pepperidge Farms (3 pts for 2 slices).

TB--Milwaukee said...

I think I'd be more obsessed with my points than I am now if I did core. I'd be worried about using too many in one day and not having any left after a few days. I do eat a lot of core foods, but still a few too many breads, peanut butter and ice cream to switch to core.

Caroline said...

Core terrifies me. I know it shouldn't, and I know people love it and that is awesome. But when I look at my points tracker at the end of the day, there are not all that many core foods checked except those that I have worked pretty hard to get in. I'm trying to get better, but basically I really admire people on Core. I wish I could do it!

Kathy said...

Just noticed the new (?) picture of you and the kiddos on your sidebar! So cute! Why do kids always have to make faces as soon as a camera comes out?