This is What Drives Me CRAZY about Weight Watchers

I just saw this on the ever-so-helpful Weight Watchers website:

"For 3 POINTS values* you can have half of a plain, small fast-food burger "

Excuse me, but who the FUCK eats half of a plain, small fast-food burger???

*POINTS values, for those not up on WW speak, means you can eat on average 22-24 points per day.

If This Isn't Enough

To keep me from munching on the holiday snacks being delivered to our office by the truckload....



...nothing is.

Does anyone else feel sorry for that chair? ;-)

Obesity...Part Deux

Who could imagine all that could happen as a result of purchasing a stupid scale?

As my previous post mentioned, I bought a new scale. This new purchase of mine tells me I'm 44% body fat. While I don't necessarily believe its technology and doubted its reading to be true, I was realistic enough to know that my body fat percentage was higher than it should be.

So last week, I had my body fat percentage tested at a nutritionist's office. (Said nutritionist also mentioned that I should start eating meat again -- which I found a bit strange for a Northern California nutritionist, but I digress...) Thankfully, my real body fat percentage is not 44%. But it ain't very pretty. It's 36%. And I should be in the vacinity of 24%. Oooof.

So now I'm faced with a decision: A.)Ignore it. Or B.) Do something about it.

I opted for B and decided to join Weight Watchers. I know. How dorky. But they must do something right. They've been around for 40 years and are the number one weight loss plan around for keeping weight off.

My friend Marissa decided to join me in my quest to lose a few. Which then led to the two of us crafting a little competition. Who could lose the most weight in a 10-week timeframe? The winner (ie: biggest loser) pays the loser (ie: not the biggest loser) $150 bucks.

That led to adding our frind Christina into our little competition. Which led to adding Judi, and Alison and Ally and Terry. Now we've got seven participants in our little weight loss-apalooza.

The rules are simple: she who loses the largest percentage of body weight after 10 weeks collects $150 from all the other participants. That's a total windfall of $900 smackers.

I'm going to win.

Think of the yarn I'll buy.

I'll keep you posted. Or you can follow along at our blog.

I Am Obese

Yup. It's official. I'm obese.

I'm 43 years old (horrors!), almost 5 foot 9, wear a size 12 on most occasions, and yet, I'm obese.

O.B.E.S.E.

Not pleasantly plump. Not slightly overweight. Obese.

I could live with "she could lose a few pounds." I would prefer that some of my pants were less snug. And really, who couldn't drop 10 pounds and look better?

But obese? I'm having a hard time with this one.

Just where am I getting this data? Tanita. The scale people.

It all started with an Amazon Prime membership*. That's where you pay Amazon a $75 flat fee per year and get free 2nd day shipping on ANY product sold by Amazon. (The fine print: sold by Amazon -- not a third party merchant.)

Even with the fine print, it's a great deal. Especially if you share the membership with a friend from work. (You can add up to three family members on your account.) So according to Amazon, Christina and I are sisters. Hi Sis. How's your free shipping?

Anyway, back to my little obesity issue.

Christina ordered a new Tanita scale through her Amazon Prime account. (The amount of Amazon stuff that now arrives at our office is a little scary...).

She loves it. It's all digital. It gives body fat and water content percentages. Me, being the shopping whore that I am, think: "Why shouldn't I spend $50 bucks to save $7.99 in shipping? I need a new scale. My scale must be 15 years old, isn't digital and I should know my body fat and water percentages, too."

Two days later my scale arrived.

The next morning I got on it.

And holy fat ass, Batman -- my body fat percentage came up as 44%. Forty-fucking-four percent. What is that??? My body is almost 50 percent fat??? How could that be? Am I one of those people who don't realize that my belly is hanging over my pants? My ass fits in a coach airplane seat just fine. I work out. I can get my heart rate to 165 and still breathe. Yet I'm 44% body fat??

Then I look at the handy chart that Tanita provides, and low and behold -- I'm obese.

My husband doesn't believe any of this. He completely poo-pood their claims:

"Tanita has patented a revolutionary new way of measuring BIA that is faster, easier, less intrusive and includes a precision scale making this a simple one-step process. In fact, Tanita was the first company to introduce the world to the body fat monitor/scale. Tanita's monitor looks just like a bathroom scale. A person inputs age, gender and height, then steps onto the platform. Electrodes in the foot sensor pads send a low, safe signal through the body. Weight is calculated automatically along with body fat content in less than a minute. All Body Fat Monitor/Scales and UltimateScales feature Tanita's patented BIA method."

But he's not the one they're calling obese. I think it's time to find me someone with some fat calipers and determine my true fat count.

After I have my ice cream Sunday, of course. (Ha!)

*Imagine if Amazon sold yarn? It would be insane.