Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Not So Much

Maintenance is, quite frankly, boring.

I have two more weeks to go until I'm Lifetime (free meetings for as long as I maintain my weight below 136 pounds...)

Technically, I think I'm not supposed to get below 132 pounds, either, but I think most leaders don't enforce that.

I'm not currently very happy with Weight Watcher's web site. If you're familiar with the site, you've probably already heard these complaints, but I'm going to reiterate them anyway.

I enter my weight on Tuesday morning, even tho my meetings are on Monday nights, since the day you enter your weight is when the site resets the weekly points meter. As far as I've ever been able to determine, there's no way to change this setting. Reality-wise speaking, it doesn't (or shouldn't) really matter when my points reset, and yet as we all know, losing weight is at least 75% a head game. The tricks we learn to help us cope with the fact that (and I still doubt this assertion) "nothing tastes as good as being thin feels," for the most part, we'd all rather be eating. (Especially me. Technically, I'm "thin". Or, at least, normal... and I don't feel it. I don't feel good about myself, I don't catch glimpses in the mirror and think "oh, wow, look at me." I look in the mirror and say "Jaysus! How can I have lost 85 pounds and still look like I should have Goodyear tattooed on my ass?" Believe me, chocolate cake tastes a LOT better than how I feel most days.)

So... my meetings are Monday night, and I enter my weight first thing Tuesday morning. (This also keeps the site from yelling at me all day Monday about not weighing in when my meeting isn't until 5:30pm anyway!)

I declared goal at 134 pounds. I actually weighed 133.4.

The next two weeks (weeks 1 and 2 of my six week maintenance period) I had no changes. That was pretty impressive, actually... week three, last week, I lost .4 pounds, which took me to 133 flat.

When I entered that weight in the site, I got the following (quoted from memory, so it might be slightly inaccurate) "Don't forget, you are supposed to be maintaining your weight. You might want to increase your points intake!"

Ok, look. I'm one pound BELOW my goal weight. This is not cause for alarm. Weight does, shockingly enough, fluctuate. Even a completely healthy person's weight can vary by up to 5 pounds in a single day just from intake, salt, chemical changes, etc.

This week, I gained a pound. I am now exactly on my goal weight, exactly 134 pounds.

And guess what?

If you said "I bet the site provided negative feedback again," you would be exactly correct!

"Oh! You gained a pound! Well, that's normal in maintenance. You might want to consider going back to what you did to lose weight in the first place."

I mean, talk about a contradictory message. Is it "normal" or is it "going back to what I was doing that made me lose weight."?

What's wrong with "You are still exactly in your range for maintenance. Good job!"

Grumbles.

In two weeks, I should hopefully be lifetime. And I'm seriously considering whether or not I want to continue to use the eTools, since they're currently "free" with my monthly pass, but if I want to keep using them after I am lifetime, I will have to pay the monthly fee. There isn't even a discount for Lifetime members, and the site is NOT what you'd call cheap. Hell, my Warcraft monthly fee is less than Weight Watchers. And believe me, I spend a LOT more of my time there.

So... the fact that the eTools feedback tends to be negative... well, it bugs me.

(While I was losing weight, it bugged me as well, so it's not like this is a new complaint. As I went along, entering my weights, I found that unless I lost over 1 pound but less than 2 pounds, I did NOT get encouraging feedback... what I often got was snarky feedback. "You lost .4 pounds. Are you happy with your weight loss? If not, see your leader for ideas on how you can increase your loss!")

Now, don't get me wrong, I get a lot out of the Weight Watcher's site, not the least of which is a slew of recipes that I use regularly.

But still... I'm wondering.

Do I really want to pay for something that frustrates me on a weekly basis?

(Addendum: It is possible, with Thomas's work "Health Initiatives" that we might be able to be reimbursed for the eTools... since he's also a lifetime member, if he signs back up for eTools after I make lifetime, I can use the tools to get my recipes and whatnot, ignore the tracker, and not deal with the snarky feedback. His company pays up to $250 a year for health initiatives - in addition to, I might add, paying his entry fee for the 5K he's running in October - and provided I can find some way of printing a reciept for the eTools, we can get it reimbursed to us. A year's worth of eTools is $192... so... I think we will go that route.)

13 comments:

A Daunting Tale of Scale Warfare said...

I get frustrated with that too. I understand that they have to used "canned" messages of a sort, but seriously, if I'm up a pound, dont tell me to go back to what I was doing before, it's pretty likely that the 1 lb was water weight. Also if I lose 3 lbs in a week, dont tell me I'm going to fast...I just lost 2 lbs plus that 1 lb of water weight from the week before!

Rebecca said...

Thats sad to hear!

Only at 14 lbs lost still have about 30 to go and cant wait to get to maintenance.

Although I know my eating probably won't change too much, I was looking forward to getting rid of the stress of weekly weigh-ins and obsessive Point counting.

Diane, Fit to the Finish said...

That would frustrate me too! You'd think the messages for maintainers like you would be different somehow.

Regardless of their loser messages - you have done an amazing job!

Jeremy Beker said...

Random suggestion for reimbursement as I spend way too much time filling out expense reports. If you pay by credit card, once it hits your bill, go to your credit card website, they usually have a search function which you can use to narrow down the display to only the eTools item, print that out and there you go, instant receipt!

(We won't talk about how easy that would be to forge and generate fake receipts...)

big_mummy said...

that would really frustrate me too and really if your not getting enough positive out of it to outweigh that (no pun intended) then really i doubt its worth it.... but heck you could always go back to it at a later point if you felt you needed it.

Anonymous said...

Wow! Congratulations on reaching your goal! Maintenance must be all kinds of crazy - mess with your mind times... LOL! Good luck!!

Hanlie said...

That would seriously annoy me! I am a living, breathing, human being, not a machine!

Crabby McSlacker said...

Getting snarky messages like that would drive me nuts, especially when you're doing exactly what you're supposed to! They definitely need to fix that.

carla said...

hmmm do I see the fact youve discovered a need?
a niche to be filled?

HOW COOL WOULD IT BE FOR YOU TO LAUNCH AN "I MADE IT NOW I WANNA STAY HERE" maintainence site.

and I laugh that yesterday I did a post called MAINTAINING ISNT SEXY.
a video lament/call for tips.

can I link this?

Journo June aka MamaBear said...

That would annoy me, too. I like just giving myself my own comments whether it's an Attagirl or a good beating. ;-)
Path to Health

Easy Losing Weight said...

We all go through stuggles from time to time. Its part of the journey. Hang in there.
Love the blog.

Emmett said...

You can do it!

Wendy @unsafeatanysize said...

I am still on the loss side at WW, but also find the etools comments annoying. I'm not using the point tracking so much anymore, but still like tracking my weight. Nice to know that when I'm officially at maintenance the comments will be annoying in a new way.

Speaking of maintenance, I'm looking for a word that is more exciting. More verby. More doing something than not doing something (e.g., losing or gaining). There's gotta be something!