Weight Watchers Needs Rollover Points

It’s that time of year again. You know the one, where everyone is looking at the holidays and the pies, cookies, cakes, and candy and thinking their buttons are already on the verge of being dangerous projectiles. It’s hit our house as well. More to the point, it’s hit me.

Since becoming a fulltime writer my get up and go has turned into sit down and type and as a result, my 12 pack abs have turned into a case working their way slowly toward a keg. In order to deflate my growing flotation device, the girls have put me back on Weight Watchers and the fun has been taken out of food once again. We tried this about four years ago and truth be told it worked fairly well. It wasn’t fun, but it worked, and then like a mental patient who thinks he’s doing great and can skip his meds, I tossed the diet when I should have been tossing a healthy salad. Of course, that’s better than tossing my cookies, which is another post about a party we’ll talk about later.

I don’t know if you are familiar with the Weight Watchers rules of weight loss, so I’ll give a brief description. They don’t necessarily tell you what to eat or not eat as some other diets do, which to me has made some sickly looking people. I mean, you can’t cut out an entire food group and be balanced. What Weight Watchers does is give you a points system based on your weight and you are supposed to stay within those points. Food is given a point value based on fiber, fat, protein, and carbohydrates and you base your meals around obtaining the lowest points possible.

As an added bonus, you are given weekly points that you can dip into for special occasions or if you’re like me can’t seem to stay within in your daily allotment. You can also earn points by exercising and even cleaning the house. Climbing up a ladder to hang Christmas lights for ten minutes is worth ten points. Personally, I think I should get points for getting out of the bed, but the girls think I am just being whiny.

The other day, I didn’t use all of my points. I actually had three left over and was excited, until I found out that like most vacation days with big companies, they don’t carry over into the next time period. If you don’t use them, you lose them. I wanted to get out of bed and have some popcorn, which is three points by the way, just so I didn’t waste points. I remembered those old AT&T commercials where little orange disks represented unused minutes and if you didn’t use them you could roll them over into the next bill cycle instead of losing them. They even came up with the creative name, Rollover Minutes. Weight Watchers needs that campaign. If you’re going to give me points, I shouldn’t be punished with losing them because I did good one day. Of course, that’s the whole concept with the point system; you lose points as you lose weight. With that goal in mind, why would I want to lose weight? Zac still lives here and can help me off the couch and by the time he escapes the house, the 9 year-old will be old enough to lend me a hand. I can stay at my current point value and have a full stomach.

The points are not just based on the foods you eat, but the quantity as well. A cup of rice is worth fewer points than say three cups. Everything is measured out, which means that now measuring cups are part of setting the table. Knife, fork, spoon, and measuring cup. I am no longer allowed to drown my salad in dressing and I have to be careful how many croutons I add to it. There are foods with “free” points, but sadly those are not the fun, tasty ones.

I was also told I couldn’t use the measuring cups the way I wanted to. The first time I picked one up to measure out my potatoes, I smashed them down in the cup to fill it up as much as I could. There were air pockets and I wasn’t eating air or having it used against me. I was quickly informed this isn’t the way to do things and now have my food measured out for me. I’m halfway to the old folk’s home and eating baby food.

I know, I’m grumbling. That’s actually my tummy rumbling. I have lost weight. I’ve also lost my patience. And temper. Diets are not fun and most are not easy. We are creatures of habit, especially me. I am used to having that afterschool snack with the 9 year-old and then popcorn late at night as I catch up on my shows. I’m used to eating the fun foods and avoiding the healthy choices. It’s been a lifestyle change to be sure and not an easy one. Still it’s a better one and it’s supposed to help me be around to aggravate them for a long time, which is the main goal after all, and makes it all worth it. I’m just hoping they have Chunky Monkey ice cream in Heaven.

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