Monday, June 4, 2007

This is actually in response to Buzz's comment about WW, but since it ended up being too long for a comment I decided to make it a post.

I've been tracking food & exercise through another site (SparkPeople) and mostly it drives me crazy. You're supposed to make sure you're checking portions - which is fine - and noting everything... but how do people do this (there or on WW) and cook? Half the time I'm not following a recipe, so either I measure everything I use, check calories for each component, and then estimate servings for (what's still) a guess on calories per portion, or I guess from the start.

Is WW easier for this? Most of the time I'm just trying to eat sensibly, because I really can't be bothered/driven to assign calories. (Green salad + 6 cherry tomatoes + 1/2 T olive oil + vinegar + 1/2 t. soy sauce + dill = ???) I remember there's a "core" plan on WW that makes it much easier, but is it worth paying $25 a month?

Short rant: I'm already paying $24 a month for a membership at Bally's that is utterly useless as they closed my club. Apparently, even though I only signed up for one club knowing that I would never use the alternate (mall!) location, when my club closed I was required to switch my membership to the other (mall!) location. Really, that blows. If I was going to go somewhere to work out, it certainly wouldn't be THE MALL.
(/rant)

3 comments:

luckybuzz said...

Well--I never paid for WW--I track my points on an Excel spreadsheet. I did buy the points book (from ebay), but I get most of the nutrition info from calorieking.com or something like that. But then, I tend to eat a lot of the same foods over & over, so it's pretty easy...and I totally don't cook. :)

I totally get why it's a pain in the ass, overall, though...Let me know if you want to talk more about it!

Artistic Soul said...

I follow WW very loosely -- I hate the counting. It makes me feel obsessive and makes me even more anxious about my weight. What I have been doing since I cook a lot is try to shop for only 2 portions - this makes shopping lists a little tricky since most recipes are proportioned for 4-6, but it's worth it: I save a lot of money by not buying more than I need, and I eat less.

Some cookbooks that are designed for 2 portions only are helpful -- WW has a couple I use on a very regular basis, but I also pull stuff off of Cooking Light's website since you can tell it to scale the recipes down if you want.

Margie said...

Ah, this is good feedback. Buzz, I knew you'd found some alternative to paying monthly fees -- it sounds pretty close to the sparkpeople thing.

wiccachicky, I totally feel ya with the obsessive bit. The portion control is a good idea, although I usually make enough for four and freeze two of the servings. I will check out Cooking Light, too.

Today I started my (sorta pathetic) strength training, so we'll see if that helps. From a lot of the reading I've been doing, it seems it *should* help!!