Weighty Wednesday -- Tracking Trends

I lost another pound at weigh-in, but managed to undo any good I did last night.

*sigh* Sometimes it happens that way.

But I have the tools: tracking, portion control, knowledge and support to get back in control. Shoot, let's get real, even those people who aren't on Weight Watchers have the 'tools'. You know what you have to do, the key is to actually doing it!

So, what do I mean by tracking trends?

When I track, I provide more information than is technically necessary--if I do a quick add, I will add the time of the add. This gives me an idea of how often I eat along with the quantity.

Here are a few of my observations:

Portions--This is a biggie since our eyes tend to see things differently from reality. Weighing and measuring is the only way to figure this one out. Weighing in grams is more accurate than weighing in ounces. Another problem with portion control is plate size. The smaller the plate makes the smaller amounts of food look like more than it really is, which is better for those of us who enjoy quantity over quality. The fact is that if  you eat out, the plates are HUGE, which means you receive more than an appropriate portion, therefore 2-3 servings on your plate instead of one. You have to weigh and measure at home to keep yourself in the right mindset when you eat out.

Tracking--writing everything down is pinnacle to succeeding. When I was at goal, I became lazy. I knew the program. I knew what a portion was. I knew how to lose weight. What I didn't know was how to keep it off. Tracking even at goal, keeps you on the straight and narrow path. If you don't write it down, then you tend to convienently forget that you ate it. True, sometimes we have a bad day and don't track because we don't want to know what we did, but it helps to jot down a note about what happened.

Notes--are important. If you happen to have a busy day: meetings, errands, children, whatever. It helps to jot down what was going on, especially if it causes a non-tracking, overeating type of day. This is especially important in the future if you have another one of those days. Hopefully, a bad day will cause you how to plan NOT to have that type of day in the future.

Hoarding points--I am so guilty of this that it isn't even funny. Having only 26 points is a huge problem especially if your significant other has 43 points. He can eat a 7-10 point breakfast and lunch and still have more points for dinner than I do in ONE DAY! It's frustrating. So I tend to hoard points to allow for more points during dinner. What I need to start doing is figuring out my dinner points and then spread the rest evenly throughout the day.

Not eating until hungry--I also do this, but the problem that I noticed is that while I might not eat until I feel a twinge, I tend to keep eating even when I'm full . . . er, overfull.

What you eat and when you eat--we're told that we need to eat every four hours to keep our blood sugar at a steady rate. This doesn't mean a full meal every four hours, it just means something. One thing I learned is that while a banana might satisfy my hunger in the morning, it doesn't last. Fruits are carbs--good carbs, but still carbs--they are digested quickly, which means they don't hold you as long. I need protein to keep me, and my stomach, from grazing. Protein takes longer to digest, which means it sits in your stomach longer, thus keeping you from hunger.

So as I settle into weight loss mode, I'm analyzing my food choices more than when I wasn't trying to lose weight.

I make good choices, and I also make poor choices, but they are my choices. I'm the one who has to be accountable.

How accountable are you? Document everything and you will notice patterns and trends in your food choices. Sometimes it has to do with the monthly cycle, sometimes the lunar cycle, but the more you are aware of your personal trends, the better you are at making better food choices.

Later, Peeps!

Synopsis or Synopses, That is the Question

As a writer, I hate writing synopses.

synopsis--singular
synopses--plural, more than one

It's right up there with the query letter, but for a different reason.

A synopsis is the entirety of your story, told in third person, present tense. The idea behind this is to give an indicator to the reader (editor / agent / contest judge) of the story arc, emotional development, plot and ending.

Yes, you have to tell the ending. It's a given if you write romances that there is always a Happy For Now situation, except for Nicholas Sparks. I have yet to figure out why they call his books 'romances'. Romantic, yes, but not romances. It's right up there with Love Story, where the heroine dies at the end of the movie. Come to think of it, that's probably where he got his idea of killing someone off in the end.

With DRAGON, I knew what I wanted to do with the first 3-4 chapters, and I knew where I wanted it to end. It was all the stuff in the middle that I hadn't figured out. Oh, I knew it would work out, because I almost always figure it out, but I needed a synopsis for this one contest I wanted to enter, which meant I had to write one.

After a few days of jotting down notes and ideas, I wrote the darn thing. It was a mess, but it was written. I sent it to my good friend and CP, Meg.

This is where it pays off in spades to have a good CP who doesn't pull her punches--well, I DO think she pulls her punches some, but she hits me hard enough to jostle my brain pan into figuring out the answers.

I tweaked my synopsis and sent it back. SCORE! . . . for now. I'm sure the story will change, but it's merely a guideline. The problem that I had with this story--and most my synopses--is that I want to add all my subplot information. And, let me tell you, there's a lot of subplotting going on in this next book! It grew organically from the first three books, and I think it adds texture to this next story.

So with notes galore--remember all that thinking about the synopsis?--I managed to handwrite profuse amounts of chapter notes. They are all over the place and in no logical order. But the notes are there.

This will be the first time that I've written any story--even the ones that will never see the light of day--with a completed synopsis and profuse notes.

I can't wait to dig into this story!

Later, Peeps!