See you in a while, Points Plus ... Flex is coming to visit

I will honestly have to say that right now Points Plus just doesn't seem to be working. Or to better put it, I'm not working IT very well. Last year when it was first introduced, I love that I could eat lots of fruit for zero points. Then I just started using it as an excuse to gorge myself on the stuff during the day and at night. Lastly, that developed into just gorging on anything at night.

Boredom? Stress? Anxiety? Could be one, both, or all three. The lack of structure, combined with several vacations away from home different than my normal routine, equals 30 pounds.

Yes, folks, 30 pounds of weight gain. And 18 over the 2 pound goal range allowed by Weight Watchers (and one of my employers). So you can imagine how shameful I feel gaining weight over the past year, not losing anything and not being a good example at all for my meeting members. This has also caused me stress ... a bad overall attitude toward myself, feeling a bit depressed about it, rinse, repeat, insert downward spiral.

So until the end of October (when I weigh myself next) I am going back onto the Flex program that had me lost my initial 100 pounds in the first place. The structure helped a bit for me there. I had to weigh and measure EVERYTHING. Now I need to go back to that, and to lose these fracking 20 pounds so my BMI is in a normal range again. I had to get a couple of size 12s last week (my 10s are tight) and I really wasn't happy about that, let me tell you.

So I am taking out my old calculator and DO and Food Companion books and am going to use those.

And don't worry, I am not against Points Plus at all. Far from it. The program has totally helped thousands of people lose weight across the country. I'm just a pig and need more structure. So I have to reign it in and try to control myself, or I'll get back right where I started again.

It may take me six months to lose 20 pounds (it initially only took me 19 weeks to lose 25, but I'm five years older now, so I got to cut myself some slack.) I also need to be more motivated to exercise. This past week was REALLY bad for me. I don't want to go into it, but it was ugly and I don't want to repeat it. Ever.

Yay, a trend! Another 100 days ... Fail! Some new goals, too.

Well what did I fail on this time? Losing weight. (Gained again.) And eating too much at night. And using all of my extra points. All. The. Time.

I was good on doing the exercise, however.

So for the next 100 days I have some new goals and trying again with some of the old ones.

• Sticking to my daily points
• Trying not to go over extra points
• Exercising an hour a day, at least five days a week, incorporating both sculpting and cardio
• New: Walking at work whenever I can during the week
• New: Learn conversational Korean in the car, finishing 8 lessons of the Pilseur method.

So about the new goals.
Now that it is cooler, I have been fond of taking strolls downtown during my "lunch" period to get out of the office and move a bit. Since the summer has been so damned hot, I don't like going out when it is more than 80 degrees outside. Last week I started going out Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. I want to keep doing this until about late November when the temperatures get below 50 degrees. I also want to incorporate more workouts in the morning on Tuesdays and Thursdays. If I do that at least twice a week I think I will be able to get to work more on time.

On the conversational Korean, well I want to be able to hold a simple conversation with a native speaker at some point. Self study can be the real pits, so right now I want to be able to order things in a restaurant and get around a town. Early next year I will tackle the written language. My goal is to be able to get around a city without much assistance. Next year I REALLY want to go to Seoul before I turn 40.