How's it going?

 

Picture yesterday.
I have a "start day" photo, but it's so
unflattering - not so much in the body,
but in my expression. I forget to smile!

This is week two of the weight loss meds. Today is Friday, and injection day is Thursday. I have found that this blog is very useful to me as a journal and a reference, keeping me honest in my memories. It's so easy for a memory to become a story, and as it does so, it morphs and changes. That's not all bad, but it's good to also have a reality check on the past. And so I think it's worth capturing what's going on with me even when I feel like the answer is "not much".

The first week on the meds was fine. I had a great deal of trepidation, but all I have felt is minor versions of classic side effects. My stomach feels full quickly, and remains that way for a while. I'm gassy (and I was gassy before, too!) and sometimes those burps seem to carry some acid with them. I am often cold - no more am I embracing the weather in full Scandi style. Instead, I'm huddling in layers, under electric blankets, and not going out as much as I was before. (My tiktok girlies tell me this is a common symptom.) My sleep varies, with several periods of being wakeful in the middle of the night, other mornings the wakefulness starts at 5, and I just get up. (One night I peed FIVE times, leading me to adjust my hydration schedule!) Don't know if this sleep disruption is a symptom, as this sometimes happened anyway. I'm consistently getting to bed earlier, which helps.

Wednesday, the day before injection day, I was truly hungry for the first time. And for the first time that week I went over my daily points. (My WW reset points week is injection day.) Weekly points had been accumulating, from leftovers and activity, so there was plenty of buffer in the budget. I am focused on the protein and fiber numbers, and it is truly an effort to get there. I just added "calories" to the summary stats WW posts for each day, and I find most days have been below their suggested minimum of 1200. I don't want my body to go into starvation mode, start digesting my own muscles, and become hyper-efficient, requiring heroic efforts to lose any weight. I've been at least close to the targets every day, but I'm now planning to add an evening snack every day I seem to be falling short. My work is to have an inventory of snacks that move me in the right direction, not ice cream or Trader Joe's treats.

The injection paraphernalia I have to assemble for
the actual injection. I had the instructions out for this,
the second injection, not trusting to memory. 

I'm trying to undo years of a habitual after-eating flop to the couch and instead get up and move around after eating, which is really helpful in reducing any discomfort. I'm also trying to slow down my eating, and I'm breaking meals into smaller pieces - stopping partway through a meal, but coming back to the leftovers after an hour or two. I'm eating, but I'm on a major campaign to preserve or even build muscle through this, and so eating enough is really important to me. For the first time, I'm really using the WW app to plan in advance in detail. I try in the morning to build a day that will reach the four-way optimization of enough protein, fiber, and calories, while staying below the total points.

I've talked to my trainer about the WL meds, and she's on board with upping the weights and really going for improvement, not just maintenance, to fight muscle loss. I've had great workouts, and right after the workout I'm drinking a protein shake. They are excellent sources of protein and fiber, and I've found a brand that is fine. It tastes good, and I'm able to eat a tangerine or something afterwards to do away with a not-terrific aftertaste. I'm also sticking to my 15 minutes of cardio on the days I don't lift weights (so 2x weight training, 4x cardio, one day off). I was exhilarated yesterday on the Nordic Trak, and again today on the stationary bike, to find it had gotten much much easier.  The purpose of the cardio is to improve my cardio-vascular fitness, and the last two days were the highest I've gotten my heart rate up in a long time. I'm trying to hit the cardio commitment for the entire month of February and I've tied the purchase of some fun new tech to achieving that. When I talked about a newer, higher commitment for March, my trainer wisely suggested seeing if I'm still improving with the 15 minutes - and I am. So we'll see how it goes.

What has happened to my weight, by day 9 of the meds? I believe I have ranted before about how I think about my weight:  it is not really the number that appears at any one moment on the scale, but an average based on the trend. Variation around that trend is caused by water, and other transitory factors. And certainly the weight has been as volatile as ever this week. Here is the picture:

My weight in 2026- turn phone to landscape
The small green dots are daily scale readings. The dark blue line is the weekly average of those.
The big red dot is the first day of injection. 
The orange fuzzy lines are the 5-pound range I've been in since midway through 2022. 

 My weight was at the top end of my range since the beginning of the year (including my mid-January vacation). My daily scale readings have certainly gone down since the first injection. This is not uncommon, in my first week of trying to lose weight. But I won't really consider I'm well on my way to actually losing weight until I consistently see numbers below the bottom orange line - out of the past few years' range. 

But it certainly is nice to see the trend line going down!

 

 

Travel Idea

Just a quickie: 

Talking to my middle boy last night, I learned he is spending a good part of March in England, near Stonehenge. I got an idea, and searched my photos for "Stonehenge". I pulled up the photos I was thinking of, when my girl and I went to Stonehenge in 2013, but also two surprise photos.

My mother, 1978

Mary, 1986

My girl, 2013

Me, 2013

 

I instructed my boy that if he goes there (which he will, being there a month with a car) he must take and share a photo for me to add to the series!

I have a few pics of our family in Bergen, standing in front of the iconic Brygge. I now make a point of taking a similar photo each time I go. But I hadn't thought about other iconic sites. My parents had made a large number of photo albums from their constant travel. I went through them and pulled out only pictures with them (or other folks I know) and had those scanned (the rest of the albums were tossed). I made an effort to add accurate dates to the scanned photos when I got them back from the photo service. And so, these pictures popped up on my Google photos image search! I immediately created a new photo album (online grouping) of these pics so I can find them again easily.

 This is fun! Something to think about doing as we and the next generation travel to these iconic sites. I’m thinking plenty of sites in NYC, but what about the Grand Canyon? It’s a great excuse to take a clichéd photo and instead call it iconic!

February Tidbits

Brand recommended by my girl.
Tasty, and very little aftertaste

I don't think I'm in the mood today to write a long and meaningful or at least witty essay on anything - too scattered. So some notes.

• I did my first injection yesterday. TL;DR: mostly a non-event. I planned to exercise first, then eat, then inject. Somehow, while getting ready to inject, I suddenly realized how very important it was to clean my coffee pot - I've had it a while and never cleaned it. So I had to find the on-line users manual, make up a citric acid solution, and run through the iterative process to get the mineral scale out of it, and then to rinse it clean. (Pro-tip on coffee pot cleaning - citric acid is just as effective as white vinegar and much easier to rinse out afterwards.) Finally I assembled everything for the injection at the dining room table: glass vial from the fridge, syringe and sharps box from high up in my bedroom closet. Then, I remembered a tiktok that said to leave the vial out of the fridge for a while to let it warm up before injecting it. So another chore got done instead. Finally finally, I opened the syringe package, filled the syringe from the vial, and injected into my belly. Couldn't really feel it, as everyone says. Totally a non-event.
• How did I feel? Yesterday, I felt a bit queasy from time to time, and had some ginger. I have even more gas than usual. Nothing big. Yes, stomach seemed a bit full, and getting up and moving around was helpful.
• Speaking of exercise, I'm trying very hard to do 15 minutes of cardio every single day. Cardio hard enough to raise my heart rate significantly. Today marks two weeks of doing it, every day I don't do weight training with my trainer. This was a recommendation from my primary care doctor last year, and my neurologist confirmed that 15 minutes a day seems to be sweet spot for migraines - less exercise leads to more attacks, more exercise is good for your body but seems to have no impact on migraines. If I get through February with doing this every day, I'll treat myself to something.

• 

  Clockwise from top right: 
  Mussels, Steak, Chicken, Butter, Andouille 
  Sausage, Hot Dogs, Ravioli

  
  I joined a butcher's club! There is a butcher shop in Takoma Park, Soko Butchers, with fabulous local food. They have a monthly box - I got the smallest available. And you get what you get. I thought of an Athena Scalzi-style long post all about it, but never mind, here's a quick recap
• Mussels! Kind of ironic after my rant about fish in the house, but I cooked and ate them last night, and cleaned up and got the garbage out. High protein!
• Tenderloin steak - aka filet mignon. Tonight or tomorrow, going with the sear-and-then-roast approach. (My boys did that (in my kitchen) before Christmas, and started a fire and filled the place with smoke for over an hour. But it tasted good!) 
• Airline chicken. Who knew that was a thing?  I've got a plan for the air fryer.
• Hotdogs and sausages, I love them.
  Local VERY tasty butter, may last a while given how I'm trying to eat
• Heart-shaped ravioli 
• So I'll be cooking for bit.  

•  Today, I definitely feel bloated, full in the abdomen. If I was wearing a belt instead of elastic waist pants, I'd be loosening it. After early morning exercise, I had a protein shake instead of oatmeal for breakfast, followed a while later by tangerines to get the taste out of my mouth. It's sunny and not too cold, so I need to convince myself that 15 minutes of exercise before breakfast is not a reason to sit around the rest of the day.

Baseline

 I'm excited about starting on the meds experiment! I think it's worthwhile to capture the baseline from which I hope to change. Of course, I've got the data!

 

Horizontal grid shows 10-pound differences. 
The blue line was my ideal weight, briefly achieved twice. 
The red line was my stable point after I started blogging, until I blew it.

Look at the picture of my weight loss history, starting back when I was a 35-year-old little girl going to Weight Watchers in a church basement for the first time. (You might need to go landscape on your phone.) The first Big Loss, more than 40 pounds at age 43, was done so easily. I followed, mostly, the Carbohydrate Addict's diet - very low carb most of the time, but not full Atkins. The second big loss, in perimenopause as I started this blog in 2010, was harder, but was pretty much the same eating pattern. Then, for several years, I white knuckled keeping the weight in bounds. I was in some of the best shape of my life, as I decided hitting "goal" was worth anything, I did - for a couple of days. Again, pretty much the same eating, more Atkins than not. Then, the classic rebound, and then I threw every habit and guideline out the window to go intuitive. I tuned in to myself, and myself wanted bread and pasta and ice cream. Since then, I've been trying to wrestle my weight back down, and things that used to work either don't work anymore or somehow have become too hard.

So here I am, relatively stable at a peak weight that I hate. It's about moving, and feeling, and spending so much time thinking about it. It's about needing bigger pants. 

Here is a zoom in to the last 3+ years.

Weight from 2022 to present.
Green line is short term goal.

My weight has bounced around in a 5-pound range, hitting the highest weight ever a couple of times. I've done some attempts at weight loss. Some were minor-ly successful, until they weren't. Each required phenomenal amounts of focus and concentration. I'm just tired.

As part of my "baseline" prep, I've also measured myself with a tape measure. Again, I've got some history on this, and yeah, I'm bigger than ever. 

My scale also purports to measure body composition in terms of muscle versus fat. These measurements are notoriously inaccurate, except when looking at trends. So I'll be keeping an eye on that, as well. Over the time I've had this scale, less time than shown on the graph above, it hasn't varied significantly. It will take a big change to show up, and that will be with a lot water-weight driven noise. 

I believe I've got about a decade to do some adventurous things I want to do, and this is the decade to give it a shot. Here's hoping the meds help me get there and do the things I want to do.

Weight-loss Meds Eve

That's a little bit optimistic. My meds are going to be delivered, probably Wednesday or Thursday. I'm tracking via UPS. Hopefully no more snowstorms to upset the schedule!

 I'm all ready for this. I've been preparing since late last year. I waited until after I got back from my big vacation to set this in motion, and it's taken a little bit longer than I had hoped. But they're on their way.

I've done a ton of research on this. I'm doing this via Weight Watchers, based on the experience of my pathfinder and an on-line look at reviews for other places. I've read pretty much everything on the WW site, met on-line with their doctor, and got approved. I spent time on social media and with ChatGPT (surprisingly useful for very specific questions). So I have a plan, which will of course be modified as soon as I get some practical experience. In the meantime, I'm staying away from anymore online input. I've got what I need to get started. 

A couple of notes about what's happening and my plans:

I'm getting Zepbound (tirzepatide) vials direct from the supplier, Lilly. Bit of a story, but the cost for vials from which I fill a syringe is half or less than getting pens. I've watched a ton of videos, from Lilly and others, about how to do it. I bought a sharps container for disposal, and read the regulations for my state. I'll have the Lilly video in front of me the first time I do it. I'll refill the scrip on-line, based on my experience at delivery timeframes.

I'm not too worried about what sites on my body to use, I'll rotate. I've thought a lot more about time of day and day of week for the weekly injection. While you can adjust the day after you start, it's better to stick with the same day, and it seems even the same time of day. That means I don't start as soon as they are in hand, but where and when I think I'll end up for a schedule. And apparently, a reason to focus on the schedule from the start is the med's effect on body and mind is greatest shortly after the injection, and it wears off during the week. There are also greatest chances for side effects early on in the weekly cycle.

One of the major concerns about these meds for old people such as myself is muscle loss. I already do the recommended weight training level of twice a week. But there are recommendations about timing of injection and exercise. For example, don't exercise directly after an injection (duh). More interestingly, the recommendation seems to be to do weight training on days 2-4 of the weekly cycle (injection day is day 0). Since my standing convenient weight training appointments are Monday and Wednesday mornings, I think I'll be injecting Fridays or Saturdays. (In contrast to some folks, since I'm retired and have retired friends, weekends are not often very different than weekdays as far as eating and social events go, so that's less of a consideration.) My initial shipment should be here by this Friday.

The intensity of the weight session recommended is interesting: sets of 8-10 reps (calibrate the weight so that is appropriately challenging), if exhausted, reduce sets not weight. Keep the intensity up to keep those muscle fibers feeling like they are needed! This fits with my trainer's philosophy, and we agreed a few weeks back to try to up the overall intensity and progression.

Recommendations for cardio for seniors on weight loss meds are weaker. There is the standard "150 minutes a week" recommendations, but most sources say if you need to choose between cardio and weight training, choose weight training every time. And cardio should be lighter in intensity. No marathon training or blowing through VO2 max. I've just upped my intentional cardio to try to use each of my machines every day I'm not weight training. I'm trying to do 15 minutes every single day, and once I've got that as a baseline, I'll up the minutes. But I'm trying to build the consistency habit first. And it's only 15 minutes! I should always have time for that. In contrast, when I rely on a walk as my main cardio, I have to set aside much more time. I have available to me from the Apple watch "time in heart rate zones" and I'm trying to build up time in a higher zone. 

There are also recommendations, sometimes conflicting from different sources, about timing of eating with weight training sessions. Apparently it affects how efficiently a body metabolizes the protein eaten. After discussion with my long time trainer (who just finished a certification course for fitness for seniors and who has a slew of other training and certifications) I'm going to plan to eat something high protein right after we finish a session. I never eat beforehand now, and my early training timeslot wouldn't lend itself to finishing a meal a couple of hours before our session. They also say don't do a cardio session after a "long fast" (eg overnight). I think my little fifteen minute session isn't a huge concern, even with some intensity, but I will definitely plan to eat shortly afterwards. This will have to intentional. My current habits sometimes have me eating more like a brunch, sometimes exercising, then spending time grooming and dressing, then looking at my ipad, then finally getting around to preparing something to eat. One thing I think I'll try to keep on hand is low fat cottage cheese - a little container has 18 grams of protein and just enough carb to provide some short term fuel.

I haven't settled on a time of day for injections yet. One school of thought is that evenings allow sleeping through any nausea. Others say the injection at night prevents them from getting a full night's sleep. I'm curious about how this will make me feel, so I'm inclined towards a day time injection, at least to start, so I can actually pay attention to what is happening to me.

 I'm laying in supplies of easy-peasy high protein and high fiber foods. I've been using the Weight Watchers' app for a few months and I fully intend to continue using it.  I already had a big supply of ginger candies and teas for nausea - used for preventing or dealing with sea sickness, so that's in place. I've been experimenting with bottled protein shakes. I go down the supermarket aisle with my phone out, snapping barcodes with my Weight Watchers' app. It's easier to use the WW points as a shorthand for how useful the bottle is, rather than analyzing the nutrition label myself. One bottle I bought I sampled was a chocolaty flavor, and the first sip surprised me with how good it was. But then, the very bad aftertaste remained in my mouth for a long time - until I ate something else. I poured the rest of the bottle down the drain. Yuck! That's why I need to experiment.

My experience with the WW app has definitely geared me already towards protein and fiber, and my habits have adapted. There is a "GLP" switch in the app which I'll flip soon, I'm not sure what it does, but I'm guessing it emphasizes the protein and fibre more than it does point totals.  Dehydration is apparently a concern, but not so much for me. I don't track it, because I am the water queen, always with a glass or bottle next to me. I will maybe use a refillable measured bottle for a while to make sure I don't slump in this. I connected my watch to the WW app for the purpose of getting more points for activity, but I didn't connect any of the other areas like sleep. I don't see that changing.

 Food shopping tomorrow and Wednesday, different stores. Then, the adventure begins! 

Musings on Food, With Reference to Weight Watchers

My girl got me this gift pack for Christmas. 
Cinnamon almond butter is to die for, vibrant on apples
Habanero honey is pleasantly warm and sweet on crackers
Wild expresso is unusual, and growing on me
I'm saving the chocolate for a treat.

I've been doing the Weight Watchers food tracking app since November, with time off during the holidays and my vacation. I felt extremely disordered and at sea about what to eat, thinking about it constantly. At first, tracking felt really good - it gamified planning out the food, it was unique and fun. And not terribly burdensome. Now, it's still not really burdensome, but I wouldn't describe it as fun. And, I'm not using it as a hard constraint. I often go over my daily and even weekly points. At the beginning, I never did. Now, I am trying to be brutally honest in the tracking, even when it's blowing the budget out of the water. Knowledge is power.

With more experience, I've got a better handle on what drives their calculation of points. And, of course, I've got some bones to pick with the way they do it. And questions about using the app to capture the right amounts.

WW wants me to eat a lot of protein and fiber. The way they want me to do it is with lean meats, fruits and vegetables, and fibrous proteins like beans. They penalize all fat enormously. They likewise penalize carbs without fiber. They are ambivalent about whole grains, it seems. Sometimes, they seem to strike an ideological stance which seems to be to be totally arbitrary - and I hate arbitrary. Exhibit one is potatoes versus brown rice:

	Brown Rice	Potatoes
Calories	216	135
Fat	2 g	0
Fiber	4 g	2 g
Protein	5 g	2 g
Points	5	0

 Potatoes are a vegetable and thus by definition is given a free ride, zero points. Rice is a grain, and thus its points are calculated based on its calories and macro-nutrients. It's got fat, to go with its higher fiber and protein, and so its points are nearly 20% of the daily allowance of points! The differential in points seems overblown and arbitrary.

Meat is another area I find a little difficult to understand. Basically, lean meat is supposed to be zero points. Very clearly, chicken with no skin is zero points. But venturing into other meats quickly is a quagmire. When looking up beef or lamb, there are entries in the app for "fat trimmed" cuts with zero points, but other entries looking nearly identical that give a lot of points to the same size portion. I like to choose the zero points version, but I wonder how realistic that is? A lot of meat has a lot of fat throughout, not just in obvious pockets that can be cut out. Going forward, I can't live on chicken alone, so I'd like to sort that out. When I was successful in weight loss in the past, I ate a lot of grilled or broiled meat to go with my vegetables and no carbs. (BTW, I recently had occasion to look up my blood work lab history. During the height of my Atkins-like eating my cholesterol, glucose, etc., was excellent! Take that, you low fat high carb conventional wisdom-spouting nutrition "experts" of the past! (Ooops, sorry, apparently I have some unresolved issues over my history as a dieter.))

Most fish is also zero points. I love to eat fish, but I hate to cook it. I hate handling raw fish, and I hate cleaning up the mess and getting the garbage outside quickly before it starts to stink, which is almost immediately. Maybe I can overcome my aversion? Canned tuna is one thing I can handle, frozen peeled shrimp as well, freezer to pan with no time to stink. I've cooked salmon fillets as well, so easy, but I have to get the garbage out and the dishes done very quickly afterwards.

Meanwhile, my eating is slowly evolving. I've never been a big fruit person, but raw fruit is a zero point bargain. Oranges and mandarins and apples are part of my routine. I'm still enjoying nut butters with my apples, or spread on my rye crisp crackers. Dried bean snack foods can be satisfying when I'm jonesing for salty crunch. Buying rotisserie chickens has made getting proteins easier. I used to feel guilty about the short cut, thinking it was stupid to pay for something I could so easily make. But I'm definitely opting for convenience over frugality right now, in an effort to steer my food in the right direction. I often don't want to spend time cooking, and so I continue to search out convenience foods. Canned lentil or bean soups, sometimes supplemented with either more veggies or chicken. Frozen veggies - broccoli or green beans, can be tossed into a pot by the handful, to bulk it up.  Frozen dinners - most of the entrees I have relied on in the past come with a shit ton of points. But I go down the freezer aisle in the store with my phone open to the WW app, clicking on labels. It turns out, some brands have smaller portions, which means fewer points. I've been buying them and trying them - ok for taste, jury still out on if they are satisfying. When I cook, I try to package up leftovers into portions quickly, freezing some. I can eat the same dinner for 2-3 days in a row, and then I'm bored and want to move on. 

I still have days and foods I want that overwhelm my good intentions. I have to just plain not buy ice cream for the time being. I have been known, however, to get in my car and go to the store just for that. I'm saving chocolate nut butters for my next big craving session, to see if they will work on an apple or rye crisp to satisfy. 

 No surprise, my weight bounced back up to the top of my current range after the holidays and my vacation. It's been almost two weeks home, and no significant loss seen. I am the ultimate pear-shaped woman and I'm tired of having jackets falling off my shoulders but barely closing around my hips. I don't want to have to buy new pants in a yet larger size. So I'm pursuing weight loss meds. But like my pathfinder friend, I think learning to manage my food using the (somewhat arbitrary) WW points system is a viable way forward, meds or not. We'll see.