Last night I was craving bread big time. I would kill for a biscuit. Or some toast. Mmm. I may end up spending my flex points of bread instead of cheese and sweets.

Now I really want some ice cream. Not the Healthy Choice stuff I have in my freezer, real ice cream.

So, I'm doing the Core this week, which is Weight Watcher's version of the South Beach Diet. The idea is to eat only from the "Core foods" list, which includeds lean meats, all un-processed veggies and fruits, and fat-free dairy product, et al. You are also allowed 35 points of non-Core foods for the week. I started yesterday and almost gave up after breakfast, when I had eaten all of the Core foods I had brought to work (scrambled eggs and an apple) and I was still hungry. I stuck to it though, and I think I'll be able to suffer out the week.

My thought process for trying the Core was this:

I was looking through a notebook I keep of recipes torn out from magazines, marking recipes that would be low in points. I noticed that most of the recipes that I had marked would also be Core--that is, they contained only lean meats and veggies and spices or herbs. I thought that it might not be too hard to stick to eating from those recipes, plus fruit to snack on, for a week.

I noticed that while I was doing Flex, I almost never ate bread. I tend not to keep bread on hand anyway, because it always spoils before I can eat it all, and it is too many points for it to make it onto my Flex menu. One of the drawbacks of the Core is that you can eat bread, but you have to count the points, and since I had already cut most of the breads out of my dieting lifestyle, I didn't think it would be to hard.

I also would like to exercise more than I do on Flex. The deal with exercise on WW is, the more you do, the more you get to eat. On Flex I was getting enough points to eat every day (at this point) that I didn't have a big incentive to go out and exercise. On the Core, you also can eat your exercise (or "activity") points, and since you get less of them per day or week, there is a bigger incentive to go out an earn more points by exercising.

And finally, I haven't been hitting all of the WW good health guidelines everyday, specifically, I haven't been getting enough calcium or heart-healthy oils on Flex. Milk and olive oil just add to many points for me to work them in every day. On Core, I can eat as much of those as I want without worrying about the points, so it's a lot easier to hit those marks. Plus, I can eat other things, like avocado, which I was avoiding on Flex because it is high in points.

I'm only planning on doing the Core for this one week, because I have social engagements the next few weeks and I'll want to have the flexibility of Flex. If it goes well, I might try alternating between the two plans whenever I have down weeks. So far, the Core has required as much (if not more) forethought as Flex, so neither seems to be better when I am feeling stressed or tired.

288 : 263.6 : 250