Three Weeks on the "W"

I just finished my third week on Weight Watchers. This week, my losses were... well... disappointing. I lost about one pound.

One of the difficulties of dieting in the religious world is Shabbat (sabbath.) It's hardly a complaint, but since I made aliyah a year an a half ago, I have not once made my own Shabbat meal. I've even tried to plan a meal where I'm by myself, but someone always comes up to me at shul (synagogue) and starts pestering me about where I'll be, and then when they find out I'm on my own, insist on bringing me over and won't take no for an answer. At times I've feared violence.

The down side of all this generosity is that Weight Watchers is all about measuring out your food. Of course, measuring is one of the 39 melachot (actions prohibited on Shabbat.) This means that one has to simply eyeball portions of food, rather than use a measuring cup or scale. Another difficulty is the fact that one is eating at other people's houses, and one doesn't want to insult the hosts by not eating something. So I've learned a few tricks. First off, I make a vegetable tuna stir fry about an hour before shabbat and eat the whole thing. I've figured out how to get it down to two or three points (I'm allowed 25-30 per day,) and it really fills me up. Then I go into Shabbat without food on my mind. Secondly, every major meal includes soup, which tends to be very low in points. When the soup is served, before the meal, I try to suck it down as fast as possible, complement the chef, and then go grab some more. "MMM, I REALLY like this soup." That way I have an excuse when the main course comes out. "Oh, that soup was so great, I really filled up on it." It's win-win.

I'm also keeping up my exercise regimen, but I may have problems with that for a week or so. Today I went on a Tanach Tiyul out to Nachal Prat, the Prat River (stream, really) east of Jerusalem in the hills of Binyamin where Yirmiyahu (Jeremiah) the prophet grew up and occasionally retreated to as needed. It was a fantastic tour, but while hiking there, I ended up spraining my ankle. It wasn't as bad as the time I sprained it while jogging, and probably a little worse than the time I fell off a cliff at Beit Hoglah, but it did make some horrible snap, crackle, and pop-like sounds. I figured I could walk it off as usual, but now that I'm home I can barely stand up. Ugh. And the yeshivah has another Tiyul planned tomorrow, this time to the Eastern Shomron region. I hope I'm well enough to hobble along by then because I sure don't want to miss it. The gist of it is, I don't know when I'll be able to run again. Certainly not today!