I've been Bugged!

Ha, now there's a catchy title...especially since it's true. In more ways than one.

This weekend brought another WW meeting, which brought another run-in with the scale, which brought another gain.

This time it was only 1/2 a pound, but considering it was the second week in a row, I was seriously bummed. (It also shot down the nagging notion in my head that maybe, just maybe, last week's gain was water weight or water retention. Apparently not!)

I don't do well when the scale goes up. Especially two weeks in a row. I left WW in tears, miserably unhappy and convinced I am destined to be fat forever. Well, isn't that nice?

But I didn't have much time to get upset. I had an appointment with a trainer to set up my BodyBugg. I now think setting that meeting up two hours after my weigh-in was divine intervention. Because after I sat in her office, let out all my frustrations, and got my Bugg program going, I was convinced I'd be able to do this.

I was also convinced I was going to have to work a lot harder than I have been.

The BodyBugg is a little device that I'm going to be wearing every day. It's going to measure exactly how many steps I take every day, how many calories I burn every day and at what point my metabolism is the highest.

I'll then enter everything I eat into the online program (which for me, is not a pain to do. I enter all my meals on ww.com, so heck, I can enter one meal twice. No biggie!) and the program will calculate my intake vs. the calories burned.

When I set up the program, I had to tell BodyBugg how much weight I wanted to lose, how much I wanted to lose per week, and give it a goal date. At this point, I told BodyBugg that I would like to be firmly ensconced in Onederland by my 30th birthday (in July!). It figured that means I need to lose about 1.5 pounds a week (a reasonable amount, I think). And based on that, it has calculated a target "calorie deficit" for me that I need to reach daily.

Pretty neat, huh? I'm loving it and I hope it answers some of my questions as to why my body just is not cooperating. Although when I shared with the trainer what was going on, she just about fell out of her chair.

To teach me how to use the program, she had me log a typical day's meals. When we did that, we were both stunned. I'd say that a good 3-4 days of the week, I'm not eating enough. My body's probably annoyed by that.

Now, I've heard of this "starvation mode" thing before. I know it's true. I just never imagined my chubby rear could find that place. But apparently, every once in a while, I do...my sample day calorie total was under 1,200. Considering I exercise, that's not good.

So who knows? Maybe that's why my weight loss efforts have been so batty--to make up for the weekends (when yes, I overindulge. Often!) I eat less during the week; but my "less" is not enough to give my body what it needs.

That's what I love about the Bugg...it's an awareness thing. Hey, it's not going to beep when I reach for the cookie. It doesn't stop you from reaching for the cheeseburger. But it makes you really aware of what you're doing. And you can't tell yourself your workout means you get 500 calories to play with---unless you really burned 500 calories.

It's one more way to keep myself accountable. But I am glad BodyBugg didn't go to Paris...