2.5 and the Core Plan

Down 2.5 pounds at my meeting today, or 5.5 in four weeks. I’m also down half a pound on my scales at home: 7.5 pounds in 5 weeks. Yay! Also today, I am switching to the core plan. No, this doesn’t involve lots of crunches and jack knifes. It’s Weight Watchers’ other eating plan.

For the last four weeks I’ve been following the points plan where you get a daily allowance and can eat anything you like so long as you don’t go over it. The core plan is different. You get a list of approved foods and you can eat anything you want off the approved list, no weighing or measuring, just learning to listen to your body’s satiety signals. The approved list is made up of wholesome natural foods – all fruit and veg, meat, fish, pulses, whole grains and low-fat dairy, amongst a few other things. You also have to eat 3 meals a day and nothing in between except fresh fruit and veg, and Fruities, WW’s low-cal chewy sweet. It’s basically a GI diet (glycemic index, let me know if you’d like me to explain GI in a later post) that aims to keep your blood sugar normalised throughout the day and stop it peaking and troughing.

In addition, you are allowed 21 WW points over a whole week for treats, things not on the list, recipe ingredients, that kind of thing. I’m going to try and limit these, as one of my main reasons for switching to core was the amount of rubbish I was eating to make up my points allowance some days. If I came out, say, 6 points under, I’d make myself an ice-cream sundae to make up the discrepancy. Anyway, we’ll see how I get on this week and whether or not I’m going to carry on with Core next week or switch back to points. I do like those ice-cream sundaes! That’s no doubt what got me into this mess in the first place!

Anyhow, my exercise plan for this week looks like this:

Wednesday:

• 30 minute walk
• 45 min pilates

Thursday:

• Turbulence Training Intermediate Workout A + Intervals A

Friday:

• Tae Bo

Saturday:

• TT Workout B + Intervals B

Sunday:

• 60 min pilates
• 30 min steady-state cardio

Monday:

• TT Workout A + Intervals C

Tuesday:

• 30 min steady-state cardio

As you can see, I am back on Turbulence Training this month. I am going to do the intermediate workout plan, as I was halfway through it before I went on holiday. But I have created two additional interval training plans so I have four in total, just for variety. I’ll write more about TT and interval training as I do the workouts.

I’ve also reduced my pilates practice to two sessions a week, to account for the heavier, more intense lifting during TT, and split my steady-state cardio into two 30-minute sessions, which will act as active recovery. And there’s one ‘fun’ cardio workout each week, just for, well, just for fun, obviously.

Actually, that’s pretty much my plan for the next four weeks. The fun workout will change each week, and the TT and interval workouts will alternate, but otherwise, this is the same plan I’m going to follow for the month. Anyhow, that’s all for now. ‘night all.