The temptation to cheat

For successful weight loss, it is important to monitor your food intake. In the initial days you go in full of determination weighing every little thing that goes into your mouth and (hopefully) you reap the rewards on the scales.
As you move forward though it can be easy to cheat on tracking. There are two ways that people do this:
1) With purpose
2) Accidental

When you cheat with purpose you are saying categorically that if I measure this way rather than that way it'll turn out differently. This happens even with people who are not attempting to lose weight. It's the 'oh, this hasn't that many calories and serves six' (takes a quarter of the item) pretending that it's not actually that much different in the long run. Another example of this is one that I came across back in August- October on Weight Watchers attempt #3. I love Percy Pigs. For anyone who doesn't know what a Percy Pig is they are fantastic pig shaped fruit gums with different coloured ears and when I was in sixth form everyone would rave about them and run off to Marks and Spencer to get their Percy Pig fix.

Exhibit A. The Percy Pig (https://www.facebook.com/PercyPig)

On Weight Watchers one Percy Pig sweet is 1 proPoint. However, when you're on Weight Watchers online you quickly learn how to tweak the measurements for more bang for your buck. You'll have a slightly deformed Percy and you'll decide that he should go under as 3/4 of a sweet. Meaning that you can get away with eating 2 pigs for the price of one. Bargain. However, once this habit strikes it's easy to spiral out of control. It's the same with sliced bread. One slice is 2 proPoints, two slices are 5. If you record them as being eaten at different times of the day suddenly you're not tracking a point. Those add up slowly and if you're not careful they undo some of your good work.

Accidental cheating comes from a belief that you've already worked out the content of something so can 'guesstimate' it in the future. One such example is cereal. On Weight Watchers my 30 grams of Cheerios in the morning will cost me 3 proPoints. 30 grams in a bowl doesn't look like too much but slowly, as you grow more confident (cocky maybe) it's easy to pour an arbitrary amount into a bowl and say 'that's a serving'. In my experience it very rarely is correct. It may seem fairly innocuous at first but again it adds up over time. The single BIGGEST reason for any weight loss plateaus that I reached came from not weighing or tracking properly. Once you get back into doing it properly things often get kickstarted again.

What I would love to avoid is the need to kickstart my weight loss again. It'd be great (though overly optimistic) to believe that it'll continue at the same rate week in, week out.

The reason that this is important to me today is that I had two times today when I could have cheated.
The first incident seemed innocent enough. I recorded a recipe on the online plan manager that came in at 13 proPoints. As I had this over the day (rather than in one sitting) I thought I'd put it down at each of the individual sittings. As such, each half serving came in as 6 because there are no half points on this plan. "It's only one point difference" I thought but then I remembered that it is that one point that could creep on me later on in the plan. I need to start with the good habits now and try (as hard as is possible) to stick to them.
The second occasion came at dinner time. I successfully survived my first takeaway on Weight Watchers tonight. It was Indian which, to anyone who's been on a diet before will know, ranks fairly highly on the calories. I carefully perused my guide as to what the points were for each dish and decided on Chicken Tikka (8 pieces) 14 points and Aloo Saag 8 points. That's a lot for one meal when you think about it in the maths but is a smidgen in comparison to what I'd previously have eaten. Indians for me used to be all about the king prawn butterfly and lamb samosa starters, complete with mint sauce, mango chutney and poppadoms. For main it was usually butter chicken (health status implicit in the name) or other cream based curry sauce meat dish. Plain rice, tarka dahl or paneer (indian curd cheese) and a keema (lamb mince stuffed) naan or chapatti to finish it all off. I dare not even think of the points for that. It'd be astronomical. Probably a good few days points.

The opportunity came when I felt begrudging of my teeny amount of food. I'm a girl who's used to starters and mains (though I'm not a dessert person). Having 8 pieces of chicken and some spinachy potatoes seemed at first like I was being punished. I looked longingly over my usual order thinking 'oh but it's only one day and I don't weigh till next Wednesday, it won't be that much harm'. Once I'd knocked that idea out of my head my mind wandered to the idea of having my usual starter as a compromise. Ultimately instead of straying into un-pointed territory I decided to add a plain rice at 12 points to my meal. Even then feeling slightly guilty for my last minute ordering. It was only once I started eating that I realised full well that I'd made the right decision. I didn't have to guesstimate a starter, only ate 9 of my weekly 49 points and knew I could track as effectively as possible. What's more, when I filled it all out with the free salad leaves they send you there was plenty of food available. I was left satisfied, though not fit to burst as I would usually have been.

So there we have it. There will be times in this process (as in life itself) when I will want to cheat. There will be times when I will give into temptation (I'm only human) and that's okay. The only temptation I cannot give in to is the one to give up when things get more difficult. I read a statement earlier about losing weight that decided that term was an incorrect one.
"I'm not losing weight, I'm getting rid of it. I have no intention of finding it again'. Ultimately it has to be this that will keep me going when the temptation grows stronger.