I Got This Read online

  Although it is a fairly new passion of mine, I discovered that I actually like cooking my own food. So throughout the program, I didn’t eat any prepackaged foods of any kind. Although Weight Watchers makes a variety of food products, the PointsPlus® plan doesn’t require you to eat them. It is all about real food in the real world. My goal was to learn to pick foods that were healthy choices, and since I travel a lot, they had to be readily available most anywhere I go. Although I resisted the notion at first, I eventually learned that it was desirable to have a certain amount of carbohydrates because they’re fuel for your body. I also began eating more fiber because it helps move things out, if you know what I mean. I also discovered the importance of cutting back on salt and sugar. When I was a little girl, salt was a food group to me. I used to put salt on everything, including my ice cream. (Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it! Salted caramel is a little bit of heaven!

  Eating a diet filled with added sugar, unhealthy fats, and refined grains can make it easy to gain weight and at the same time not get the necessary vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients that you need for good health. These foods are also not as filling and satisfying as nutritious foods like fruits and vegetables. I never thought about any of these things before starting Weight Watchers, but they can have an impact on the scale and are equally important to maintaining good health. Weight Watchers does a great job of teaching their members these valuable lessons through their literature, on their website, and in the meetings.

  A funny thing happened on the way to losing my eighty pounds. Foods that used to taste good to me no longer do. For example, if I take a sip of a regular soda now, all I can taste is the sugar. I also learned that processed food tastes better because it contains a lot of artificial ingredients that are unnecessary. Foods that contain a lot of artificial flavors often include a lot of fat, sugar, or salt to increase the enjoyment of that food, but they are not filling, and no longer part of my diet.

  Since I’ve lost all of my weight, people always want to know what I eat. Here’s the amazing thing about the Weight Watchers plan—you can eat what you’ve always eaten as long as you are eating the right portion amounts. While I don’t have a set weekly menu, I do have some favorites that have helped me get to my goal.

  A typical breakfast for me became one of three meals: grilled chicken breast fajitas with brown rice, an egg-white omelet with smoked salmon, or a chicken and vegetable omelet. If I am feeling it, I might add some cheese to the eggs, but otherwise, I go without. It is critically important to measure out the right portions or you will make the common error of eating the right foods in the wrong amounts. I make sure to use only a half to a full cup of chicken per serving, which ranges from two to four Points on the plan, depending on how hungry I am. Once I learned about the dangers of eating too much salt, I stopped adding salt to my omelets, especially the smoked salmon omelet because there is already enough salt in the fish. If I am especially hungry that morning, I might add some Weight Watchers plain no-fat yogurt and twelve smoked almonds to my menu, too. The Weight Watchers yogurt is one of the only prepackaged foods I eat. I really like the flavor and texture of their yogurt, and unlike other brands, theirs is low in sugar. I highly recommend it as an excellent addition to any meal.

  If I don’t eat the yogurt with my breakfast, I will usually make it my midmorning snack. I don’t believe in wasting my Points on things like juice, which I consider to be nothing but extra sugar and empty calories. The only time I will drink a glass of orange juice is if I feel like my body is craving the vitamin C and there is nothing else available to satisfy that desire. Otherwise, I know I am going to be hungry later in the day and would rather use those two to six Points on something that will fill me up and sustain me a lot longer than a glass of OJ. Instead, I will choose to drink water, Crystal Light, or occasionally, a Diet Coke.

  Another secret to my weight loss was learning to make lunch my biggest meal of the day. One of my favorite choices is a turkey burger. I love them, especially the turkey burgers from the Cheesecake Factory. The problem, though, is their portions are ridiculously huge, so when I order one, I eat only half. And believe me, that’s plenty!

  I get so frustrated with restaurants that make it hard for a person who wants to make the healthy choice by over-serving its portions. The temptation is often too great to stay strong, so most people will overeat. When it comes to intake, there really needs to be a sense of “too much of a good thing.” Even a turkey burger can throw your entire Points for the day off if the serving size is for four instead of one. This becomes a slippery slope when eating out, especially when you order a salad thinking it is the healthier choice but because of the excessive amounts of salad dressing, that salad can contain as many as fifteen hundred calories or more!

  Looking at a menu through Weight Watchers’ eyes changed my entire perspective on eating out. The Weight Watchers program allows me to eat at any restaurant. One of my favorites now is a chain called Texas de Brazil. They not only offer a buffet of food but also serve you selections at the table. They offer everything from steak to sushi, and black beans, rice with gravy, and so much more. David and I used to eat there before I started Weight Watchers, and I hated going because I didn’t think there was anything on the menu I could eat. I don’t eat steak, so we mostly went there because David liked it. However, once I got acquainted with the dos and don’ts of the Weight Watchers program, I discovered there were lots of options for me on their menu.

  Since I eat mostly chicken, turkey, and fish, what I discovered was that most restaurants are happy to accommodate special requests for how you want your food prepared. These days, I have no issue telling my server that I want my chicken grilled with no sauce, my fish broiled with no butter, and my vegetables steamed instead of sautéed. It’s so easy once you know how to make the right choices. And believe it or not, it is still delicious!

  Dinner varies for me because it depends on how many Points I have left at the end of my day. My favorite home-cooked meal is one of my childhood favorites. My mama used to make the most delicious turkey wings with roasted sweet potato fries or mashed sweet potatoes. Eating that meal reminds me of my mama’s and grandma’s houses growing up. It smells like home to me. I don’t eat a lot of fried foods, but I still like my turkey to crunch, so I boil the wings and then I put them in the oven where they can get as crispy as they can. I then take the juice from the bottom of the pan and sauté some greens in it to go as a side dish. Now this is some good old-fashioned home-style cooking!

  Naturally, I can’t eat like that all the time, so another favorite dinner dish is salmon. I was fixing dinner for David one night when I accidentally grabbed cinnamon instead of paprika to put on the fish. I didn’t realize my mistake until we sat down to eat. It turned out to be so good that now, I only use cinnamon and lemon when I cook salmon. The cinnamon with lemon creates a glazelike finish on the fish that’s a little like sweet teriyaki with no sugar. David loves it and I feel like I’ve got my B. Smith on when I make this dish for him.

  Let me be really honest. I can get extremely bored eating the same old things over and over. It has always been one of my biggest pitfalls in dieting. My old cycle was to break my routine by eating something that wasn’t a good choice. Now I’ve learned that I can change things up by getting creative with my meals and snacks. The Weight Watchers website offers thousands of meal ideas, recipes, and even snack options from other members. Snacks are an important part of the Weight Watchers plan, because working healthy snacks into your day means that you keep your hunger in check and don’t overdo it at mealtime. One snack I love is almonds, and they are a really good healthy snack choice. On the Weight Watchers plan, they don’t have a high PointsPlus® value, so I often turn to almonds as a favorite treat. When I am in the mood for something salty and crunchy, I will eat smoked almonds to satisfy my salt craving in a healthy way.

  When it comes to making choices for my snacks, my general rule of thumb is to go for the real thi
ng over an imitation. I especially love mixed fruit and melon. If I want orange sherbet, I’ll reach for an orange instead of the ice cream. It’s the flavor I’m going for so why not eat something that has fiber and nutrients over something that is full of chemicals and artificial flavors?

  Okay, so here’s the money question everyone always wants to know about.

  Do I eat dessert?

  The answer is…yes!

  I have a terrible weakness when it comes to chocolate and banana pudding. I especially love Walter’s banana pudding. When I was living in Miami and recording, I was in the studio most of the time. And when I wasn’t, I was running along the beach and exercising in the gym. I thought I was staying on top of my weight until my stylist came to fit me for the MTV Video Music Awards. Not one single thing fit. I was so mad, thinking she just brought all the wrong sizes. No, it wasn’t that. You see, Walter was making banana pudding all the time back then. I had tasted it way too much. I put a banana pudding moratorium in place right away. I told Walter he was no longer allowed to come into my house with that evil pudding. My biggest lesson there was that you cannot just work out and then eat poorly and expect to lose weight. It doesn’t work that way.

  One of the tools Weight Watchers taught me to become consciously aware of what I was eating and when, was to keep a journal and write down everything I ate and how I was feeling at the moment of making a decision. Liz explained that doing this would help me understand my triggers that create a habit. Weight Watchers was as much about building awareness as it was losing weight. The program makes you fully conscious of the food you put into your mouth and helps you to find a balance for everyday real life. Even though the program itself was astonishing in its results, it was this newfound awareness that became the game-changer for me.

  Every person has to make the decision that they are ready to create awareness about what they are putting into their bodies and then work at learning to control that choice. For me, tuning in meant I began noticing that whenever I was home alone with Munchkin, or worse, on my own, I often found myself hitting the refrigerator and then sitting on the sofa mindlessly eating. I was often very tired from staying up at night with the baby and wasn’t always thinking about what I was eating so much as just eating. I discovered that I was especially vulnerable toward the end of my day, when I don’t have any Points left without going into my reserve. One thing I often went for was chocolate. When I am relaxed and comfortable, I grab for some chocolate. I developed an obsession for chocolate bars when I was filming Winnie in Africa. To me, eating a piece of chocolate is as relaxing as a massage. It’s an event. And when I am eating it, nobody better bother me because that is my moment of bliss. Some people like to have a glass of wine at the end of a busy day.

  Me?

  I like to eat some delicious chocolate.

  Writing these habits down helped me pinpoint my weaknesses and to become conscious of my behavior. With that awareness, I learned to make better choices. Instead of sitting on the sofa, I got up and exercised to a DVD. Or, if Munchkin was napping, I took a nap, too. If I decided to eat something, I ate something healthy like a handful of cashews and a few slices of apple. Let me tell you—when you put those two ingredients together, it is as good as a caramel apple—for real. And if I was going to have chocolate, I made sure it was really good chocolate, and in the right amount. Quality over quantity.

  Another time I find it a challenge to make the right choices is when I am on a movie set. When I was making The Three Stooges, I really struggled with all of the sugary and salty foods that were kept out on the craft services table throughout the day. It was like that platter of cupcakes kept calling out my name. I decided the best way to combat that desire was to bring my own food from home and avoid the craft services table altogether. And when I couldn’t stand it one second longer, I popped a piece of sugar-free gum into my mouth so I could have something sweet without grabbing for the pastries and such. Avoidance is a great tool to get away from food in my face all day long.

  I learned to play little tricks on myself to avoid the trappings that used to keep a stronghold on me in the past. Pinkberry frozen yogurt used to be a passion of mine. Whenever I was in L.A., one of my first stops off the plane was Pinkberry to get a cup of their plain frozen yogurt with coconut, yogurt chips, and almonds sprinkled over the top. Now, instead of hitting Pinkberry when I land, I wait until the very end of my trip to treat myself so I won’t have another opportunity to go back again before leaving town. That way I can’t set myself up for failure or overdo a good thing. And I look forward to that Pinkberry all throughout my trip.

  Even though I understood the benefits Liz was trying to share with me about journaling my feelings and hunger levels, it never really became my thing. Many people learn to use food for comfort or as a stress reliever. When they are angry, they like to chew on something crunchy or salty. Food is tied to emotion and is often used as an escape from those feelings. But I do know that for me, boredom was my biggest trigger. Even though I don’t keep a journal, I do know this to be true for myself and I try to find ways to combat my boredom. What I learned from Weight Watchers is that food was meant to be used as fuel for our bodies. If we are using it for any other reasons, it is time to take a step back and ask ourselves what’s up.

  Once I was on the right path with the eating side of my quest for health, Liz helped me take a look at my exercise routines, too. Like my former diet mentality, my thought was that exercise had to be extreme to be effective. By this time, I had kicked up my exercise regimen to high-intensity training sessions several days a week that were leaving me sore and uncomfortable. I had adopted a “no pain, no gain” way of thinking, which left me mostly in pain with very little gain. Liz helped me realize that I could dial it back a bit and take it from being “work” to once again being enjoyable and fun. She did this by challenging me to stop doing things I didn’t like and do only the things I enjoyed. That was a novel concept for me because even though I hadn’t realized it for myself, somewhere along the way, exercise became a chore instead of a pleasure.

  Although I always liked to exercise, at this time I had fallen into the extreme trap that took all of the fun out of it for me. The only real reward I was getting was the satisfaction of knowing that as long as I exercised hard, I could go out and eat whatever I wanted. Wrong! Liz explained that extreme exercise doesn’t save you from poor food choices. It can be difficult to exercise and erase away that chocolate cake or pizza pie. It doesn’t work that way. There is no such thing as a balanced equation with those things. If you’re not eating the right foods in the right amounts, all the exercise in the world won’t combat the caloric intake.

  What was really hard to adjust to was that after I had my baby it became much harder to get out of the house to exercise. Even if I wanted to hit the gym, there were so many days I was too tired or tied to the house because Munchkin was sleeping. I started using that as an excuse not to do anything. Well, that didn’t last long once I started the program.

  Liz helped me embrace that the goal with exercise is to have as many options as possible. My close friends often call me “Random” because my workouts are never the same. I like doing fun things that I enjoy, from biking to basketball. Yeah, this sista’s got game! I figure that as long as I am moving, I am burning calories. Some days I will choose to run outside or sprint up hills in our local park while others I’d rather use the treadmill at the gym. When I’m on the road, I still exercise to DVDs, especially when there isn’t a gym available or when time is short. I like to run up and down stairs, too. I used to live on the twenty-sixth floor of my apartment building in Chicago and often took the stairs instead of taking the elevator. When your schedule is as busy as mine gets, you have to find windows of opportunity to do something active. Even if it’s just going to and from the car—I’ll take the harder, longer way to get there.

  I’m a woman who likes progress. I want to see positive results for all of my efforts. If I am working
out, then I expect to see a difference in my body. I’m definitely impatient, though. I hate waiting for anything, so the harder I work, the less time I need to wait to reap the rewards.

  Like me, my fiancé is a workout fanatic, too. It’s such a blessing to have a partner who shares your same beliefs in getting healthy as opposed to someone who is constantly trying to sabotage your efforts. David is a bodybuilder looking to bulk up his muscles and create mass while I am looking to slim down and elongate, so our workouts are completely different. When it comes to exercise, David never imposes his beliefs on me because we are going after two totally different looks.

  The important message I heard about working out and what I want to share is that you create your own opportunities and your own limitations.

  When I was assessing a diet plan that was right for me, I looked at many options—none of which made sense for my life. Every program I looked at was nothing more than a food plan. Either you are getting preprepared food delivered via the frozen-food section of your local grocery store or through a home delivery program or you had to read a book and follow their preset menus. N.F.J.—Not for Jennifer.

  What the Weight Watchers PointsPlus® program does so well is it expands your options by teaching you to eat real food in the real world. It’s so easy. You really can eat anything you want and it allows you necessary flexibility to keep you on the plan. And it teaches you how to implement activity that fits into your daily lifestyle without telling you that you absolutely have to hit the gym. It teaches behavior modification by helping you become aware of the bad food habits you’ve created that are holding you back. And finally, the program offers a tremendous amount of support through its meetings. For many, the meetings are where the rubber hits the road. They can make the difference between staying with the plan and leaving it.