Christmas Wishlists and Makeup Colors
I’ve been working on my Christmas wishlist this past week, and it’s come to my attention that I really know nothing about makeup. I’ve been wearing it more, but I find the process of picking out colors/products to be slightly overwhelming.
Now, I could do the “easy” thing and switch to House of Colour for my makeup. It would save me the trouble of trying to figure out colors since I already have a list of a few base colors that work for me (and everything on the website is sorted by season). However, I don’t love that they’re not transparent about the ingredients in their foundation. I know it’s a “mineral” foundation and it’s probably fine, but I’d like to see the ingredients for myself. Besides, why spend $58 on foundation when I can get BareMinerals (with SPF) for $35?
I guess it’s really the lip colors I’m most curious about when it comes to House of Colour. I’m pretty picky about lip products, so I don’t exactly want to shell out $36 per tube when I’m not sure if I’ll even like the product.
I wish there was a source that gave color matches for House of Colour products- or even a database that listed popular brands/products sorted by color season.
I’m probably going to take a trip to the Bare Minerals Store tomorrow to check out a few things.
I HATE Inconveniencing Others
I’m officially having my Corneal CrossLinking procedure on December 1. This whole ordeal has been more stressful than it probably should be. I’m not really nervous about the procedure. I’m a little uneasy about the unknowns (like how long recovery will be and how vague the doctor was when I was asking questions about that), but I’m really just in a place where I am both dreading it and eager to get it over with.
The thing that has me frustrated is the whole insurance process and scheduling. Is it really that unreasonable that I need to know if my health insurance covers a medical procedure before I schedule it? I mean, I need to get this procedure done. However, it’s not like it’s an emergent procedure- like I’m pretty sure if it were spring of 2020, I wouldn’t be able to get this procedure done right away.
And then scheduling it has been a pain. The doctor just didn’t seem to understand why I was in such a hurry to get confirmation of this appointment. After all, if she calls me back on Monday about insurance coverage, that’s still a week-and-a-half’s notice for my employer.
Next week is a holiday, so I don’t count that as a full week. Besides, I was always told that two weeks was the BARE MINIMUM. Ideally, I’d schedule things months in advance or try to arrange them for when I have time off of work. I wasn’t really asked about my availability though. I was just given a date and time with the expectation that I’d be able to drop everything and go.
Fortunately, my employers are very understanding and they’re going to make the arrangements they need, but I still feel terrible. I don’t like having to inconvenience people like this. It’s not like I work at a retail job where there are dozens of employees trained to do the same job who can cover a few shifts. I’m a nanny. I don’t have co-workers. So, that means my employers either need to take time off of work, hire another sitter, or find family to help out with the kids on the days I have to work. Plus, my dad also had to take two days off of work to drive me to my appointments because I won’t be allowed to drive for at least a week.
There have been times where I’ve walked up to 8 miles to get to church because I either couldn’t find or didn’t want to inconvenience people for a ride. So, the fact that multiple people are going to be impacted by this procedure and I can’t even give the courtesy of more notice makes me feel like I’m a terrible person.
The good news is, I’m pretty sure I’m not going to lose out on pay for the time I take off as long as I get back to work ASAP. I really do have great employers (which just makes this worse. If they were terrible, I might not care as much).
I Tried the “New” WW System…
WW recently came out with their “new” program. Does it even have a name? Like I know we had PersonalPoints, and before that was MyWW. There was Freestyle, SmartPoints Beyond the Scale, PointsPlus, Momentum… but I don’t think this “new” program has a name. Weird.
Anyhoo, I don’t think it’s really fair to say I “tried” the new program because I didn’t. I just took advantage of a free trial offer to poke around on the app.
It’s Freestyle with the new PersonalPoints calculation for items with points. Personally, I think the calculation is absurd. You need 8 different data points to calculate the points for an item. EIGHT! Calories, Fat, Saturated Fat, Carbohydrates, Fiber, Sugar, Added Sugar, and Protein. They also make you include sodium even though it doesn’t actually factor into your points, and there’s no secondary metric to track calories, macros, or sodium intake, so what’s the point? (We’ll overlook the fact that asking for calories, carbs, fat, and protein is a bit redundant- this time).
Personally, I need more accountability when it comes to tracking. I can get behind 0 point vegetables and even fruit, but chicken? Lentils? Eggs? No way. Besides, the 0 point food lists made me feel deprived. Chicken breasts might be 0, but what if I wanted pork or chicken thighs? Nutritionally, they’re not that different. Yet, I’d be spending 5 points on the pork chops or chicken thighs compared to 0 for the chicken breast. I’d rather spend 3 points for the breasts and 5 for the thighs, or if you still want to do 0 point chicken breast, then just charge me 2 for chicken thighs.
I do like how the WW app factors in things like 0 point foods in packaged foods. So, if I buy a bag of frozen vegetables in a sauce, the database will often factor in how much of the nutritional information comes from 0-point vegetables and only make me “pay” for the sauce. That’s one thing the Healthi App doesn’t do. It goes by nutritional information only.
They also added in an alcohol calculator which I thought was pretty cool- even if it’s not something I’d personally use.
No More Calorie Counting?
I’ve had a rough few days with the diet side of my health and wellness goals. Over the past few weeks, my weight loss has slowed to a halt. On Wednesday, Trendweight, the site I use to track my weight progress, projected I’d reach my goal weight of around 30 pounds down in September of 2041.
That’s absolutely ridiculous.
Now, I’ll admit that I don’t always track things as accurately as I could, but being relaxed about weighing and measuring every single thing has been better for my mental health. I suppose it’s possible that the extra bit of flexibility is pushing me out of a calorie deficit. I imagine a similar thing happened when I was on my maintenance break. I think my calories were calculated correctly, but I was eating a little over them.
I don’t think I want to go back to weighing and measuring everything so meticulously. I like the freedom of just eating an apple without stressing over how much it weighs. However, it’s clear that what I’m doing isn’t working.
I’m just not entirely sure what I want to do. I don’t want to give up and not lose weight, but I also want to do it in a way that doesn’t mess with my mental health too much.
I’m considering going back to a Points/Bites based system. Either Conquer Cravings (Momentum) or Carb Conscious (PointsPlus). As much as I loved Sugar Smart/Green, I don’t think that plan is the best one for me at this time. Compared to PointsPlus, most of my meals are similar in points. Yet, I don’t get many extra points for sweets/treats. I hardly think a tablespoon of syrup in my coffee or a 150 calorie dessert is my biggest downfall, so I don’t benefit from the way SmartPoints penalizes sugar.
I like how both PointsPlus and Momentum have a better calorie to point correlation. PointsPlus gives the added bonus of 0 point fruit. That’s a bit of a grey area for me though. I always hated the ambiguity of how many calories of 0 point foods were included in the calculations. Part of me feels that a plan where fruit counts may be better. A plan like Conquer Cravings/Momentum would give me the structure of calorie counting with the flexibility of a points system.
My main concern is the possibility of undereating. I don’t want to double track points and calories (otherwise, I’d just count calories). Sure, I’d probably take advantage of old tricks to maximize how much I get for each point (like knowing that I can have 3 clementines for 1 point; I always ate 3 clementines at a time for that reason). Plus, there are weeklies and activity points I can (and will) use. I’ve grown a lot since my 2009-2010 days of starving all week and binging after weighing in.
I’m playing around with my tracker while I try to figure things out. However, after typing this out, it sounds like Conquer Cravings/Momentum may be the direction I go in.
Procrastination and a Change of Plans?
I really need to be better about not waiting until Friday night to write this post. It’s after 9:30PM and I’m tired. I’m ready to go to sleep, but I can’t bring myself to do it before I publish this. (And I have a feeling that December 2nd’s edition won’t happen if I don’t pre-write most of it).
There’s also a slight chance that I’ll detour from the Friday Five concept. It’s a great idea, but I feel like I’m just writing five short blog posts all at once. At times, I’m wondering if I should just expand on one idea and publish it as its own post. Other times, I don’t think I have enough to make it a standalone post.
Of course, this is my blog so I can do whatever I want. I’m just not sure what that is yet.