WARNING: This post is about Weight Watchers. Click away now if you don't care.

I went back to Weight Watchers yesterday, and the only thing that's on my mind is food, food, food. They overhauled the entire Points system, and now it's the PointsPlus system. All the values that I've memorized and learned to estimate over the years are different.

There are pros and cons to the new system, but mostly I'm just overwhelmed trying to figure out all the new points values and make decisions as to what to eat when I have no reference frame within the new system. Like, okay, this particular food's new PointsPlus value is 6. Is that good? Hard to say, because I also have a different points allowance than I did before.

It's sort of like if you woke up one day and the U.S. had switched over to euros as its currency. You'd know how many euros you had coming in, and how many euros a particular item costs, but you wouldn't have years of experience trying to budget within the reference frame of that particular monetary system. Oh, and unlike with currency conversion, there is no easy formula to convert the old Points to the new PointsPlus. The old Points were based on calories/fat/fiber and the new PointsPlus are based on carbohydrates/protein/fat/fiber. In case you were curious, this is the formula to used to figure out the PointsPlus values (from Wikipedia):

Who feels nervous just looking at that? Not Katie!

Now, of course Weight Watchers gives you various electronic and paper tools to calculate the PointsPlus values, so it's not like you're all at the grocery store with a pad of paper trying to do algebra to figure out the points value of every food.

Oh, and I'm allowed to post their proprietary formula on my page because a formula in and of itself is not subject to intellectual property protection. While the formula given on Wikipedia was not directly released by Weight Watchers, empirical studies have found that this formula produces the same PointsPlus values as the Weight Watchers tools.

(The preceding paragraph was for my husband, who is an expert on intellectual property law.)

Now, if you're still reading, I will tell you that there is a lot of emotional stuff associated with my current weight-loss endeavor, stuff like How did I let myself get this fat? and How on earth will I make it through this long journey (again)? I feel overwhelmed and frustrated, and wondering if I'll ever be successful with serious weight loss, given that I've failed so many times in the past.

On the other hand, I feel there are some emotional gifts that come with doing Weight Watchers. There is the satisfaction of knowing that I'm Doing Something About It. Yeah these jeans are too tight, but I'm working on it. It feels a lot better than trying on something at the mall and being frustrated that it doesn't fit, and OMG why the hell did I just go to Auntie Anne's?

I also think I tend to give myself more of a break when I'm on Weight Watchers. Like, I don't beat myself up if I think I didn't work hard enough at the gym. I don't force myself to do as many household chores. Like, look, my energy is going toward measuring all the foods I eat and then washing every single measuring cup I own. I don't also have time to pick up all those toys, again, when I know they're just going to get thrown on the floor tomorrow anyway.

But mostly, I am overwhelmed. And I tell myself how lucky I am to have the money to pay for Weight Watchers and the necessary diet foods. I am lucky to have a brain in my head that can comprehend these things. But I feel unlucky to have the body I do and the general weakness and lack of willpower.

And it's all very confusing and emotional. And I can't parse it all out right now.

So instead I just talk about math.