Wait – what? WAG?
As most of you know, about 2 years ago, I gave WAG (“Working Against Gravity”) a try. At a 10,000 ft. level, it’s a coached, macro-based, eating plan. (If you don’t know what a “Macro” is, go HERE and skip down to “Whatsa Macro?”)
For those of you who are new here, the Reader’s Digest version (wow, now you know I’m old . . . ) is that I have tried various eating plans over the last decade or so.
All my life, I had been “lucky enough” to have been basically a skinny thang. “Scarecrow” and “Beanpole” were a few of my nicknames growing up – at six feet tall in 8th grade and about 130 pounds soaking wet, you get the idea. I wasn’t athletic, lolled around reading books, ate without thinking and – Beanpole.
Unfortunately, when I hit the “hormone slide towards menopause” a little while ago, the pounds just poured on. I burned candles at all the temples of all the Diet Gods and Goddesses I’d blithely walked past my entire life. I watched my waistline disappear. I made penance for every thought I had ever had over the decades as a cheerfully ignorant skinny thang, when I just “didn’t 
understand” why folks had weight issues. More pounds. And more. And more.
Oh my. Oh my oh my.
As I mentioned, one of the eating plans that I tried was called Working Against Gravity (“WAG”). A number of friends and Crossfit community folks had tried it with great success. WAG is not inexpensive – it’s about $160 a month, and you’re required to sign up for three months. But, believe me, after hearing that it was The Thing, I just handed over my credit card.
As you can see if you read my post from 2 years ago (no obligation), it didn’t work for me. I got off on the wrong foot with WAG from the outset with their intake form, my coach just didn’t seem to “get” me, and I basically gave up. (And no one even noticed.) I was really sad.
Recently, however, I heard that WAG had made a lot of changes in the ensuing two years.
In the interim, I have “eating plan’d” myself silly. (As you know if you follow my blog.) I have had programs with a coach, tried programs without a coach, read every book, listened to every TED talk. Seen doctors. Seen acupuncturists. Seen bodyworkers. Seen fitness consultants. About six months or so ago, I quite literally gave up. I stopped doing Crossfit, I started listening to my dear husband . . . who thinks “I’m fine” and should “do 
age-appropriate things.” He said just buy bigger clothes, jiggle here and there, and . . . give in.
My naturopath said to let things settle, get bloodwork done, get my DNA parsed to uncover what sort of genetic stuff was going on with me. In the six months I took “off,” I didn’t gain any weight, though my DNA and personalized nutrition stated that – hello – I was overfat. I tried not to care.
And then?
Hubby got some bad bloodwork results – and Mama Bear left the pity party and got back into action.
I went back through everything that I know about nutrition, macros, you name it. I read deeply about what I could do to reverse some of the issues. And I started to imagine that, perhaps, if I got back in gear and found a way to lose the 30 pounds that has to go, he would be motivated to do it, too.
Not only that, but in my secret heart of hearts, I realized that if I lost 30 pounds, given that I use a 30 pound band to “lift myself” in pullups, I might actually garner my unicorn horn desire – to be able to do pullups again. (It’s been since I was in the Marines – yeah – don’t even ask how long ago that was!)
So, I’m back trying WAG out again.
As I mentioned, I’d heard that WAG had dramatically changed since I had tried it out. I was a little skeptical – okay, I was a lot skeptical. So I poked around. In poking, I found a testimonial from someone who sounded a lot like me.
Part of my issue with WAG the first time around is it seemed “geared” towards young folks who were competitive athletes. I ain’t young, and I ain’t competitive. Finding that testimonial – and a video that showed some of the WAG coaches at a retreat – made me wonder if WAG had maybe “grown up a bit” from the original email, spreadsheet, and photo days.
So, I dove in.
Right from the start, the experience was really different. The intake was a lot more thoughtful, and asked me about me – it didn’t try to “pigeon-hole” me. That also made me think a lot about what I was looking for, especially in a coach. In my previous experience, I was assigned a coach who didn’t really work for me – but this new questionnaire made me think about what I was looking for in a coach.
I wanted someone who understood what it was like to be more than a couple of decades into this Game Called Life. I wanted someone who would realize that I’m trying to be athletic and functional, even if I’m not competitive and competing. I wanted someone who would be a “nutrition nerd” (Yes, I said that), because I am. I wanted someone who would help me make this work.
The first thing that they have you do is input your photographs though – before getting into that juicy Questionnaire. This makes sense, since it’s the thing that you don’t really want to do.
I recently found a photograph of myself just a few years ago, in a bathing suit I still have. I took my WAG Intake photo in that bathing suit. I cried.
When the first photo was taken of me, I wasn’t even really working out much. (Some swimming.) I didn’t watch what I ate that much. Now? I work out “the right way” (none of this “treadmill, burn-out-your-adrenals” stuff for moi), I eat “the right way” and – what happened to my waist?? I have no waist. 
In fact, my waist measurement is now what my hip measurement was in the previous photo. OK, 1/4 inch less. But seriously.
My Questionnaire was reviewed, and I was assigned a coach. Then I did precisely what pissed my first coach off immediately – I asked 10 (okay, 4) questions, all about an hour apart from one another.
What happened?
She answered them.
No fuss, no muss. “That’s what I’m here for,” she said.
PLAY HERE. Nope, not Crickets. ;-)
Now for another really great part. WAG integrates with My Fitness Pal.
In WAG, you’re required to log your macros, and weigh yourself, daily. When I did it before, this meant filling out an Excel spreadsheet. Now, they have a shiny new interface, called “Seismic.” Nope, no more emails and logging in a spreadsheet. Hallelujah! (Go back and play that sound clip again ;-) ) If you’re already familiar with My Fitness Pal (which you know that I am), this change is, well . . . seismic! I have been using My Fitness Pal for so long, that the MFP folks (now owned by Under Armor) actually invited me to their headquarters a year or so ago, to give them feedback on MFP and beta test some potential new features. Yup, I’m MFP O.G. ;-) The best part about My Fitness Pal is that it’s basically a crowdsourced database of just about every food you can think of. Once another user has scanned or entered that food into MFP, it’s there for everyone to use. Better yet, you can input your Recipes into MFP, and it will give you the exact macros for them. You can even save Meals, if you tend to eat the same thing time and again. Genius!
Since WAG now integrates with MFP, the weighing and “macro logging” that you need to do each day is a piece of cake. Not only that, but Seismic is actually pretty fun to use. I’m a sucker for “silly things” coming up while the website is loading, and Seismic is a champ at this. I know, that makes me like 4 years old – but hey, for someone like me, it actually makes you poke around on the website, to see what Seismic is going to say back to you.
WAG also now has a very deep and detailed Knowledge Base. I haven’t read all of it yet – but the fact it exists makes me exceptionally happy. One of my issues before was that there just didn’t seem to be much of a “there there” – the only “rich” part of the experience involved their Members-Only Facebook page, and while that’s great, those are other folks paying to be there, just like me. I wanted a ton of knowledge, and I wanted a coach who “got” me.
It seems that, in 2 years, my prayers have been answered.
I’ve only been on WAG for a week. (I just had my first check in.) I have gone from just under 190 lbs. to just over 186 during this time. This isn’t particularly unusual for me – usually I will get about 9 pounds down in an Eating Plan (a/k/a Diet) and then things don’t budge, and I give up. But so far, for a week, I’ve been working the plan. And perhaps most importantly, I have been enjoying everything. The website is great. Logging is easy peasy. My coach is a unicorn riding baby angel of nerdy pre-menopausal Virgo joy.
Fingers crossed . . .