Weight Watching

After much debating in my head, I decided to officially head back over to Weight Watchers and sign up. For those of you who have read my first blog entry, you may remember that I mentioned I had had some success with Weight Watchers before in the past, but hadn’t necessarily decided to pick one particular approach to getting healthy and losing this weight. Well, I was on the fence about whether or not to sign up for Weight Watchers again, but decided to take the plunge. I do like the sense of camaraderie that comes from attending the meetings, but I have always found most of the information the leaders talk about to be...well...how do I put this nicely...boring. There I said it. And last night’s meeting was no exception. The leader spoke about liquids. For the first half of the meeting, she spoke about how we need to drink 6 glasses of water a day, and for the second half of the meeting, she spoke about how alcohol doesn’t count as water. *yawn* Honestly...I was B.O.R.E.D. The best part of the meeting for me was, and always will be, witnessing and sharing the victories along the way, both big and small. I love hearing how people are progressing, and it’s nice to have a place to share it with others as well. That’s what brought me back to a meeting. I plan to try some of the different meeting times in the hopes of finding which leader is the most entertaining.

So here I am: an official Weight Watcher again. I’ve got my little book (the materials have changed somewhat since I last attended) and I have a new points range. I actually get to eat 36 points a day, and that’s even considering I don't get any points for my average daily activity because I spend most of my workday sitting down. That’s a lot of points to eat. By the time I get down to a goal weight, I will have lost approx. 14 of my current food points. Wow. Yaa...we won’t think about that quite yet. Thankfully it’s a gradual reduction! I know 36 points is a lot of points, but I don’t think I’ll have any problem eating them all, especially in the beginning. Actually, I'm sure it will even cramp my style somewhat until I adjust.

When I weighed in at the WW centre last night, my weight was higher than what I had recently weighed at home. This is to be expected, as I weigh in at home first thing in the morning buck-naked (anything to get a lower number, right?) vs. when I weighed in at the WW centre at the end of the day, fully clothed, and even with my sandals on (their policy is socks or shoes, and I was wearing bare feet with sandals). So my new starting weight is 306.2 lbs. I’m going to change my stats on the side bar to restart with this new weight, and change the goals I posted in an earlier blog accordingly. I’ll repost them later when I get a moment.

I was trying to figure out how many times I have tried the Weight Watchers program. I first signed up in 2003 and easily lost 30 lbs in about 3 months (I weighed 250 lbs to start), after which time I went on a vacation and never quite got back on the WW wagon. I signed back up in about 2005, but only half-heartedly followed the program and didn’t lose much weight. There were a couple other occasions (maybe 3?) where I signed up for WW, but never attended more than 2 meetings before giving up. I’ve spent some time thinking about these half-baked attempts at following the program, and to be honest, they’re the reason I was hesitant to sign up again, but I don’t think I was ready back then to make real, lasting changes to my lifestyle. I was talking to my husband about how in the past (aside from the first time I did the program) I had a more passive approach to my weight loss. I explained to him how it was almost as if I signed up and attended the first meeting, hoping that this was all I needed to do and that magically the weight would come off on it’s own. Of course, my husband pointed out that if just signing up for WW and attending a meeting was all that you needed to do to guarantee weight loss, that you’d have to book an appointment at Weight Watchers about 6 months in advance because everyone would want to be there. I told him the waitlist would likely be longer than 6 months.

So here I am. Ready to actually journal what I eat and make better choices so I can get to a healthier place. I just have to keep reminding myself that these need to be long-term changes. I mean, I’m good at saying that. I’m good at saying I understand that this isn’t a diet, that it’s a lifestyle change, yada yada yada, but REALLY getting that these need to be PERMANENT, CONSISTENT changes...well, I’m not 100% sure I’m there yet. I can give good lip service, but I think the internalization of this process that will bring real lasting success with weight loss will take more time and effort. I just need to be patient.