Hey, I’m back! Did anyone out there miss me? I haven’t written anything since November of 2008! The holidays threw me completely off! It’s a new year now. It’s not only a new year but it’s almost spring time of 2009!! The stress from the rush of December and the holidays has just started to fade away and the first signs of the warm weather are beginning to give me hope.
Physically, I’m a mess. I’m not sure how that happened. I started this blog because I wanted to write about my experience with the ‘Weight Watchers Diet’ which I had hoped would be so successful that I would never have to go to another diet again. Well, it didn’t work for me. Let me analyze this a bit before moving on. I started going to Weight Watchers with my sister who’s daughter is getting married in June. We each wanted to lose 30 pounds and figured the upcoming wedding, and having to buy formal wear, would be enough motivation to get us going. We went to the meetings on Saturday mornings and we both found them helpful. We both stuck to the diet pretty strictly for the first 2 weeks. My sister lost about 5 pounds and I didn’t lose anything. This was extremely discouraging for me. The next couple of weeks I stuck to the diet less strictly and my sister remained steadfast. At the end of a month, she had lost 8 pounds and I had lost 3 pounds. On Weight Watchers, you are allowed a certain amount of food points per week depending on your initial weight when you start. I weighed more than my sister so I was allowed 2 points more per week than she was. Also, every week you are given an extra 35 points that you can either spread out during the week, or save for a special day that you plan to eat out, or you can just not use them at all. My sister was not using those points during the week and I was not only using them, but going over them by about 8-10 points every week. What I found was that I could not lose more than the initial 3 pounds that I’d lost in the first month. The points allowed me were not enough for me to feel satisfied and the ‘flex’ program that let’s you choose NOT to count the points but to eat until you feel satisfied, did not allow most of the foods that I was eating during the holidays. Frustrated and feeling once again like a diet failure, I stopped going to the meetings but I continued to write down what I ate and tried to stick to the points. I didn’t lose anymore weight, but I wasn’t gaining any back either. What I found was that it just didn’t feel natural to me. Was I prepared to count every bit of food I ate and write down and calculate every single meal? For the next day? For the next week? For the rest of my life? I wasn’t. I’m not that kind of person. My sister has always made lists to keep her organized. She’s very organized. She’s a nurse. She’s lost 20 pounds so far on Weight Watchers. It hasn’t been easy for her. She stopped writing down everything she ate for a while. She gained back a couple of pounds over the holidays. She’s missed meetings because she was afraid she’d gained weight, but for the most part, she stuck with it and she’s lost 20 pounds! We still have a few months to go before the wedding. I’ve never made lists, I’m better living in the moment. I went off the diet altogether, and gained back the 3 pounds I lost, plus 2 more!!
I’m back to where I’ve always been. Overweight and feeling lost. I’ve failed another diet. I also feel stuck in this body that sometimes seems like it’s someone else’s. I think the only thing that will help me now is to become more active and try to stay on a low fat diet. This has worked so well for me in the past that I think it deserves another try. I also have to rethink my negative feelings about failure, lack of willpower, and not liking how I look. None of these thoughts can be a good way to start on new path to good health and a better life, so I’m going to try to change my negative thoughts into positive ones. Wish me luck, and stay tuned to see how and what I do to get to a place where I am more comfortable and connected to myself. Thanks for reading along.
