Weight Watchers - Week 1

On Tuesday, February 9th, my mom and I joined Weight Watchers together.

This is something I had been thinking about doing for awhile, because one of my co-workers had been having a lot of success with the program, and I had been considering trying it. The motivation I needed, I guess, was my mom's help.

See, I've wanted to lose weight for several years, but I just kept gaining. And I guess I hadn't come around to wanting to help myself yet... I wanted to be skinny, but I wasn't worried about being healthy, you know? And I knew I needed to change my mindset. But I guess the real kick in the butt came from my mom. Her doctor has been needling her to lose weight for years now... And finally we decided to do this together. I want my mom to be healthy, because I want her to be around for a lot more time. And if this is what she needs to do, this is what we're going to do. Yes, I am doing it a lot for me, but I think the motivation to stick with it will be because I want to do this for my mom. Help her through it. So essentially, we are helping each other through it.

We joined last Tuesday and went to our first meeting. On Wednesday, we started the diet, by eating better and keeping track of our points. I know some of the people who read this won't know the system of Weight Watchers, so I'll go through a brief rundown.

Every day a person in WW gets so many points. My personal daily total right now is 37. This number is based on several factors including my height, weight, and age (I think.) As I lose weight, my daily total will go down, but for now it is 37. Every day I am supposed to eat those 37 points. There have been days when I was under my points, but not by many. The program is designed for you to eat all of your daily points so your metabolism stays up.

Anyway, along with the daily 37 points, each WW member gets 49 extra points for the week. I know this isn't the healthiest way to do it, but I am saving my points for alcohol. I usually drink one night a week (on the weekend) but sometimes two. So my points will be saved for that... and if I have leftover weekly points and need them, I might use them, or might not. It just depends if I need to, I guess.

So that's how the system works...

The thing is, since I was like 12, I've wanted to be skinnier. In high school I lost about 30-35 pounds, but then in college I gained all of that back, plus 40-50 more pounds. I would love to go back to the weight that I was when I graduated high school. So that means my overall goal is to lose a total of 77 pounds. Obviously I am going to take my time with that, I know it's not going to happen overnight, or even in a few months or anything. But the thing with this program is that... I can do it.

Every other time I have tried to diet, I have lasted no longer than one month. And it's because I didn't know HOW to diet. I didn't know what was really good or bad, how much a real portion size should be, how to set limitations for myself. Basically, I couldn't keep it under control... so I always gave up. With this program, it's different. Already I can tell, even though it's only been one week. The thing is... having points... and having books to look at and point calculators, etc, it gives me... it's real. Something I can hold on to. A DAILY goal to look at. It makes it seem attainable.

Let's say I want to cook chicken for dinner. I get out my little book and look up chicken. And it tells me that 4oz of chicken is 3 points. So we bought a kitchen scale. And I weigh the pieces of chicken to find out what 4oz is. Then I put some seasonings on it and bake it. And I know that for the rest of the day I have 33 points.

It's like... It just makes sense to me. And now I know what I real portion size looks like. It's like a whole new world has opened up. A light bulb has gone off. It's like, "DUH!" and "Ohhhhh.... so that's what that's supposed to look like." And I am actually enjoying myself. Granted, there are parts that are annoying... like having to take the time to pack my lunch for work every day and trying to eat at a restaurant (especially if that restaurant is not in my dining out book.) But the point is, I feel accountable when I have to keep track of everything that goes into my mouth. When I know what I ate and how much more I can eat.

It just makes sense.

So I am going to use this blog to post about my struggles and my triumphs... to write about how I feel about different aspects of the program, or how my days/weeks/months are going.

So I will finish off today's blog post with my first triumph. Tonight was our second meeting and our first weigh-in since we started the program. This first week I lost 4.6 pounds!!! And so did Mom. I find it really entertaining that we both lost the exact same amount of weight. And I find it awesome. I am so excited! I know that not every week will result in a loss like this, and that's okay. I will start figuring out new things to eat and to do. But right now, I am celebrating because I am a LOSER! :P (Get it... Because I lost weight... I'm a loser. Teehee. I can thank my AWESOME Weight Watchers leader for that one!)