Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Weight Watching....again

Last Saturday, I joined up at Weight Watchers again. Whenever I try to lose weight I always use the WW method, but if I'm being honest with myself, I know I have to join for it to actually work. The "Mommy and Me" meetings I attended back in the spring didn't really work for me that well, probably because I had to give 90% of my attention to my little munchkin and not the meeting, keeping her from eating other kids' goldfish and keeping other kids from hurting her.

And if I'm being really honest, the WW meetings are ME time. I enjoy them, I get lots of positive feedback, and I know it's big-headed to admit it, but I love that. I love it when my leader asks me to tell the class how much weight I lost back in '04-'05 and everyone claps. I love it when she asks me to tell the story of how I joined, how I go over my plateau to lose my final 5 pounds and get to goal, and I love the respect all the other women give me, because I've already once accomplished what they're trying to do. And it's not all self-centeredness...I like to share tips and get recipes and clap for other people too.

So I joined on Saturday, and was a perfect eater for 3 days. Then I hit day 4. If I think back on the 10-20 times this last year I've tried to lose weight, it was usually day 4 that did me in. On day 4, my body rebels, and it wants to be full. Not just satisfied, but stuffed. It must be something psychological. I know overeating is bad, I know I should control myself, but I think there's some link in my head between feeling completely stuffed and something good because I just need to eat until I can't eat anymore sometimes. Definite food-related issues.

So anyway, day 4 rolled around. And I ate everything in sight, trying to achieve a certain feeling that my body had been missing the last 3 days. But this time I wrote down everything I ate, which makes me feel awful looking at it, but I forced myself to tally it up. I had used up every flex point I had for the week, which is about twice as much as I'm allotted in a particular day (since this week was only 5 days between weigh-ins). I don't like to use all my flex points in a day, but there it was. And this time, instead of feeling defeated, disgusted with myself and hopeless, I felt like I had learned something. And I knew all was not lost because technically the number of calories I took in was fine, despite the screwed up psychology behind it. Knowing that enabled me to jump straight back on the wagon today. I've been great all day today, and at my weigh in tonight I was down 4 pounds :-)

It's difficult for me to look back at my previous weight loss endeavor and remember that I wasn't 100% perfect the whole time. When I struggle to stay on program for 4 days, I feel like I was a different person back then...a magical person who stuck virtuously to the plan for over a year when in fact I was far from it. I had weeks where I lost only 0.2 pounds, or nothing, or even gained weight. I had weeks where I went over my flex points by 20. But I never completely gave up on a week, and I still lost weight. A lot of it.

So I'm proud that I lost 4 pounds, but I'm also wary. I've done that before a million times this year, the TRUE test will be to see if I can keep losing weight. I think with the meetings I can.

So for now my monthly membership is on automatic renewal, and let's hope I get back to my lifetime weight and don't have to pay for too much longer!

1 comment:

Dave, Jen, Kylie and Dawson (1) said...

WTG on your weight loss Sara!!! Keep it up! I've been struggling these last two weeks myself :( Any tips to get me through the next two weeks?