My first week of Weight Watchers is over, and I've lost 3.4 pounds.
I'm at such a high weight, and my weight has fluctuated so much, that 3.4 pounds doesn't seem like all that much. Most crap diets have you losing 10 pounds the first week. But I'm taking heart from this. First of all, Weight Watchers isn't a crap diet; it's a lifestyle change. I have been shocked by my eating habits this past week. I never really thought about how many times I feel "hungry" in a given day. This week I learned how to wait.
Secondly, 3.4 pounds is an achievement. I've actually been checking my weight every day, and it has consistently gone down this week. That's not always going to be the case, but it has been helpful in keeping me going so far. It's not really healthy to lose more than a couple pounds a week, and I want to do this in a healthy way.
I slipped up several times this week--there were days I went over my point limit--but Weight Watchers gives you extra points each week, and I didn't use all of those up. My crowning achievement has to be last night, when I had enough points left for dessert, but decided I wasn't hungry and didn't have any. (!)
I really feel that this is something I can stick with, and that is largely due to Weight Watchers' online tools. A few years ago I purchased Diet Power, and it did everything I could possibly want to help me diet...it tracked not only calories, but pretty much everything, and auto-adjusted based on weight loss and how much you ate and exercised. But it's a desktop application, with no web version. To have it with you anywhere, you had to export your data and take it with you, then install the application wherever you were and import your data. I typically only used Diet Power at home, which meant that I wasn't checking throughout the day to make sure I was on track. The software also took up a lot of processing power, so I'd tend to leave it off and then forget about using it.
Weight Watchers doesn't track everything Diet Power tracks, but it tracks what matters. Maybe not tracking every single mineral is a good thing. I like that I can input foods with just three values: calories, total fat, and fiber. I don't have to know, for example, how much iron there is. It's something less to worry about. And the food database is quite robust; often I don't have to add the item I'm eating, because it's already there.
But the best part is, of course, that I can get to the site from any computer with internet access, which means I can stay on track all day. Weight Watchers seems to have many more online tools I can use, too, as I get adjusted.
I'm doing well so far with tracking points and sticking to my limit. I'm going to focus on that this week as well. But I'm also going to try to increase the number of times I work out. I only exercised a few days last week; I'm going to shoot for every day this week.
Every time I've tried to lose weight in the past, I've failed. But I cannot afford to give up this time. There's too much at stake.
And I want to achieve this. I want to know that if I stick to a plan over time, I can accomplish great things. There is so much I want to do with my life, but if I don't get over this fear of commitment I seem to have, I never will.
1 comment:
I lost 33lb with Weight Watchers and am now maintaining. I did Monthly Pass, where I could go to meetings but also have the full online access to the tracker, the databases etc.
I found having the online tracking of points to be really helpful as I could enter food throughout the day as I ate it, and also I could plan and mark off food I know I was going to eat. The Flash based points tracker is pretty good although it could be faster. I like that I can set up favourites, as I will tend to eat the same core set of foods. The databases for food are excellent although you sometimes want to check them against packets, or use weight for portion sizes. IIRC the Recipe Builder is pretty good as it can suggest substitutions for ingredients in recipes, and there is a great database of recipes.
In terms of monitoring my weight, I'd do a weekly weigh-in, but I also got on the scales first thing in the morning. I would find that the weight would bounce up and down up to a couple of pounds or so day to day, but the overall trend was reliable. This is just down to food moving through your system, hydration etc.
You are right about it being a lifestyle change. I am making more healthy choices (mostly, from time to time I have some bad things ;) ) and trying to get a good five a day. If anything I feel I'm eating more, and that's probably because I'm having more filling foods, rather than a candy bar. If I know I can have that Peanut Butter Chunky Kit Kat for 5.5 points, that's a trade off of some nice cheese, or a Weight Watchers dessert and a whole bunch of fruit, so I'm going to think twice about it. Making the switch to diet drinks again was an easy trade. Even switching to 1% milk has been fine, and now if I even have half and half, it seems incredibly creamy. Having fruit at my desk at work has made it easier to stay on track - get some apples, bananas, grapes and small easy peel citrus and you won't have any problems with snacking - you just couldn't eat that much fruit. If it's fast food, then I know I can get a lot more tasty sandwich at Subway than at McDs for less points, and that's another easy choice.
Brooke and I doing the plan together has also helped, and now I'm maintaining I just need to have a few more points during the day. Still trying to perfect this, but we're doing ok. You might want to do something similar with Sean so you're eating the same meals for dinner and he just has some extras.
Well done, and good luck with the coming week. If there's anything you need help with, Brooke and I are here.
Post a Comment