Weight Watching Process

In spite of my valliant efforts to do dieting on my own, I need to have a support system in this weight loss venture. Yesterday I went back to Weight Watchers and attended the meeting of a very good leader who happens to be gorgeous - she looks like Nicole Kidman, and she's funny. She's lost a lot of weight, and has kept it off for a couple of years. The audience too, is very participatory and everyone is losing weight and boosting each other on. It's really fun and motivating!!

I've succeeded on WW before, but it's been quite some time ago. I tried to remember back, yesterday, to what I have done differently when I SUCCEED at long-term healthy eating. These are the things that seem to help me do it:

Journaling - writing down everything I eat and drink and keeping track of the points. What is important is that I plan my day's meals the night before, or a few days before, so that I'm not eating things first and then learning only later that it had a gazillion points and then I'm already over my daily points allotment. Bummer. So planning ahead and writing it down is a big help in not going over the points limit. This is especially important since I only get 20 points a day.

Eating at Home - When I look at the points it costs to eat out at most restaurants, I realize that my increasing habit of eating out at restaurants constantly needs to change. I could easily wipe out a whole day's worth of points on just one restaurant meal! The challenge this week is the fact that I will soon be going to Stitches in Chicago and eating out constantly. Hmmm.

Preparing Fun Recipes - I need to prepare things I can eat ahead of time and have, EASY prepared meals that I can grab quickly for those times (like after work) when I'm starving and want to eat quick. Yesterday, I made a new recipe that the leader eats for breakfast most days - it's an oats pancake mix that makes enough for 4 small pancakes. Instead of eating with syrup, I just ate them with I Can't Believe It's Not Butter spritzed on top. So good and fun to make. I also made up a large batch of the old-standby WW recipe for Vegetable Soup. I divided them into containers to have some in the fridge and some left to freeze.

Exercise - this time, I am continuing my use of the treadmill and hope to soon add some other exercises, maybe yoga or something else to the mix as well.

Water - to drink at least 64 oz of water a day, it helps to gulp down the first 32 oz. early in the morning.

Make it Fun! My Mom commented a few weeks ago that one reason Aunt Eve is able to keep her weight off for so long (she uses the low carb method) - but she turns her low carb lifestyle into a hobby. She loves trying new recipes, she gets excited about it - and that's what I intend to do now with Weight Watchers.