Monday, March 2, 2009

Weight Watchers Points

I know you don’t have to spend money to lose weight. In fact, you should be SAVING money when you lose weight because you are eating LESS. And walking is free. So are exercise DVD rentals from the library. Still, I’ve always found Weight Watchers to be quite motivating. It worked great for me for a few months back in 2006. Then I gave up.

I tried again after Eva was born, but I think it was too early and I was starving all the time from breastfeeding and wasn’t able to make the meetings with a tiny baby nursing and trying to sleep (and another child wanting to tag along) and wasn’t able to leave the baby at home because I’m a freaky attached mommy.

When my youngest just turned 1, I did WW again and lost a few pounds. It motivates me knowing someone will be weighing me in on the same scale every single week. Of course, every time I lose some weight, I get pregnant again. But for a few weeks (before I knew I was pregnant) I was my own little Food Dictator and monitored all that went into my mouth and went all Diet Coke and Splenda (yes, poison, I know) and people rolled their eyes at me, but I DID IT FOR ME and didn’t care what anyone else thought.

So how do you stop using food as your drug of choice? It always helps me when I’m stressed out. It’s better for me than cigarettes or Ritalin or tequila, right? Safer, anyway, I guess. I’m like a drug addict on Celebrity Rehab when I try to lose weight. I just KNOW this time will be the time I will kick my food addiction. But then somehow I always end up with needles – I mean, Dove chocolates – in my back pocket or diaper bag.

How do you learn Food Appreciation versus Food Inhalation? How do you live mindfully and EAT mindfully? And no, I’m not letting pregnancy be an excuse to start pigging in tons of chocolate again. I have relapsed a couple of times with vanilla Coke and Hershey’s extra creamy hearts (who knew?), but this time around I can eat 2 hearts and be happy rather than eating 20 and being able to taste ONE of them.

Next week we’ll talk about your Weight Loss Influences (friends, family, etc.). Don’t worry, I’m tiring of the weight loss thing, so suffer through with me for a few more weeks!