Counting Points

I've been reluctant to post about my weight loss efforts. I'd prefer to wait until I've lost 20-30 pounds and then tell you all about it!

But I realized tonight that what I'm doing is truly helping me to change my eating habits in ways that I think and pray will be long term. So I'm going to spill the beans.

Over a month ago, my dear dear friend started going to Weight Watchers. Now, I have never been drawn to WW, but I've also never taken the time to learn much about it. As S. was explaining to me how the system works, I started getting excited... but cautiously. It sounded like a well thought out, reasonable system that I could make work for me.

We don't have money in the budget for weekly meetings and such, and so S. is my WW's group and my source for goodies (thank you, dear!). I check in with her each week after I weigh in (at my chiropractor's office, because she has a decent scale), and she calls me after her meeting each week. We share each other's frustrations and cheer each other on. And we're even getting going on the whole exercise business (which, if you know me, you know that's not my favorite thing!).

So here is what's going on with my eating...

There's a formula by which you figure out how many points you should eat each day. The goal is to eat all your points each day. You also get 35 weekly splurge points.

Now, one of the things that I haven't like about my perception of WW's is their push toward low-fat everything. Buy low-fat yogurt, sour-cream, cookies, etc, etc. I'm studiously avoiding my soapbox, so I'll just say that I think it is MUCH healthier for people to eat REAL food in Moderation.

The neat thing that I've discovered as I've jumped into this is that I can eat the way I believe is healthiest and still use the WW system to learn moderation. That's my stumbling point, you see.... moderation. I can restrict myself completely from "bad" foods. It's practicing moderation with which I have trouble. The thing is, I believe that there are actually very few foods that are truly bad. The key is to eat in moderation and with variety and balance. But that moderation thing tends to escape me.

So, I love the way that the points system, coupled with the commitment to write down everything I eat each day (something that's always horrified me) is that I am learning to eat intentionally. I can eat whatever I want. I'm learning to make conscious choices about what I want to eat and when. And I don't feel like I'm on a diet.

Here's what happened tonight that made me realize I'm actually changing the way I think about eating. I opted to fix frozen pizza because I was feeling tired and uninspired. I figured out the points and realized I should only have two pieces. Honestly, this worried me. I thought I would still be starving! I made sure we had celery (it's free!) and no-sugar-added applesauce (almost free), and enjoyed my two pieces of pizza. And guess what?? I was satisfied! It's been an hour and a half and I still feel satisfied! That's the kind of "ah-ha!" experience that changes my thought patterns.

And so there you have it... I'm counting points and loving it!

If you're interested in learning more, give me a holler.