Lost 1, stayed the same

A week a go, I lost one pound. This week I stayed the same. I am convincing myself that slow is okay. This weekend I went to a catered women's retreat with dessert at most meals. I was proud of myself. I ate everything but ate in moderation. My usual MO would have been to decide that I was off so to have at it. Since I hadn't been exercising, I should feel good about staying the same weight.

I have a new zen philosophy on weight loss. I know that I will have to stay on Weight Watchers for the rest of my life. Like I've said before, there are only 2 ways to "diet". One is moderation and the other is giving up food groups. I learned that when raw vegans start letting cooked foods back into their diet, they often gain. Since I am choosing the moderation route, I will always have to moderate. There will be no end to it. In the past I thought that once I lost all my weight and learned how to behave, I would be finished. I know better now. I will always have to do this. With that in mind, I also believe that if I work the program, the general trend will be weight loss. If I stick to my points and make sure to exercise, my weight will go down. If both of these thoughts are true, then I shouldn't get too wrapped up in the week to week and how slowly the weight will come off. It will be true that I will have weeks when I have done everything right and the scale will not show it. There will also be weeks where I have some slip ups and the scale gives me a pass. There will be weeks when I struggle and weeks when it all feels easy. If I am doing my best to work the program and know that I will be on it forever, the individual week and the speed of the weight loss should not matter.

If only I say this enough times, maybe I will be convinced.

Lost some weight!

Right now, I am thrilled with my choice to join weight watchers. Like I've said before, I have come to the realization that there are two ways to lose weight, eliminating food groups or eating in moderation. Obviously there is a difference between eating the healthiest diet possible and eating to lose weight. I have found with myself that just trying to eat healthier was not eliminating the weight. On top of that, my weight has become my biggest health threat. I have no desire to eat an exclusively raw foods diet at this time. I am trying to take the healthy eating tools I have learned with raw foods and utilize them with eating my favorite foods in moderation. In the past, I have tried to do that on my own and failed. This time, I am trying Weight Watchers again but adding visits to my counselor to help with why I never stick to it.

After my first meeting, I was a bit more excited than I had anticipated. I really think that doing this in conjunction with counseling is going to be successful. In Weight Watchers now, they give you your daily points and then 35 extra points to use or not use during the week. Since Easter was this week, I decided to save all my extra points and eat what I wanted on Easter and not count it. I was surprised to see how many points the healthiest and raw meals were. This is fine for the people who eat completely raw, but seeing as how I was only eating partially raw, I was consuming more calories than I thought. On top of that, I thought that since my breakfast and lunch was raw, I had more leeway in what I choice for dinner. Not true. I found that if I wanted to have something like pizza for dinner, I had to plan for it all day. It actually worked out great for me. I had 3 slices of pizza one night for dinner and still stayed within my points for that day. Another day I had a full Subway sub (a 12" not the 6" I normally order because the chips I get were about the same number of points as getting the larger sandwich). I tried not to overdo it on Easter, but I didn't skimp on things either and I lost 3.6 pounds. All in all a very successful week. I also didn't exercise at all because I pulled a rib out and was in pain. I will try to update weekly on my progress.

Joining weight watchers

I go back to the doctor today to have my thyroid retested. The couple of weeks, I was so tired. Then I had some energy back for a week and a half. I was exercising and everything. This past week, I have been exhausted again and having allergy problems. I did decide to see an endocinologist because of the sugar issue too, but she can't see me until JULY!

I finally bit the bullet and decided to go to Weight Watchers. It has worked for me in the past. I usually run into 2 problems. The first is that I stop being accurate in counting what I am eating and the second is that I get get bored and cocky and feel I can stop the meetings and continue on my own. I know that I can't continue on my own.

I've been thinking about my weight journey and where it has led me. I have learned a lot from the raw foods culture but also know that it isn't for me. There are definitely recipes I will eat every week, but I never felt a difference when I ate raw. It is interesting because I talk to so many people who feel tons better immediately. I think back to every way of eating and how they all have advocates. I think that our bodies are all different and we need to find what works for us. Eliminating food groups is not the way for me.

The other method that in of itself provided a lot of tools but wasn't the end all for me was strictly using your mind to not eat emotionally, the theory of "not dieting". I am now going to try to utilize everything I've learned with the Weight Watchers program. I am going to try my hardest to do this week by week instead of looking ahead and trying to calculate when all the extra weight will be gone. I also will stop working for Ritamarie at the end of April. My hope is to spend the month of May meditating, working on an exercise plan I can sustain through summer with the kids, and seeing my counselor to work on ways to integrate my adult and child selves and find alternatives to eating for fun.

So hopefully I am in a different place than when I have started other things and by using bits and pieces of everything I have learned I will get this figured out.