Oh, no big whoop. Down another 2.2! I found out the secret!

I was on the fence of whether or not to weigh in before work or at lunch.  Believe me, I am not one of those people who won’t eat or drink a drop of anything before a WI.  I once worked at an office that had a WW at work and it was at 3:00 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon and people standing in line with me to weigh in kept telling me how starving and thirsty they were because they were waiting to eat or drink before weighing in.  Not sure it’s possible to gain 3 pounds if you have a scrambled egg, piece of toast and a coffee, but whateves.

I was so glad my sister and I met there before work because the line to weigh in at lunch time was super long, and I would have missed half the meeting.

You will note that I am down 11.8 pounds, but speaks volumes is that I’ve lost 9 pounds in the last four weeks.  And if you follow me on Instagram, I am eating really good food.  But here is the secret I discovered!

YOU HAVE TO FOLLOW THE WEIGHT WATCHER PLAN IN ORDER TO LOSE WEIGHT.  I know!  Sounds so crazy right?  But as I was thinking on my train ride home I was wondering what has made me successful these last four weeks that I wasn’t able to do the last 52 weeks of 2016.  Well, here is a typical week I had:

1. Weigh in at WW.  Whether the number was good or bad on the scale, no matter how “good” I thought I did that week, I have to be honest, come weigh in night I didn’t count a single thing that went into my mouth.  Not wine, not the two slices of cheese I ate while looking in the fridge figuring out what to make for dinner.  Not the one, two (or even three!) handfuls of nuts I’d snack on while making dinner.  None of it.  My reasoning?  I had PLENTY of time to work that off – I mean I had a whole week, right?
2. Then I get busy at work, or get sick and can’t exercise, and all of a sudden I am not able to work off the “extras” that made it into my mouth.  So maybe a couple days before the next weigh in, I’d be perfect at tracking points, only to suck in my gut come the next WI day hoping upon hope that somehow the scale would move in the direction I wanted it to go.
3. Guess what?  I repeated that process over and over and over (and over and over) thinking that the outcome would be different.

Isn’t there a saying?

Week after week I’d try to “cheat” the plan.  Let’s say one week I had a burger and fries, pizza and wine and I stepped on the scale and lost 1.5 pounds.  What?!  Sign me up!  So the next week I’d eat a burger and fries, pizza and wine, go into the next weeks weigh in and be up 2 pounds.  Or I’d do really great Monday through Friday, then come Friday night, all bets were off and I wouldn’t track a thing until Monday morning again.  I was like a hamster on a wheel spinning round and round until I finally realized I had to stop the madness.

There are three things that I have changed:

1. I don’t binge eat anymore.  If I want something, I make it fit into my points for the day.  No regret, no guilt.  I counted it, and moved on.
2. I drastically walked away from my beloved wine.  I had two 4 ounce glasses at my family Christmas party on January 7 and I had three 4 ounce glasses at my #live fully party
3. I track everything I put in my mouth.

That’s it.  I realized the only way to be successful is to get a hold of the food, because let’s be honest, we all walked into a Weight Watcher meeting because we put too much food in our mouths, not because we ate too many fruits and vegetables.  Working out, getting my 10k steps, that’s all well and good, but I realized I will never in a million years out train the shit I put in my mouth to show a deficit week after week.

And what makes me laugh is that I’ve always known this.  It’s not my first rodeo with losing weight, but for whatever reason, I was on a merry go round that wouldn’t stop.  But I finally got the operators attention (me!) and said enough is enough.  There is always going to be something that will trigger me to run to food – I know that.  But if I just let that temptation go for 15 minutes (I’ve literally set a time on my iphone!) 9/10 the temptation is gone when the alarm goes off. 

So I am stepping off my proverbial soap box.  It’s consistency, not perfection.  It’s being in control of your life vs. life taking control of you.  And we all have that ability no matter what is going on in our lives.  I am just happy I’ve finally found out the secret. 

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Here were my eats for the day – I had 28/30 points for the day:

I bought a can of these “field peas and snaps” because they looked like baked beans to me, but have 0 grams of sugar – so 1/2 a cup is only 2 smart points.  But when I opened the can, they were really tiny!  Have you guys heard of these before?

So here is my Friday Food For Thought:

Have a great weekend!  Hugs!