Lifestyle Changes

About a month ago, I shared something really personal: my weight. I've always been a little self conscious, and have always tried to conceal it. I've always been told weight is just a number and although that is true, it wasn't a number I was happy with and I wanted to do something about it.

When you're "bigger" or "curvy" sometimes a number feels really limiting. I knew that I personally wanted to make a change, and see where it would take me. My mother has done Weight Watchers on and off for most of her life and we decided to try it together this time.

See I love veggies, fruits, whole grains, and I've always eaten them. However, I also love pizza, beer, and chicken fingers. So it wasn't that I was always eating bad, but what I've mostly realized is that my portions were way off.

Weight Watchers has given me the tools to control my portions and notice what I'm putting into my body. For example, you could have a croissant with butter or eggs, ham, and steamed veggies. Around the same calories but which is going to leave you more full?

Watchers lays out a point system based on nutritional value. You are assigned daily points that you can use at your leisure throughout the day, but you also have weekly flex points. These give you the freedom to go out to dinner, enjoy a night out with your friends or enjoy a family party.

I think what is making this work for me, it that there's freedom. A lot of diets today have such strict limits and rules and I know that I personally can't carry that along for a long period of time. This allows for cheat days, or when I have certain cravings I can still do those, maybe fall of the wagon a bit since I'm still adjusting but my whole diet isn't thrown off.

A major change I've noticed is that I listen to myself and stop eating when I'm full. I used to finish my whole plate at a restaurant and never thought twice about it. Now, I've slowly stopped doing that, and making sure that I stop eating when I'm full rather than when the food in front of me is gone.

I am down eight pounds this month. Since I'm still eating a lot of what I always have but just different portions, I know that these results are something that will last. I'm excited to continue along on this journey and I feel like having these posts to look back on will be a great reminder of where I have come from and my progress along the way.

When I visited Parish in New Orleans I didn't follow WW as closely as I could have, and because of that I did gain a little weight back, but at this week's weigh in I am down four pounds. It's all about balance. Sometimes I'm going to go on vacation and enjoy myself. Sometimes I'm going to work out 5 times in a week, But overall, it balances out and that's how I feel you succeed.

All the other diets I've tried throughout my life limit or completely cut out usual food groups which make them hard to stick to for me. With Weight Watchers, I am in control of how I choose to use my points and I always know that I have a group of people keeping me accountable.