Monday, April 30, 2012

Here I go again

Thursday, as my massage therapist was kneading my muscles, she confessed that she just started Weight Watchers. This divorced, single mom has had it with the way she looks and decided to take control of her life.

I applauded her decision, and when she asked me if I ever tried WW, I hesitated, because my WW attempts to lose weight have not been like Jennifer Hudson's. But I decided to tell her why I left the last time.

The newest plan lets you eat as much fruit as you want. Of course, the parenthesis tell you to eat in serving sizes, but if you allow someone with a weight problem to eat all the fruit they want, they just might.

I did. I ate a watermelon. Not the small round seedless variety. I ate the big seeded one, and it took me less than an hour to chip away at all that red flesh. If I had stopped there I might have been OK. But I ate all manner of fruit that week in quantities many people would never eat in a year.

When I got on the scale that week, I gained .2 pounds. My leader asked me how my week was. I confessed to the watermelon, and she told me that actually there is nothing wrong with that, that my body is simply getting used to a new way of eating. She did suggest that I try to stick to fruit portions, but added that if I was going to reach for anything sweet, fruit is the way to go.

That was my last week at WW. I am a compulsive eater, and eating a watermelon is not right. Period. I wanted her to tell me that.

But as I was relating this story to my massage therapist, I realized that I was angry at WW. And it's not WW's fault. It's mine.

When i got home from my massage, the first thing I did was to sign up for WW online. I've been to enough meetings.

The WW app is on my iPhone, and three times a day I get a reminder to record what I have eaten. It's better than the weekly meetings. That alone has kept me honest this weekend.

About this weekend: I lost 6 pounds since Friday. Of course, those are the six pounds I gained recently on a three-week vacation, but at least the scale is going down.

And although I find myself dieting once again, doing Weight Watchers the way I am doing it really could be a way of life. This weekend I attended a baby shower and ate out twice, and I still managed to shed some pounds.

That translates into success. Plus, I've stopped being angry at WW.