Back on Weight Watchers

Today, my blog post is about re-starting Weight Watchers. Recently, I noticed that my eating habits were getting out of control, I mean waaaayyy out of control, so I decided to start using the Weight Watchers Points System again. Many, many years ago, I successfully used the WW Points System and lost 25 pounds in 4 months. A couple of years later, I re-joined WW to lose a few more pounds. But I really wasn't in the right mind-set to stick with the program and basically wasted my money. This time around, instead of rejoining, I decided to do it on my own and dug out my old Weight Watchers paraphernalia.



The points system is a really great system because no food is off limit. You can eat anything you want as long as you stay within your point range. The point range is based on how much an individual weighs. Since I was a member all those years ago, WW has changed its system a bit and they now use a new method of calculating food points and daily point intake. Instead of using WW's current points system, I decided to stick with what I know, so I'm using the old method of calculating points.

I haven't paid attention to what I've been eating in years and I knew limiting my food intake would be really hard. I thought the best thing would be to ease myself back into the program with 30 points per day the first week and then reduce that amount by 2 points each week until I attain my goal of eating only 22 points per day. There was no way I could just cold-turkey start at 22 points per day.

Here's how my week panned out:
Day 1 -- Tuesday, 8/23 -- 29 points
Day 2 -- Wednesday -- 26 points
Day 3 -- Thursday -- 23 points
Day 4 -- Friday -- 26 points
Day 5 -- Saturday -- 29 points
Day 6 -- Sunday -- 21 points
Day 7 -- Monday -- 21 points

My goal is to lose 15 pounds by Thanksgiving. When I weighed myself this past Tuesday, my weight was down 7.5 pounds in only 7 days! I am already at my halfway point. I expected to lose only 2 to 3 pounds during Week 1 because this time around I won't be able to exercise due to some health problems. Apparently, there are 1,000 year old skeletons with better bone density than myself. My knees, back and neck are shot, which means no more hitting the treadmill for an hour or running up/down steps and a whole lot of other restrictions I won't go into right now.



When I originally did the points, I exercised Monday through Friday with a routine of an hour on the treadmill, followed by (every other day) crunches, leg and arm work. So losing weight for me this time around will be even more challenging than if I could exercise.

I'm feeling pretty confident that I can achieve my 15 pound goal by Thanksgiving by keeping to my daily points. My philosophy is simply to take it one day at a time.

For anyone interested in the points system, there's a website with a calculator to help determine the points according to the WW points system.  Also, here's a link to the Weight Watchers official site.