dressed like a girl
I know there’s a fair bit of anti-Biggest Loser sentiment on Weight Watchers. I agree and disagree with it. I agree in that BL does make some think/expect that big losses are the norm, but I disagree in that if it teaches people to eat well and responsibly, that’s a good thing. I only started watching this season, but I really got a lot out of it. It opened my eyes, but I know better than to think I’m going to lose double digits in one week. I didn’t even do that in week 1.
I digress… I got Ali Vincent’s Believe It, Be It off BookMooch earlier this summer and chose it for the gym today because I really wasn’t feeling the book I was reading (Jillian Michaels’ Master Your Metabolism). I finished the book in one day, almost in one gym sitting and it really opened my eyes. I know a little bit of Ali’s story from when it surfaced on this season’s Biggest Loser as well as from the Wii game. I didn’t know any of her back story and while I’m not Mormon and didn’t get as heavy as she did, I identified with her in many ways.
Food as a Fix. Or as someone has in their sig here, If hunger isn’t the problem, food isn’t the answer. I realized I was eating a lot of garbage in the last few years. Whether it was a box of reduced fat cheez-its (yes, a box. Still an obscene amount of points), m&ms hidden in my desk drawer, a bowl of cookie dough, a large Baskin & Robbins ice cream… You get the gist. I seemed to go in kicks and I’d have one of the above every night instead of dinner. Never mind the fact that I’d also be having a (large) bag of sour patch kids or a (large) box of hot tamales as a mid-afternoon snack at work. And I wonder how I got to be 209 lbs? Maybe the better question is why I didn’t weigh 409 lbs.
This nighttime noshing is one of the things I’ve really had to look at since I started on WW. I still don’t quite eat properly. A smoothie is dinner many nights, but it’s OK for now. It’s in my points budget and it works for me. Hell I work it in as dessert even when I’ve had dinner. It’s my comfort food. It’s a lot better for me than the others ones were, but I know I need to tackle that eventually. But still, it’s been a huge growth and I really don’t miss any of that. Small changes lead to big changes and that’s where I am. A loss of 1.6 lbs a week or a gain of .2. Either way, that gets me down 45 lbs in 22 weeks. WOW.
Chicken Exits. Oh so true. Giving myself something to blame the failure on rather than trying to learn what caused it and how to fix it. In a lot of ways, this was the insecure me. The secure, outgoing me is the world traveler – but the insecure me was always there. Shy inside the chatterbox. I don’t know if the weight was my protection, but it’s certainly not going to be any more.
The photo? It’s from dinner last week. I’m a lot happier than how I looked when this all started. I may not or ever be a shorts, sleeveless-top wearing size 4 120 lb woman, but I’m certainly happier with the person I am than I was with the 209 lb person I was.
