Thursday, September 24, 2009

Weight Watchers rocks!

I tweeted this morning that I had to head off to my Weight Watchers (WW for short) meeting in a little bit. I haven't been faithful about it since the beginning of summer but I do try to attend every 2-3 weeks.

I began my WW journey five and a half years ago in January 2004. I'm 5' tall and at the time weighed almost 150 lbs - a good 25-30 lbs more than I should be. I joined their online program and reached my goal weight by July of that year. I was thrilled! I had to buy a whole new wardrobe right down to my underwear. 30 lbs is a big loss on a tiny person. I lost about 20% of my starting weight.

Anyway, I slipped off the wagon and by January of this year I'd regained about 18 lbs. Even my fat clothes were getting tight. I was angry with myself for slipping like that. It was very hard but I found that place deep inside that helped me lose the first time around and I did it again. This time I joined a meeting in my town. I attended faithfully every Thurs. morning at 9:00 until I reached my goal once again and earned my Lifetime membership in May. Go me!

This summer was a struggle again for me. Staying on program became difficult with my more relaxed schedule (the kids were out of school, I was sleeping in, etc.). I've still managed to keep all the weight off plus some. I hover around 120, which is 8 lbs below my WW goal of 128 (that's the number I need to maintain to keep my meetings free).

A huge factor in my maintenance is walking. Up until a couple of months ago I walked 6 days a week, 2 miles a day for 30 minutes. From what I hear that's a pretty darn good pace. We got hit with a lot of rain in June & July and that put a big damper (no pun intended!) on my efforts. Now I'm walking 2-3 times a week which is probably enough to maintain my weight. I'm trying to get into a regular schedule again of walking at least 4-5 times a week because it really makes a difference in how I feel on a day to day basis. I was walking in the evenings after dinner. Now that the days are getting shorter it's going to become more challenging to do that. I need to train my body to walk in the morning on the days I'm home (which is 5 out of 7 days). My body is so used to walking in the evening that when I walk in the morning I feel like I'm starting from scratch. lol

Here's a before & after shot of me when I lost the weight back in 04. This is a scrapbook page I made about my journey because it was such a big accomplishment for me. I was always a skinny kid but once I hit my 20s & 30s I started struggling with weight issues.

My main point of this blog is that WW rocks because it works. It takes hard work and lots of discipline but if you follow the program you'll get results. If I can do it anyone can.

Before & After Weight Loss with Weight Watchers

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