Day Five: Momentum

Momentum is a very important subject when it comes to anything in life, especially weight watchers. Its totally in your head, but by day 5 of this, saying no to a certain food feels more like a rule that someone else gave me than a rule I gave myself. They say that you have to have self control, but SELF control is something that's really hard, and you don't want to be doing something that's hard for the rest of your life -you have to find a way to make it easy on yourself. And building momentum is the best way to do that. Your loyalty is to the chart on your wall rather than what you see when you look down at your belly. Having something that's rolling on it's own is the best way to create that feeling for yourself. For me, its the work I did in the recent past. It's seeing how many points I've eaten everyday for the past week right in front of me. I don't need to make myself feel like I let myself down, I just stay within my points so I don't let the chart down.

This is why it's very important to stay perfectly within your points each week. Because a little slip up, and you lose the momentum... And I hope you realize by now I mean mental momentum, not physical. It won't actually stunt your weight loss if you accidentally eat 36 extras one week, but it will (if you're me) totally stunt your mental momentum. AND THAT WAS MY BIGGEST PROBLEM THIS WHOLE TIME. You see, at first, whenever I went over my 35 extra, I would give up and fall off of weight watchers. Then I realized that I needed to be easier on myself, so I continued to stay on even if I ate like 65 extra that week. Of course that was really smart of me because when I fall off, I probably eat more like 300 extra a week. So I wasn't gaining weight all year, but I wasn't losing any. So as I enter this new phase of my weight watchers journey -you know, the starting fresh phase, I will both stay in my points every week, AND not fall off. Imagine that.

And I feel the same right now as I did a couple days ago: Bored and can't think of anything else in the world I want to do besides eat... But somehow it's WAY easier to ignore today, because I have 4 days of success behind me. AND IT'S ONLY DAY 5 PEOPLE!!! That's so nothing. And yet, the science of momentum is so strong that it already has an effect after only 5 days. And right now, I'm excited about this, because I finally believe that I can do it. And by Christmas I'll probably be 130 pounds.

Advise of the day: Somehow figure out how do get through 4 days, and then ride the momentum forever.

POINTS EATEN TODAY: 27

Day Four: How To Succeed

Weight Watchers can be really easy or it can be really hard. The tiniest little decision can make a big difference.

Example: I love ice cream, and I end up eating like 4-5 weight watchers ice creams each day. One extra little low-point dessert a day doesn't seem like it makes a big difference each day, but by the end of the week, it can add up to 21 extra points. And for me, who ends up eating 50 extras many weeks (because I don't have the best control), all I have to do is refrain from eating one little thing each day. And that really isn't that hard.

On the same subject, one thing I learned about this diet is that when you're dealing with a low-point food. Sometimes 1 of them is very very little, and 2 is very very a lot. For instance, a 3 point food is very small, and 6 is very large. You think that you can eat 800 low point foods, but you can't. No you can't.

advice of the day: don't take low-point foods lightly. Unless they're 0 points.

POINTS EATEN TODAY:28

Day Three: Restaurants are bad!!!

Today I had a nice day in the city. And when I go out, as I said in an earlier post, I am having too much fun to actually think about food, so technically those are the days that I should do really well. Well... it's quite the contrary I'm afraid. And it's the fault of restaurants. When I go to a restaurant, I order something that looks delicious, that if made at home would be 6 points. And every single time I truly believe that it can't possibly be very many points. Then I go home and get on the internet and research how many points it is, and its usually really really shocking.

A couple weeks ago, on a monday -the first day of my weight watchers week- I went to Chili's and thought it would be okay if I ordered a burger, and if it turned out to be a lot I could just be careful the rest of the week... Well it turned out to be 40 points. 40 POINTS!!! That's like 2 of my days.

Anyway, today I had a turkey sandwich at Finagle a Bagel. And I don't actually know how many points it was because it wasn't on the site, so I went to the site of a similar restaurant, and I figured it was somewhere around 12 points. And the worst part really is that I spend the rest of the day thinking I'm doing ok, so by the end of today, I ended up with 39.5 points... I did walk for 4 hours straight, so technically I should be able to erase 12 points. Typically I wouldn't even count that, just so I could get ahead a little, but I know myself, and if I don't count that walk, I won't have any extras left for the week, and if I do that, I'll go insane and give up. I have to give myself a little leeway for the next 4 days so I don't fall off.

What I learned (my advise of the day):

1) Always order soup at a restaurant. NO MATTER HOW HEALTHY SOMETHING LOOKS, IF IT'S NOT SOUP, IT'S PROBABLY 1,000 POINTS. And this does not include creamy soups. Those are the fattiest of all. But vegetable soups should be like zero. And chicken soups are like 2.

2) If possible, if you know you're going out to a certain place, look up what you're gonna eat before hand.

These are seriously new rules for myself, because I continually fall into the trap of taking a little break from thinking about weight watchers when I'm "partying," of course intending to count the points, but assuming that my 35 extra will take care of it. Which it never does. So I'll just set this one simple rule for myself, and it will solve so many of my problems, because I eat out a lot, and it ruins my week almost every week.

POINTS EATEN TODAY: 28

Day Two: Lie to Yourself

It's amazing how my brain works, but strangely enough I've already lost all my excitement about this. But if I can survive through these kinds of times, that's a lot more important than doing well while I'm all pumped up about it. Because the fact of the matter is that I will not be all hopped up about weight loss every day of my life. Sometimes I will and sometimes I won't, so I have to figure out how to endure through every kind of day.

My Advise for the day: It's all about positivity. Because right now, just talking about the fact that I've lost motivation makes me feel even less motivated. Any attitude you chose will multiply when you say it out loud. So if you're excited, and you write about it or tell someone about it, you will afterwards feel 10x as excited. If you feel discouraged, you'll feel a lot worse after voicing it... So the advice is LIE TO YOURSELF.

I'll do it now:

Oh my gosh, I am so excited (see I'm actually starting to believe it)... It's gonna be so awesome to be skinny. I'm gonna run around in shorts. And it's not gonna take that long. This is something I wanted my whole life, and it's going to be mine so soon.

There is a list of things that inspire me when I'm feeling like giving up:

*Seeing someone with a body I want

*Going out and having fun out of my house

*Watching faitstarlite videos on youtube

...that's pretty much it

POINTS EATEN TODAY: 33

Day One: Fresh Start

I started weight watchers a year ago, and in the first 2 months I lost 20 pounds. Ever since then, I've been yo-yo-ing. And I still have 30-35 more pounds to lose. I have a tendency to get a little 'se la vie' about it, and end up using way more than my 35 extra. (I am alloted 23 a day, plus 35 extra each week).

So today is my fresh start! I made a new chart to mark my points, and since I spent so much energy on it (coloring and such), I will make sure to write down my points EVERY SINGLE DAY, and stay within my points EVERY SINGLE DAY. All I really needed was to refresh my motivation because I was starting to not care at all about it. I find that if you make a really attractive and perfect way to organize your points, you will want to fill it perfectly... And after like 1 week of perfection, you'll have so much momentum cuz you won't want to soil your perfect beautiful calendar by messing up.

This is the calendar I made. It lets you see the big picture of how well you've done for how long. I figured this out while waiting at a bus stop one day. I was having trouble staying on weight watchers, and then while waiting for the bus I was flipping through the little notebook where I recorded all my points, and seeing the overall picture of how many points I ate for the past couple months, I was totally inspired to do better. So I created this calendar. On the left is my weight I record each monday morning, and on the right is how many extras I ate that week. I highly recommend doing a calendar like this to anyone who's a really visual thinker. And you can just keep track of points in your head and write it down at the end of the day OR you can keep a little notebook in addition.

ABOUT MY BLOG

I will write a short entry each day with a little tid bit of insight and inspiration as well as how many points I ate that day. And on Monday's, I will record my weekly progress including my weight and pictures.. like this...

MY WEEKLY PROGRESS:

Weight: 168.2

Points today: 31

A Little Girls Mind

No one would feel sorry for me if I said that I thought I was fat when I was 8 years old. Every 8 year old girl thinks she's fat, and that's the sad truth about our society. Of course I was perfectly healthy, as are most of the 8 year olds I speak of... but let me tell you the #1 cause of being fat is first thinking you're fat... Cuz even though I was a stick at the age of 8, ever since I turned 12, I've been totally fat.

... I always tried these stupid diets which always lasted about 3 days, and I spent the rest of my life doing what my mom calls a "Last Hurrah" which is eating the world knowing that you're gonna go on a diet tomorrow... but then usually the last hurrah ends up taking a month, followed by another 1 day diet followed by another month long last hurrah... And that's how I created a problem. About a year ago I discovered Weight Watchers, and it actually worked, but all the weight I lost happened in the first 2 months. After that, I was just on and off a lot for the rest of the year(not as bad as usual), and ended up just kind of staying the same. I did lose 20 pounds, but it all happened in the first 2 months... Then something very important happened... I talked to someone who had a really inspiring story, and she was saying it's all about the decision. You have to make a big decision to fix the issue once and for all, and make a COMMITMENT to yourself... And at that moment, I did just that, and I've stayed on weight watchers without falling off for 5 months now, and I will never stop! I had it in my head that I couldn't do weight watchers for the rest of my life because it's too much of a hassle... and then I realized that it's way WAY less of a hassle than dealing with being a fatty for the rest of my life.. (plus I'm so OCD that the counting is actually fun for me). So I really made a commitment to myself, and I know I'll succeed. And just knowing that I'll be on it for the long haul, I don't get discouraged and quit like I used to. For instance, I haven't lost anything in the last 2 weeks, and the old me would totally just quit. But I stay on. And it's slow, but I'll ACTUALLY get there. Imagine that!!! I do gotta say, if someone gave me that "commitment" speech when I was a little younger, I don't think it would have worked. I would probably just try and fail and then hate myself even worse for breaking a promise. I think the only reason I was able to finally do it is because I was finally mentally ready.

So what makes today special??? Well it's really late at night, and I lie here in bed with my lap top thinking about what a progress I made in healing my mind, and I look down and see the same belly that was there before. The problem: I've been letting myself slide. Still on weight watchers like I promised, but eating more extras than I'm allowed. More importantly, I'm all out of motivation. So I watched some weight watchers vlogs (faintstarlite.com to be precise -she is my #1 inspiration -highly recommended), and obsessed a little, and tomorrow: I start fresh. Hence my new beautiful blog. So follow along. I won't bore you with what I ate that day, but I will walk you through my emotional journey, and try to throw in a little piece of advise each day.

So that's my little story.... And I was just thinking. I've been SO happy and SO proud of myself ever since I made that promise to myself, and I still haven't even gotten close to my goal. So this means that making the change, and taking the "first step" so to speak is just as important and gratifying as reaching your goal. In fact, it's a much bigger step because it's healing yourself mentally first.. cuz lets face it, most overweight people have an issue in their head which causes the issue in their body. So lets everybody heal our minds!