Weight Watchers Meeting 1

Good morning my little lovedrops.  On Saturday I went to my first weight watchers meeting.  I confess to say I was more then a little nervous.  But, the woman that greeted me was very nice and friendly.  She gave me a big packet of info to read, weighed me, and just generally made me feel comfortable.

When I was done with her I went and sat in the meeting room to wait for the meeting to start.

There were about 30 people at the 10 AM meeting, mostly woman.  I was not the largest nor the smallest person there.  People seemed friendly and after the meeting there was a little extra meeting for new people.  There were only 4 of us at that one.

The meetings are run by a leader person, and frankly, the reminded me a little of the AA meetings I've gone to before.  {as a guest, a guest.  I am not in AA, just for the record}  Mostly all I could think of was "oh shit - these people have drunk the kool-aid!"  They are all so expressive about saying how WW works.  They are friendly, and nice, and not really pushy.  But they are committed.  And the meetings are a little awkward.  Perhaps this will get better for me in time.

After the meeting, I went grocery shopping and this is what my cart looked like:

Lots of fruits and veggies and frozen fish.  See, WW uses this points system.  They have some kind of complicated method of figuring out how many points each person gets, and you are responsible for tracking how many you've used in a day.

For me, I get 33 points per day.  I am encouraged to eat them all!  Also, I get 49 extra flex points per week.  I can use them however and whenever I want.  That's right folks - I get cake and ice cream whenever I want.  Provided I don't go over my 33 points a day, or exceed my 49 extra points per week.  But wait - there's more.  If you exercise, you get activity points.  And you can swap them for food points!

There's real potential here to be eating really good food all the time.  Now, you might me thinking that 33 points a day isn't very much.  But let me tell you - pretty much EVERY SINGLE FRUIT AND VEGETABLE costs no points.  Not all of them - you have to pay for starching veggies like potatoes, corn and peas.  But, essentially, you can eat your weight in fruits and veggies every day.  The thought behind this is that since fruits and veggies are free, it should encourage you to make better food choices for snacks and the like.  Of course, dried fruits aren't free, and things packed in syrup or sugar wouldn't be either.  But if you're consuming it in the manner that God created it (i.e. without adding anything to it) then it's probably not going to cost you much.

So here's a good example of a dinner I made this week:

I made grilled swordfish, grilled zucchini slices, steamed green beans from my garden and a steamed sweet potato.  I ate 5 oz of sword fish and half a sweet potato.  I didn't measure the beans nor the zucchini.  I also had a glass of 2% milk.  Points total for that meal: approx. 11.  And that's kind of a lot of food right there.  I was filled up for several hours and only needed a tiny snack of a pickled egg before bed time. 

Since my doctor told me to stay away from carbs, I'm trying to really limit my intake.  My plan is to eat 1/2 of an English muffin with breakfast, and perhaps a small amount of rice or grain with dinner.  When and if I do have a sandwich for lunch, I recently just picked up the Arnold sandwich thins, which are 100 calories each.  I don't know what that breaks out for in points yet.

Overall,  I think that WW is going to work for me.  I am encouraged to eat when I am hungry, I am not told that anything is forbidden, and I am praised for nearly every positive choice I make.  I'm not thinking that this is going to be easy.  But, I think it is realistic.  Tracking points online or on my phone is a hassle, but totally doable.  Yes it takes some time, and you have to be really careful with portions.  But if you are willing to put in a little work, it's not too bad.  For instance, on Friday I planned the week's dinners and figured the points value at the same time.

And, I tend to know what I'm eating for the day in the morning and can track it all then.  It's like one stop shopping.  Win.