Over the last decade or two, I have slowly added some extra pounds. I have made several attempts to take them off but didn’t have any long lasting results. I always said I would not pay money to lose weight but this year I decided I probably needed to do that. I joined Metabolic Research Center in January. That is a very expensive program. I was spending a lot of money buying all the supplements and protein drinks they recommended. The diet is very restrictive. After 2 1/2 months I had lost only 7 pounds and had spent over $1000.00. I had expected to lose 2-3 pound per week. I decided that was not working for me.
I had looked at Weight Watchers on line a number of times but “I wasn’t going to pay to lose weight” so what did I do but swallow a camel. Weight Watchers cost a tiny fraction of the cost of MRC. I decided to join. I started losing weight immediately. I was so surprised after what I had been through with MRC. I just thought this would be a cheaper plan and that I would go on with the slow weight loss. Weight Watchers said I would lose 1/2 to 2 pounds per week. I lost a pound in three days!
Weight Watchers has been a pleasurable experience. I was given 26 points per day plus 49 bonus points for the week.
WW wants me to use all my points each day. They cannot be carried over to the next day. If I use more than my 26 points in a day, I can use some of the 49 bonus points. So far I have not used any bonus points. I really like that I am encouraged to eat fruits and vegetables. Fresh fruits and vegetables count as 0 toward my 26 points. Because I eat a lot of fruits and vegetables, I stay comfortably full. I have to work at getting those 26 points in each day.
There is no food that I cannot eat. Because my goat milk is full fat, I thought I might run into a problem there, but it doesn’t use up many points. I checked out the points on things like fruit pie (7 points), ice cream (5 points), wine (4 points), pizza (5 points). I don’t expect I will be consuming much of those, but it is nice to know that I can should I choose.
The recommendation is to eat fat free or low fat foods. I am eating cheese made from skim milk but it is not considered low fat. I do buy fat free cottage cheese and yoghurt.
Exercise gains points that can be traded for food points.
I put the WW app on my phone so I can keep track wherever I am. There is a bar code scanner on the app so I can scan a food to see how many points it uses. There is a calculator that I can input fat, carbs, and fiber for foods that I can’t scan. They thought of everything!
This does not feel like a diet at all. I just track all the food I eat to make sure I stay at my 26 points. I eat what I like. The way I see it, this is something that I can do from now on. Once I reach my goal weight I can still track to make sure I don’t over eat and gain back. I am sure my daily allowance will increase when I reach goal and go on maintenance but I could be happy at this level. It has plenty of food and variety.
Reflections 