At today’s Weight Watchers weigh-in, I discovered that I lost four pounds this week, which means – for the first time since I started WW several years ago – I’m down more than fifty pounds (52.6, to be exact).
The first year I joined, I had hit 46 pounds lost, but since then my weight has fluctuated up and down, up and down, never getting below my previous record. I’d lose a couple of pounds and then find them again (usually in the cushions of the couch, if you know what I mean). My own fault – I haven’t been following the program all that strictly. In particular I’ve been treating the day I weigh in as sort of an “off the clock” day, eating whatever I wanted and not tracking it. All too often, that one day turns into two or even three. Lazy.
Since just before last Thanksgiving, though, I’ve gotten more serious about it, and the pounds have been coming off again. I had eight weeks of straight losses (which included both Thanksgiving AND the Xmas holidays!), then had a big gain of 4.5 pounds in a single week. I wasn’t going to let it throw me, though, and got back on track. Finally today I cracked my previous record, and I’m so happy.
My next goal is to reach a loss of 20 percent of my starting weight (which, I’m not ashamed to reveal, was 372.4 pounds). A seventy-five-pound loss will hit the 20 percent mark and also take me under 300 pounds for the first time in decades. I’m confident I will be able to achieve it before my birthday in June.
Boy, I know what that feels like. It took me just over 5 years to reach my goal weight and I stayed there for exactly one day. That was 18 months ago and now I’m 20 lb. above my goal. At least I’m going in the right direction now.
Thats wonderful, maybe I should try weight watchers. I lost 23# last year but went back to gaining over the holidays and have gained about 12 back already.
I’m not one of those people who’ve tried every diet - the one other time I made a deliberate effort to lose weight was a six-month flirtation with the Atkins diet about five years ago (I lost 25 pounds or so, then fell off the wagon during the holidays and never got back on).
I can say that deciding to do WW is hands down the best decision I’ve ever made for my health. Atkins was never natural for me, and I would never have been able to sustain it for any kind of long period of time (which I think I knew from the beginning – I was just seduced by the siren song of unlimited bacon). I will have no trouble continuing the way of life WW has helped me establish from here to eternity. Nothing is forbidden, nothing is required… there are just point values to consider and consequences to weigh. And just knowing I CAN have (for example) ice cream if I really want to is good enough, to my astonishment; if I thought it was taboo, I would CRAVE it.
I’ve had success several times with WW. I don’t like the points system they are using now, but the accountability is great. I’m one of those people that starts to creep up from the middle of my weight range to the top of my weight range, then diet to lose the ten or fifteen pounds to get back to the middle of my weight range again.
Keep it up. People who can lose over the long term are amazing - I find the three month long diets I need to go on to be trying.
Jeez. You sound like my loser of a husband. :rolleyes: :p. Congrats!
I pulled off over 60 pounds doing WW, a while back, and it was great - then stress hit in the form of a death in the family and it all came back with interest :(. As it’s causing some health issues now, I’m finally getting a bit more serious now, and following in my husband’s footsteps - he’s not doing WW but is using MyFitnessPal and lately a FitBit.
Not being too fussy about it, I’m down roughly 30 pounds from a year ago - was bouncing around a lot between Thanksgiving and New Year but am finally getting back on track.
The neat thing about pairing the Fitbit with MyFitnessPal that is that you can see the calories you earn back when you’re exercising - sort of like WW’s ability to earn extra points based on exercise duration and your current weight. It’d be neat if they had an electronic hook between WW’s online tools and the Fitbit so your earned points would automagically appear there too.
Keep up the good work!