Wow, Great First Week.

Today is Monday, so today is my weigh-in day. I weighed 223.2, which is a 6 lb loss. That's awesome! Course, I do realize that the first week is usually a bigger loss than normal, and mostly water weight, but maybe it works that way so you're more motivated to keep going ;-) Really, though, that was more than I was expecting and I'm happy. Here starts a new week!

Setting Exercise Goals

Naturally, when you need to lose weight, there are two main components: watch what you eat and exercise.

So, I've been thinking about exercise since last Monday, trying to figure out what is best for me. Since I'm not "dieting" at this point (working hard until I hit goal, then say "yay!" and going back to old habits), I've been slow to just jump on a treadmill and call it good. I've been thinking of what some goals I can set for myself physically could be.

I've heard of the couch to 5k program, and have even gone so far as to download a podcast or two in the past, and that's about it. I think I accomplished about 5 minutes of walking and then gave up. I didn't really have a lot of motivation back then to really try it, and I've learned that's really the key to actually *doing* stuff.

One of the great benefits at my work is a discounted gym membership to a local chain here in Wichita. I've had that for a while now, and I do go and enjoy myself, but it's pretty sporadic right now with my work schedule. That schedule is fixing to change, and now's the time for me to get serious.

I also found neat trainers to help increase pushups, situps and squats (100 Pushups, 200 Situps and 200 Squats). I did the first day of these today, accomplishing 21 pushups, 60 situps and a grand total of 21 squats (NOT all at once, lol).

My goal is to work on a exercise routine, making it part of my daily life. I think I'd like to make Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays the days I work on C25K and Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday the days I work on the others. Eventually, when I lose some of the weight, I'd like to start belly dancing again. I loved doing that and would love to start it again. It's a great way for women to exercise.

Taking the first step

A couple of weeks ago, I saw a flier posted in the nurse's station at work about a new Weight Watcher's At Work group starting. Having been overweight all of my adult life (and then some), I was fairly interested, so I asked about it.

Well, turns out it'll be super easy for me to go to these meetings. They're held when I'm already at work. I'm able to pay the fees using payroll deduction. And, if I finish the 8 week program, go to all the meeting and end up losing weight, then my job will reimburse me half of the membership fees. Awesome, right?

Now, I know a very little bit about Weight Watchers. I know my mother went to meetings for a while, and I know she lost weight while doing it. I've looked around online for info, and found it a bit interesting, but never really got into it. I hate having to track what I eat. It always seems like it's just too much work. I also know that not all calories are the same, but it seems like you need to be a math genius to figure out how to balance everything just right. At least, this is what I thought, what I had convinced myself, and what made me just not even try.

Monday, December 14, 2009, I went to my first meeting. I weigh 229.2 lbs. I was not shocked or surprised, even though that's the most I've weighed while not pregnant. I got my first week's materials, and sat down. The leader made me feel instantly comfortable because she was incredibly funny and seemed down to Earth.

After learning how to calculate points (I'm at 30 points a day) and learning about the weekly points allowance and so on, I actually became excited. I had already pretty much blown Monday with my breakfast burrito meal from Sonic that morning, but I started tracking as soon as the meeting was over.

You know what? It's a lot easier than I thought it would be. Tracking what I eat and how many points I'm at is incredibly motivating. It's a challenge to me to actually eat all my points every day (one thing she said we should NOT do is try to eat less than what our goal is). This past week, I've felt completely satisfied and not gone off the program at all. Do I think I'm losing weight? I don't know. But, every day I open up my little book, am reminded to get in my fruits and veggies, drink my water and take my vitamins-and I'm feeling better just from that than I have in a long time. Already.

So, we'll see on Monday how I'm doing. My first goal on Weight Watchers is to lose 11 lbs. I feel like that is more than attainable by the end of the first 8 weeks.