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.