I am pretty sure this is the second time I’ve posted to this blog with a title referencing David Bowie’s “Changes.” Maybe next time I should research a bit into other change-themed songs, I am sure they exist! Anyhow…
I had been doing very well with sticking to my eating plan and whatnot until about mid-August, when DH and I moved. At that point I had been on WW Flex for almost 8 months and had lost nearly 30 pounds. Somewhere in the past month and a half to two months, though, something inside my head stopped clicking – or it had clicked so often in the recent past that it just plain broke. I remember thinking that if I was diligent, I might be able to hit 30 lbs lost by my birthday (Aug 30)… I missed it by 2 lbs. I am still 2 lbs away from 30 lost. I got down to 186.2 (0.2 away from the 30 lb mark), and have had a couple of gain-lose cycles since then, leaving me currently at 188 even. The oreos and fast food speaking to me from the past two days say tomorrow’s WI results will tell no other story.
So something has to change, obviously. Two things, I think, in particular:
1) Points are driving me nutty. Measuring, weighing, counting. Guessing when I don’t know for sure, second-guessing myself when I’m afraid I’ve guessed wrong, stressing over minuscule amounts of food, feeling guilty for going over by the smallest amounts, feeling like I have not been given the tools to deal properly with natural fluctuations in daily hunger levels. (Sure, if I’m extra hungry one day, I can use some flex points. But what about the days where I am genuinely not hungry? Do I follow my own oft-prescribed advice and eat up to my base target every day, no matter what? That’s so counter-intuitive!)
2) Focusing on my weight is leading me to put emphasis on the wrong part of this journey. I went through this back in March or so if I remember correctly, and I am going through it again. I become intensely dissatisfied with my progress when it becomes all about my weight. There are other things I need to be paying attention to – my satisfaction, my energy levels, what I choose to eat. The process becomes more clinical and detached from being a lifestyle when I get really entrenched in the numbers and not the less measurable outcomes.
Last time #2 happened, I gave away my home scale and all was right with the world again. This time around, I’m afraid that won’t be enough. I feel I need to cut back on my weekly meeting weigh-ins. Now, I don’t want to give up on meetings – not at all! I love my meetings and find them essential for re-orienting myself and getting my head back in the game at the end of each week. So I am going to talk to my leader tomorrow morning about skipping WIs even when I do go to the meetings. I think I am only obligated to WI once a month to maintain my membership. I am not sure if I can go a whole month without weighing, but I will not know until I try it!
As for being sick of Points, well that’s easy now that WW has the second program to choose. I have decided to switch to the Core plan definitely as of Monday, though I may try to start implementing some principles of it this weekend. I really wanted to give myself a little breather for a few days before jumping head-first into Core, but I may need to implement it little by little over the next couple days. I have a few questions about it which I am going to ask my leader tomorrow. I think it’ll be kind of tough mentally to transition to Core but I might find it to be a much more intuitive system to work.
I am a little afraid of not having boundaries on how much I can eat aside from my own perceived feelings of satiety. That kind of boundlessness is not something I have ever played around with, since the only diet I have really ever been on has been WW Flex. It is going to be a change not counting things, but I think it has great potential.
I guess I won’t find out for a while, either way. I am going to have them weigh me tomorrow though I will probably ask them not to tell me. (I’d just like a record of where I stand before starting Core, and will check on my starting weight once the first two weeks are over.) I will then WI Nov 1, which is a span of two weeks. That will give me a good idea of how I am progressing, without letting so much time pass that I will feel like it was a waste if it doesn’t work out. As for weigh-ins after that, I may try to go up to a month without weighing… and I may not. I look forward to this two-week break at the very least.







