Category: support

Let’s Get Started

I have tiptoed and danced around the topic of weight loss here. I have wanted to write about it, about starting over, about my day-to-day struggles and victories, but, to be honest, fear has stopped me. What if I lay it all on the line, set goals, make plans…and then fail?

For some reason, while out for a walk yesterday, it finally struck me how irrational that is. If I fail but don’t blog about it, I still fail. But if I blog about it, I can write about it, get the feelings and the words out of my head, and anyway, don’t we all fail at times? Is it such a bad thing to publicly share that, hey, guess what: I am human?

So here we go. After losing over 70 pounds last year, I stumbled. Well, I guess it was more than a stumble. It was a flat-out, epic splat. I could blame the anniversary of my mom’s death right after I had lost the weight, and a lot of travel around that time, but let’s get real. All of that is a copout and nothing but excuses. I stopped working out, stopped watching how I ate, and I rapidly gained the weight back.

Not all of it, though. I would love to get back on track before I am right back where I started.

So what’s the plan? I know what I need to do: work out, eat better, drink more water, cut the soda, log my food. Everything that worked for me before. And writing here, because Lord knows I have a long way to go and could use all the support I can get!

I lowered my goal weight by 10 pounds, because when I lost weight last year, I felt like I still wasn’t quite where I would like to be. I may adjust that as I get closer to my goal, but that feels like a million miles away. For now, I just need a target to start moving toward.

So…before I chicken out and don’t post this…let’s get started on day #1, shall we?

More of Me

Ever since I could hold a pencil, writing has been a release for me. I filled countless notebooks, diaries, and now blog pages.

Over time, though, I strayed from being fully open about things like my weight and fitness goals and struggles. I feel like a broken record, and if I am being completely honest, I am also a bit embarrassed by how many times I have started, fallen, started again, landed on my face again, cursed, gave up for a while, started yet again…over and over.

But seriously, isn’t that something that an awful lot of people can relate to? How many people wake up one day, decide to lose some weight, and then do just that, effortlessly, with no struggles or stumbles, and continue on their merry way?

Conversations with some other bloggers this week made me see how silly I have been. There’s nothing to be ashamed of. We can all only support each other, learn from each other, kick each other’s rear ends as needed, and be human together.

After fitting into my goal jeans last month, I faced the anniversary of my mom’s death, experienced a death in my husband’s family, traveled for the funeral, went out of town for another trip, and returned to a dumpster fire of a mess at work. As an emotional eater, I responded the way I always do: eating like my life depends on perpetually munching on something sweet and calorie-laden.

I could do one of two things at this point. I could keep hiding, keep digging myself further into this ditch, and move even further away from my goals. Or I could come here, write about it, connect with others about it, hold myself accountable, and turn it around before I get too far out of hand.

Which one sounds more logical and helpful to you?

So, expect to see more of me here. I miss writing. I miss sharing my story, openly, honestly.

I skipped weigh-in last week, but I am going to bravely face the scale this Saturday morning. I already know it’s going to be a gain, and probably one hell of a whopper of one, too. Oh, fun! But once that number has been recorded, it’s time to turn to the future, not tear myself to pieces for falling down.

Where do I go from here? It’s up to me. It’s important to me that this isn’t all about a number on the scale, though. True change doesn’t happen without a significant shift in thinking, in mindset, in your soul. That requires a lot more work, of course, but it will be worth it. If you are on the same path, let’s do this together.

Party for Two

The first time I saw this quote, I saved it to my phone. It’s been there since early this year, long before I made my new start to take better care of myself. There are many reasons I wanted to lose weight and get healthy again, and undeniably, one of the biggest reasons was to make my husband proud of me for doing it.

Thing is, though, he was never disappointed in me to start with. Naturally, he was worried about my health, and he didn’t like the toll that gaining weight had taken on my self-esteem and attitude about myself. He told me he would not tolerate anyone talking bad about me, including me. That meant a lot to me and stayed with me.

My husband has watched me lace up my sneakers, trudge off to workouts I didn’t want to do, ice my knee when my body wasn’t quite ready for all this yet, weigh in each week, smiling some weeks and ready to smash the scale on others. He has been there from the “I think I need to make some changes” stage to the “Hot damn, baby, these jeans fit!” stage, and each stop in between.

And he has never made me feel like I am less than beautiful and sexy to him. Even when I couldn’t stand to look in the mirror at myself, even when pounds kept creeping on, he believed in me, saw something I couldn’t see anymore. I lost faith in myself at some point, but he never did, and because of that, I was able to shakily get back on my feet one more time and whisper, “Let’s try again.”

I am grateful for my husband. Every day, he gives me new reasons to love him even more. Reaching my goal has never been a one-woman show or a solitary celebration. He has been my biggest supporter every step of the way, reminding me of exactly what I am capable of, so this is definitely a much-deserved party for two.

Disconnect

I suppose it’s self-evident that I haven’t been writing much lately. Nothing is wrong. I am just questioning the investment of my time and what I do or do not get out of it anymore.

It’s funny. When social distancing and working from home became a thing over a year ago, I thought that activity on sites like MyFitnessPal and LoseIt would explode. People have more time on their hands, and I figured they would increasingly seek support online since they have less access to it in person.

In reality, the opposite seemed to happen. Online support coughed, wheezed, and died. I got fed up with commenting and encouraging others, but receiving little to no support in return. It is the reason I am not active on either of those sites anymore: investing my time and energy requires a return on that investment, and I was not getting it.

I have come to feel much the same way about blogging in general. I wouldn’t go so far as to say blogging is dead, but it sure as hell isn’t the outlet it used to be. Actually typing out words, expressing thoughts in complete and coherent sentences, has taken a backseat to emojis and idiot-speak in text messages. I am not a fan of LOL, strings of crude images, abbreviations, or acronyms posing as actual communication.

I am not saying I am leaving the blogging world forever. I just feel less and less inclined to take the time to write anything when the level of activity and interaction has become minimal.

I am guilty of the same thing, though. I rarely read any blogs anymore or take the time to comment, so I am contributing to the very problem I am writing about. There is a disconnect that feels difficult to bridge.

Maybe I just need a break. Or maybe tomorrow I will shrug my shoulders and tap away at the keyboard and write another post anyway.

I am not upset, just explaining my lessened activity. I hope everyone who is still reading is doing well and moving toward their goals, one day at a time.

Weight Watchers vs. MyFitnessPal

I have a few weeks of following Weight Watchers under my belt now, and I am over the initial shock of just how many points my favorite foods are worth.  The first week was a jolt, and I had to overhaul my eating habits fast.  Soda is worth way too many points and left nothing if I actually wanted to eat that day.  Candy, sweets, anything sugary and gooey and rotting my teeth (in other words, my favorite foods) had to go. 

Most fruits and vegetables are “free”, meaning they have no points.  I can eat them and not lose any points for the day.  So I started packing things like bananas and grapes for my snacks during the work day, and I add celery and carrots to my lunches. I spring for the points for ranch dressing, because otherwise I know damn good and well I won’t eat the rabbit food.  No diet or ranch dressing, either, because it tastes like doo-doo.

After struggling for months to get back on track, the WW points system basically slapped me in the face and said “Either crap or get off the pot”.  I had to either make big changes to stick to my points, or I could waste the money I was spending on WW, keep eating whatever I wanted, and keep gaining weight.  I don’t know why the points system made it click for me when tracking calories didn’t.  Maybe just because it was something new.  I am just grateful I found something that drastically improved my eating habits and got me back to losing weight.

I joined WW while they were running a special price for 3 months, so my membership will expire in mid-January.  WW is a bit expensive when they aren’t running specials, so I am already contemplating whether I want to renew in January or not. 

Thing is, I definitely credit the WW points for getting me back on track, but the WW site and app are just not worth $20 a month.  My food diary is not broken down into macros like fiber, carbs, protein, calcium,  etc.  The features like saving a meal or adding favorite food to MyFitnessPal seems much easier too.  It takes me less time to log my food on MFP than it does on WW.  Editing or deleting my saved meals is easier on MFP too.

The WW app and site don’t come with much of a community, either.  There’s a feature called Connect where you can see posts and pictures from other people, and you can follow certain people, but it’s not the same. There’s no feed specific to me, with just my posts and my friends’ posts, like on MFP.  I can’t “friend” people like I can on MyFitnessPal, can’t send messages like I can on MFP.  There are no message boards or challenges at all on WW, which is huge strike against them for me. 

In a nutshell, the only benefit the WW app and site have for me is quickly calculating the WW points for my food diary.  The community and the support are simply not there, and free sites like MFP have more features on the food diary than WW does for $20 a month.  Nothing justifies the cost for me.  The WW app feels primitive, which is ironic since it is the most expensive food logging app that I know of.  If MFP and LoseIt can offer more features on even their free accounts, then WW has no excuse to not offer the same, and more, with their overpriced app.

I thought about cancelling WW and getting at least a partial refund of what I paid for 3 months, but I am still not 100% on my feet.  I know how easily I can slide back into bad habits.  For some reason, the WW points are keeping me in line, and if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.  I will keep it through January and hopefully get stronger in my healthier habits so I can just switch back to logging my food on MFP, with better eating habits. 

I’m not running WW down here.  I love what tracking WW points has done to improve my eating habits and get me back on track.  But for $20 a month for online only (the website and the app, no meetings), WW really needs to offer more.  Free apps are more sophisticated, easier to navigate, and offer more features and support. 

I have been double-logging my food, entering it into WW to track my points, then entering it into MFP to track calories.  It’s extra work, but I wanted to keep a record of how many calories I am consuming compared to how many WW points I am using each day.  I think it will help when I switch back to logging on just MFP.  A day with the same calorie range as another day, but with lower WW points, means I ate healthier that day.  So later I can review my MFP food diary and see which days were the most successful for me, and I already have a meal plan to follow.  It’s a pain to double-log, but when I cancel WW, I think it will be valuable to me to have that information saved on MFP.  (I use the Notes box to enter my WW points for that day).

I have now officially smothered you in WW talk 🙂  I like to plan ahead, though, and I figured maybe someone else could benefit from a review of the WW app compared to free ones like MFP.  Bottom line, it is worth every penny to me to pay for the WW app for a few months to get me back on track, but I can’t see indefinitely paying $20 a month for outdated and limited tools.   WW really needs to add features to make it more than a points calculator.

Design a site like this with WordPress.com
Get started