Oops....I Did It Again

A little less than a year ago I wrote this blog post about how I sometimes get into a funk with calorie counting. I talked about how I was thinking of joining Weight Watchers yet again to just kind of change up the way I track things. I ended up deciding that was stupid because I KNOW how to make better choices and I "shouldn't" have to pay for WW in order to make those choices.

I remember back in December or maybe even November when I was really struggling, I once again thought of joining WW. Again, I didn't because I "should" be able to do this myself. I mean, I lost 40 pounds in 2011 by tracking my food on Sparkpeople.

If you also recall, I have even blamed WW for feeding in to my feeling of not being good enough. I mean, I was within 2 pounds of their "approved" weight for me, but I have never become a lifetime member.

BUT, I bit the bullet and just did it. I signed up for Weight Watchers.....AGAIN.

All of those above things still apply. I still feel like I "should" be able to just make better choices without having to pay for WW. I also feel like the fact that you have to hit some arbitrary number to be considered successful is damaging to my psyche. However, I decided I needed a change from what I was currently doing. I know that WW will work for me because it has in the past. Whether it's "right or wrong", I like the fact that there are 0 point foods. And yes, as much as I can choose those foods even when I'm counting calories I tend not to....or at least not consistently enough.

I signed up for a 3 month online membership and frankly my thought is that I will probably cancel my membership after these 3 months. It's no longer my goal to become a lifetime WW member. This time around I am simply using this as a tool to help get me to where I want to be.

One of the things I like about WW is that they take all the science of food and calories into figuring out their points. I mean, I know that not all calories are created equal, but when I'm counting calories I tend to fall into the mindset that as long as it fits into my calories it's OK. And to a certain extent it is. I mean, calories in/calories out and I'll eventually lose weight. When doing weight watchers I might think twice about how I spend my calories because something that is the same number of calories (i.e. a donut, yogurt with blueberries and granola, and egg, Canadian bacon, avocado and tomato sandwich) can be drastically different points values. That donut will cost me 10 of my 23 daily points whereas the breakfast sandwich will only cost me 4. There will be days when that donut will be well worth 10 points, but more often than not it won't be worth it to me.

The other thing I get bogged down with when counting calories is worrying about whether I'm eating too much or not enough. For whatever reason I trust that if I eat my allotted WW points I must be eating enough so I don't question it. I've also never had a week, in all the years that I've done WW, that I've gained when I stayed within my points for the week. The only time I gained was when I stopped tracking.

And lastly, one of the things that I've always loved about WW is the ability to eat more some days and less others. That sounds so simple, right? I should be able to do that with calorie counting (and frankly, I even did for a short period of time in 2015). But, with WW they give you an amount to strive for. I have daily points, weekly points and can earn fitpoints for working out. I can use those points however I want. If I want to just eat my daily points during the week and save my weekly points and fitpoints to use over the weekend I can do that. If I want to eat more than my daily points every day and use my weekly/fit points to do that, that's OK too. The problem I've had with trying to successfully eat this way while calorie counting is that I'm not sure what that looks like in the way of calories. Do I need to keep my calories around 1200 during the week so I can eat 2500 on the weekends? Or can I eat more than that during the week and do I actually eat less than I think on the weekends? In 2015 I didn't actually track on the weekends so I have no idea what I was doing in order to lose those 5lbs per month (but I was only tracking my food 4-5 days per week and was losing around 5lbs per month).

There you have it. I did it AGAIN. I changed my "plan" to see if it'll help keep the scale going in the right direction. I am SO close to getting below the lowest weight that I hit in 2017. I want to get there and push past it!