I have been doing Weight Watchers for one week, and now its time to weigh in....

 I am going to be completely honest with you on my Weight Watchers journey, numbers and all. I am not going to write a fluffy Weight Watchers post telling you how yummy the meals are and how simple it is to follow (even though it is) like so many Bloggers do. You see I did quite a bit of research before joining Weight Watchers, and I read all kinds of blog posts about Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, Nutrisystem and they were all annoyingly light and fluffy. They all raved about the meals, and how they never feel hungry any more, but I was hard pressed to find anything that talked numbers. If I am going to join a weight loss program I want to know that I am going to loose weight. I don't need to go to meetings every other day and sing cumbaya with a bunch of other people who want to loose weight ( I know some people need that, I do not). I only need to be accountable to myself, and if I can not do that... well then, there is a bigger problem.

Prior to having kids, I was a fitness trainer. Not a nutritionist, a fitness trainer. There is a huge difference. As a fitness trainer I had a basic understanding on nutrition. As a fitness trainer who was also teaching group fit classes I could eat anything I wanted and never gained weight. It was awesome... Those days are over. My weight gain was slow at first because I was still exercising (at home) but by the time child number three arrived my elliptical trainer became a toy for the kids, and my weights are now door stops. By the time I started researching a diet plan I was 25lbs heavier than I was with only one child. I could not believe this had happened to me. I so badly wanted to blame the weight gain on my age, a slower metabolism, maybe my thyroid was out of whack the list went on, all things that really could play a role in weight gain. The last thing I wanted to do was admit that I had become fat because I could not control what I was putting in my mouth. I was doing what so many other moms do, I was eating all day long without even realizing it. Make the kids a PB&J and then lick off the knives before I put them in the sink, make the kids chicken nuggets, and take a bite first to make sure they are not too hot, I was doing little actions like that ALL day long, on top of eating my three meals a day. I did it, I made myself fat, technically obese. This is where the fitness trainer comes in, I do numbers. So I know that I was obese, people would argue with me that I am not obese, and even worse not a single Doctor said anything to me about my weight. I knew I had a BMI (Body Mass Index) higher than 30, and that meant I was no longer over weight, I was obese. The sad thing is, nobody cared, not even my Doctors.

Something inside of me had finally had enough. I could not go on like this I was ashamed of myself and I needed to be an example for my three kiddos. I decided to go with Weight Watchers because I figured I could feed my hubby the same meals, but just make his portions larger. He is very active during the day, so he needs way more calories than I. Even though he needs the calories I knew it would be good for him if I were to start cooking healthier. Some of the other Diet Plans would have had me eating a different meal than my family, and I do not have the time to cook three toddler meals, a meal for myself and a meal for my hubby every few hours. So Weight Watchers it was. I chose their online program which was $58 for three months. I do everything online from tracking how much water I am drinking to my weekly weigh ins. At first I was not sure I would be diligent with all of the tracking but it has become habit now to quickly log in and check off my boxes.

So lets get to the good stuff. I am one week into their Simple Start program which is how you begin. They have you do Simple Start for the first two weeks. Simple Start is super easy they give you a list of options for every meal and you go from there. You can eat unlimited fruits and veggies, so at 10 a.m. when I think I am hungry I eat a banana or apple and then at 3 p.m. when I again think I am hungry I have a shake or just more fruit. Do you like how I say I think I am hungry, my stomach is not growling, it is just my head messing with me. I start to get the munchies, I just want to eat, but my body really isn't hungry. After those two weeks you transition over to traditional point counting. When I joined I typed in all of my numbers and they computed that at my first weigh in I should be down 5%. Does not seem like a lot when you see 5%, right? Well for me that was a total of 9lbs. I was suppose to be down 9lbs at the end of the first week. The only thing that went through my head was, Not Possible. Well guess what...

Starting weigh in on March 19 = 175 lbs

1st weigh in on March 25 = 167 lbs

I missed it by one pound, and I am shocked! I did not think I would loose 8lbs in one week, but I did. I chose not to exercise this past week because I wanted to really get a feel for the diet. This week I will start incorporating exercise now that I have a feel for how my body is taking to this new way of eating. My new goal weight which they gave me is 157.5. Let me also share with you that I am 5'9" so my ultimate goal weight is around 145 lbs would I love to be 140 lbs? Absolutely, but that is a very hard weight for me to maintain and anything under that is just to thin for my large bone structure. So I have come to the realization that I need to be thankful at 145 lbs, especially after this weight gain that I have experienced. As a fitness trainer I know my weight loss will begin to slow down and that is o.k. Slow and steady wins the race! Don't worry, I will post next week no matter what the results are. Truthfully I will be happy with a 2-3 lb weight loss. Lets keep our fingers crossed! I will also share with you a bit more about how the Simple Start plan works, and what I have been eating. Until then lets hope that nobody holds me down and waves Dove Dark Chocolate in front of me...