I joined Weight Watchers today. It’s my third time joining and this time it feels different. (And how cliche does that sound?)

I think it’s mainly to do with the fact that I went to a different location with a different leader. The leader is definitely different from my old one. I feel like I’m making a fresh start. They don’t know my past and how many times I’ve failed at this. They don’t know how up and down my weight loss journey was. To them, I’m a brand-new member.

So I feel like it’s a fresh start. A new beginning for me.

This week, I’m just focusing on tracking my food and staying within my points range. And trying to fit in exercise. I’ve been so lazy about exercising lately. I need to stop screwing around and just do it. I feel better when I exercise and worse when I don’t. It’s not complicated at all. But I make it so.

Last week, I weighed in at 153 lbs on a Publix scale. I was horrified, as I’ve never been that fat. Ever. Today, my weight is 149.2 lbs at WW. I’m not sure if this means I lost almost four pounds in the past week, which I’m sure it doesn’t. I ate way too much Halloween candy, barely drank any water, and ate horribly. But my goal was to be under 150 lbs when I weighed in this week. And I did!

(Oh, and if I ever lose 3-4 lbs, I will most definitely shake my head, look incredibly disappointed, and say, “It’s just not enough to keep me above the yellow line.”)

Remember my first Flab to Fab post? I remarked on how I need to have a healthy lifestyle and just start making gradual healthy changes to my life.

Then came last week’s post. I expounded on the idea that fat people don’t know how to have a healthy lifestyle so, for a starting point, we need to be on a “diet” and be accountable.

ERG!

This week’s post will be on how much I suck. No, just kidding. Although, that’s a post that could fill many a line. (Again, kidding. Albeit, I’m not very good at these jokes.)

I started off the week really good. I was tracking my food and really excited to start this process! I even decided to forgo my Friday afternoon nap for a gym workout. I was doing good, up until Friday night, when I stopped tracking. And I feel like everything fell apart. It didn’t, really. I think I stepped back into making healthy choices. The fact is, I don’t like tracking my food. I don’t like to know every single morsel of food I put in my mouth needs to be written down. That’s why I failed at Weight Watchers. I just want to be healthy. I want to feel good about myself.

So I think I’m going back to my decision on Week 1 – making gradual healthy choices. No, I won’t always make the best decision. And yes, this way means it’s going to take me a lot longer to lose the weight. But this is the best fit for me. It’s the best way that I can succeed and keep succeeding.

I want to start including a list of good healthy choices made. And I really need to come up with a better name for it. Alas, I have 7 minutes to finish this entry before I need to pick up my mom from work so Healthy Choices it is!

Healthy Choices
Friday: Attempted to track. Also, I ate one of the healthiest Lean Cuisine meals there is!
Saturday: I didn’t snack all day, something I’m prone to do on Saturdays. Also, for the first Saturday in probably a YEAR, I went to the gym. I’m always nervous about Saturdays because my gym can get very packed (and it’s a small apartment gym) so I hate going. But I went at 11:30 and it was empty the entire time. Yay!
Sunday: I got in a 90-minute workout on this day! And I ate pretty healthy. I’m nervous about Sundays now since football started. Football = food.
Monday: I ate healthy at work with a salad, fruit cup, and cookies. (Just add a sandwich to that and I sound like a third-grader.) Also, I didn’t have an ounce of soda until after my 2pm class!
Tuesday: I ate moderately healthy at work. And I only had one 20-ounce Coke, too! Woot!
Wednesday: Ate healthy at work. We made mini pizza’s with the kids and I had probably 2 pieces but it wasn’t too bad. And since I left my wallet in the car, I didn’t have any soda until dinnertime. AND…healthiest choice of the week goes to choosing Weight Watchers ice cream over cookies. Mom gave me the choice to choose a dessert (mainly because she hates making choices). I really wanted cookies or something equally unhealthy but I was feeling horrible about the choice so I decided, on the spur of the moment, to get the ice cream! I’m still super proud over this moment. 🙂

That’s all for me since I’m 1 minute behind schedule now. Question, though: I’ve been eating salads again. I have this amazing olive oil vinaigrette dressing I’m using. I’ve only been topping the salad with tuna fish. I need some good tips: What do you do to spice up your salads?

So, my first week living as a healthy person was, um, well, decidedly not healthy.

On Friday night, my mom and I ordered a pizza. (To be fair, we have money issues right now so it was a cheap, yet delicious, option)

On Sunday, I think I probably drank an entire 2-liter bottle of soda. I don’t know why I drank so much. (But this was also the only day I managed to exercise!)

On Tuesday, I bought ice cream. More specifically Publix-brand (another reason why you should love Publix – they have the most delicious ice cream anywhere!) Chocolate Trinity ice cream. Dark chocolate ice cream, chocolate chip chunks, and fudge. Ohhh, my goodness. It is heaven in a bowl. Wouldn’t be that considered healthy? Dark chocolate is very healthy!

And let’s just forget Wednesday and today even existed. I was just too far gone by then.

And, throughout this week, I’ve been thinking about my journey through Weight Watchers. In the beginning, yes, it feels like a diet. But if we knew how to eat and live healthy lives…wouldn’t we be doing it already? The truth is, we know what a healthy lifestyle looks like – we just don’t know how to implement it.

Weight Watchers teaches you how to live a healthy lifestyle. You have your “Eight Healthy Guidelines” which are 8 habits you want to achieve every day (everything from drinking liquids to taking a multivitamin). I did think of this plan as a diet at the beginning of my time. As I kept tracking my foods, I began noticing what foods kept me fuller longer and what foods I had to keep out of the house. After a few months being on the plan, I was able to calculate Points totals in my head and tally up my Points throughout the day in my head.

So this is where I am right now. I don’t know how to live a healthy lifestyle. I know what one looks like but not how to live it. So perhaps I will be on a diet for a while. But as I continue on this weight loss journey, I believe things will start to become second-nature for me.

It just can’t be so free anymore. I felt myself giving myself too much leeway. My reasoning? This week, I’m just working on drinking more water. But that doesn’t mean I need to buy a carton of ice cream or eat 3 pieces of pizza for dinner.

So, I will truly be starting this healthy lifestyle tomorrow. And I’m going to do it with a “diet” mindset in mind. I will be writing down every single thing I eat. I didn’t do that last week and I really think I need to get back into the habit of being diligent about tracking my food. When I was tracking (and doing it right), the pounds were flying off.

And I also want to exercise 5 days this week (as opposed to the 1 last week…). I really want to be able to run in the 5k Turkey Trot race this Thanksgiving. I’ve done it the past 3 years but only ran it once (and not even the whole way). I would love to be able to run the whole thing!

Lastly, I really need to drink more water. It’s sick how much soda I drink on a daily basis. My ultimate goal is to take soda completely out of my life. You don’t know how jealous I am of people who only drink water and drink soda occasionally, if at all. I want to be YOU!

So here we go. Flab to fab, part two. (And this time, I’m for REAL!)