The First Challenge

May 18, 2009 by Rochelle

I knew when I started Weight Watchers on May 9 that I’d have one serious advantage and one serious disadvantage to my timing.

The advantage – that I was taking an entire week off from work and staying home. That would make sticking to plan much easier, since I could control my food and be more disciplined.

The disadvantage – that I would meet my first big challenge, because by the end of the week I would have to attend my brother’s wedding and spend the entire weekend away from home and with my family.

I’m happy to say that I met the challenge and came out less rotund.

First, I told my family straight up that I was on Weight Watchers, which helped. They are supportive people, who are actually great models for healthy eating. I read success stories all the time about people who come from families where eating unhealthy foods at large quantities was family trait. Not in my family. Every single one of them is fit. I wasn’t as blessed to be naturally thin (poor genetics), and truthfully they are the type of skinny people that complain about being fat, when they really aren’t. My mom was actually overweight for a few years after she had my baby sister. She dropped 70 pounds by switching to diet soda, eating half her meal (sound familiar?), and walking three miles a day. She’s been really healthy now for at least 10 years, although I’m not sure she always sees herself that way.

Second, I didn’t obsess. I told myself that at the wedding I can try whatever I want, but that I just have to limit how much I ate of it. That worked out pretty well. On the wedding day and at the reception I did rather well and only went over my daily points allowance by 3 points. I will admit that I got lucky and didn’t like their cake, and so I saved many points that way.

Third, I planned. For the rest of the weekend I always knew what I was going to eat and knew how many points I could budget. This of course is thanks tot Weight Watcher’s online tools that I could use on my iPhone. I knew that on Sunday morning I would be getting to sit in on my dad’s “lazy Sunday breakfast.” Each Sunday, my father and my stepmom have scrambled eggs, biscuits, hash browns, bacon, and coffee. Then they sit around nibble on it all while reading the newspaper. I’ve done it before with them and it’s great fun. I actually felt more worried about the lazy Sunday breakfast than the wedding. I mean, biscuits? Who doesn’t love biscuits?

But the night before I went ahead and added the points to my tracker. I realized I could have ¾ cup of scrambled eggs, ¾ cups of hashbrowns, two slices of bacon, and one biscuit. Then I planned out the rest of my day and made the room for it. It turned out perfect. I ate so well that day and never once felt deprived and it was all thanks to planning.