dianaschnuth

First, this month’s NSVs:

• Actually tracking the one Point of Spaghetti-Os I ate while making Connor’s lunch for daycare
• Had to exchange an XL shirt from Coldwater Creek for a size Large
• Got an attagirl (“You look great!”) from a co-worker one morning
• Another co-worker who’s a runner talked about “people like you and me” in regards to exercise
• I seriously just FEEL awesome (when I’m not sick, that is). Not sure if it’s due to more exercise or less weight or better self-image or if they’re all interconnected (although I have my suspicions it’s the latter).

I’ve been setting small goals and alternating weeks of intense focus with sort of maintenance weeks, and I feel like that seems to be working well without burning me out. For example, I’ll set a date five weeks in the future to lose five pounds total, then promise myself a reward at the end. For some weeks, I’ll plan to use no Weekly Points, only eat some of my Activity Points, and/or earn at least one Activity Point per day, while other weeks I’ll “just” stay On-Plan without going above and beyond — which, for me, means I’m unlikely to lose much, if anything. Even if I fall short in a given week (e.g. I eat into my Weekly Points for one or two days instead of ignoring them altogether), I fare better at the weigh-in than if I hadn’t aimed high.

There definitely seems to be an inverse correlation between how many Weekly Points I eat and how much weight I lose in a given week. The fact that I swap out Activity Points on a weekly basis muddies these waters — so, this week, I’m going to try not swapping out Activity Points at all and see what happens. I ate 21 Weekly + Activity Points the first week of the month and lost three pounds; I ate 44 W+A this week and lost one pound; the other two weeks, I ate 76 and gained 0.4 lbs, then ate 60 and lost 0.6 lbs. So, it’s a fine line. I’m betting that if I don’t eat all of my Weekly Points, and don’t swap out the Activity Points I earn, I’ll lose consistently (or more consistently, anyway).

That might not make sense to someone who doesn’t do Weight Watchers, so I’ll summarize by saying that, yes, I need to keep exercising, but I need to not allow myself to eat more by virtue of having “earned” the extra food. Instead, the extra burn is all gravy, as it were.

To meet my next mini-goal, I need to lose about 1.3 pounds per week between now and my birthday. If When I meet that goal, I buy myself a new purse.

To me, it feels like identifying that I need to tweak the Plan to suit my body’s needs is a win in and of itself. What also feels like a giant win is the fact that I finally reached my lowest WW weight ever today — 0.4 pounds lower than my previous record-low (aka Oh-Shit-I’m-Two-Months-Pregnant) weight, exactly three years and one month ago.

It’s all new territory from here. And I’m totally stoked.