Weight Watchers - Day 1

Writing this blog has already proved to be a good thing for my weight loss journey. On Thursday I had decided to join Weight Watchers today and I wrote about it on here. Well, I didn't get to bed until midnight last night and when my alarm went off at 6:30 this morning for the 7am WW meeting I just wanted to roll over and go back to sleep. Because of this blog I felt that I really had to get up and get going. I am so glad I did.

I got to the location and registered for the program. The special this month is no registration fee, just pay the weekly fee, which is $16.80.

I weighed in and there was no surprise there, 321 as I've been almost all week. Now I have a starting point.... just down from here.

I like the meetings versus the online program strictly for the interaction you can have with the other members and the leader. Every week there is a new topic and we all discuss what's brought up. This week's topic was finding support whether at home, at work, or elsewhere.

We also celebrate any milestones that people have met and talk about issues that may have developed over the week.

I feel it's a big part of the success of the Weight Watchers program. The other part, obviously is the POINTS calculations. Every food has a POINTS value and you track how many points you eat and hit your daily traget POINTS amount. The amount of POINTS you eat is based on a calculation including age, height and activity level. My starting POINTS target is 38.

When I was leaving I decided to purchase 2 books, almost like a calorie counter that you can buy at the book store, that lists the POINTS values of various foods. One book is the Canadian Dining Out Companion and the other is the Canadian Food Companion. These will be a good resource for calculating POINTS when dining out or buying bulk foods or produce.

I also bought an electronic POINTS calculator that I can use to calculate POINTS when looking at packaged foods. It takes the values from the Nutritional Information and gives me the POINTS value per serving.

I also splurged and bought myself a box of Mini Chocolate Caramel Bars and a box of Creamy Chocolate Smoothie Mix. The bars are 2" mini bars that have a POINTS value of 1 per piece. A good choice if I'm craving sugar or chocolate. The Smoothie Mix is just that. It's a mix that you add to either milk or ice cold water and shake or blend until creamy. There is 1 POINT in the mix itself and will be a total of 3 POINTS if mixed with skim milk. Another good choice if I want something sweet without being "bad".

I'm already looking forward to going to next weeks' meeting. I'll let you know how it goes.