Okay, I just joined the local Weight Watchers group in my town. I live in a college town where I attend a large university. I'm twenty years old, and in pretty decent shape. I never really gained the freshman fifteen...but before I came to college, I did gain the I-went-though-a-breakup-my-senior-year-of-high-school twenty! So I have decided to turn my life around as a sophomore in college. I attended my first meeting last week and felt pretty damned awkward. It was a room full of middle-aged women who didn't seem very enthusiastic about the optional Weight Watchers weekly meeting.
After the meeting was over, I got my materials, including a booklet full of fun facts and information, a calculator to figure out how many points plus things are, and a weekly food tracker. Then I received a little tutorial on what to expect over the next pre-paid twelve weeks that I committed to. I have 31 points plus a day that I am allowed to eat, plus 49 extra points to be used any time during the week. Sounds easy enough.
During my first week, I discovered a ton of little secrets to help keep the points to a minimum:
1. Choose pita pockets over tortillas. Most tortillas, even the ones that claim to be healthy and whole wheat, are about three points, but wheat pita pockets are only two! (And they're more filling)
2. Go for the "lite." One tablespoon I Can't Believe It's Not Butter is two points plus, but one tablespoon of I Can't Believe It's Not Butter Lite is only one point. It might not seem like that much, but if you're as hungry as I am by the middle of the day, you'll be happy that you saved that point.
3. Always nom on as much fruit as you can. Fruit is worth zero, yes ZERO points plus! It's probably my favorite thing about this program. I'm not a huge veggie person, but I could cut up and eat apples, cantaloupe, pears, pineapple, and grapes all day. It's easy when you're on the go as a student. You feel much better walking (or driving) to class eating an apple than you do eating a PopTart.
4. Write down EVERYTHING. If you're like me, you feel guilty if you think about what you're eating. So if you track every single thing you put in your mouth, you'll think about writing it down before you eat it. And then you'll think about how those five extra points from that Reeses Egg will be staring at you the next time you open your tracker, and you'll refrain from gobbling it down faster than you can say..."did this bitch just say gobble?"
5. When you're hungry, eat! When you're not, dont! Enough said. It sounds simple, but I am not only an emotional eater, but a bored eater. There's a silly picture in one of the booklets I got at my orientation nonsense that shows three animated balloons. One is shriveled up and sad because it's hungry. One is blown up and happy because it's the perfect amount of full. And one is about to burst and sick because it's over-stuffed. I think about how much my belly wants to be the happy balloon, and it makes me stop eating when I'm not hungry. I'm silly, I know.
6. Condiments, condiments, condiments! An easy way to lose points for the day is to slab mayonaise on something. Some people may be repulsed by mayo, but I love it. However, there are plenty other condiments out there waiting to snatch up a few of your daily points. So be careful! Opt for things like yellow mustard, hot sauce, or oil and vinegar for flavor on sandwiches.
I was careful this week and I lost seven pounds! Yepp, seven! yay! So now that I got an ego boost and some time on my hands, I decided to keep an online diary of my weightloss (and I'm sure gain at some points) journey! I will cater this to college students, posting cheap, college-friendly recipes that I conjure up thourhgout my weeks, but I encourage anyone to read and enjoy my posts! Weightloss is pretty much something we can all relate to.
See ya soon!
-M.
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