So What Now

This past Monday was the last session of the Weight Watchers program I participated in for the past 12 weeks. I wasn't as successful as I'd hoped--losing only 5 lbs--but I emerged with some important revelations as it pertains to my weight loss goals.

For starters, I've been on this journey since I gave birth to my first child fourteen years ago. Lucky for me, my weight loss battle has never involved a significant amount of weight to lose--never more than 20 lbs, and that's being generous. I gave up a long time ago of trying to regain my prepregnancy weight, which would have been my high school weight of a mere buck oh five. So, probably about five years into it, I decided that all I really wanted was to trim the fat off of my belly. Hence came my REAL problem.

In my mind, since I only had one part of my body that I wanted to change, I didn't feel like I needed to make that many changes. I was no stranger to exercise, having the best example with my dad, and avid jogger and bicyclist my whole life. While not athletic, I'd always been a walker, plus every now and then I'd do sculpting exercises like bicep curls, pushups, situps, etc.

After tweaking my diet as much as I thought I needed and exercising, most times consistently, but not always so, I didn't yield the desired results. This made me angry. It was extremely frustrating for me to witness others who didn't appear to be working as hard as me have the body that I so desired. They would still eat pizza, burgers & fries, desserts,etc. But it was like, when I did those things (admittedly more often than I should've), my body and self-esteem suffered.

The most important thing I learned from the Weight Watcher program was that I'm doing great if I want to stay where I am. I'm moderately active--taking brisk walks around the neighborhood and walking over my lunch during the week. I even have a gym membership so I can go there when weather doesn't permit outside exercise. I also learned that my biggest weakness is lack of preparation for evening meals. During the program, I would lose weight when I planned ahead for meals. I would gain that same weight back the following week when I didn't. Up and down. Up and down.

What I know is that I don't want to enslave myself to anyone's gym. I have way too much going on with my children, their activities, and my own activities. Plus I'd prefer to get my exercise by doing just what I've been doing and other activities that include my family (bike riding, skating, walking, playing badmitton, etc.) I'm more about having fun and staying fit.

Where does that leave me? Well, I still have dreams of a better looking belly. But now I have time working against me. I'm only a couple of years away from 35. And for women, that's about the time when weight loss gets extremely difficult because of a quickly declining metabolism. However, I'm no quitter. Now that I'm comfortable on my stance of exercising, I can more fully concentrate on my diet.

So Weight Watchers, here I come again.