176

There. I said it. I finally admitted it, came to terms with it, and resigned to do something about it.

I joined Weight Watchers.

Never in my life have I joined Weight Watchers or even wanted to. Of course, never in my life have I weighed this much either. Unless you count the end of my pregnancies. I think I'm still under that ceiling. (I would always quit counting when it got towards the end so I don't know an exact amount.)

I went to my first meeting on Tuesday. It was good. It was all ladies which seemed to help. I wasn't even the youngest! There was at least one other lady there who had kids 13 and 11 years old. Most of them were grandmothers, though. But that's ok. They all seemed really sweet. :)

When I stepped on the scale, I was almost apologetic. I told the lady doing the weigh-in that I didn't know how or why I had allowed myself to get this big. She smiled and sweetly said that that is what most of them there that day would say, too. It made me feel better. Well, until the scale groaned. But at least someone understood.

So I've been counting my points and eating my fruit for 4 days now. Tuesday was fun. I had that initial energy. That newness about things. That "this time it's going to be different!" feeling. I also had to come home and bake a german chocolate cake for Jim's birthday. And eat a piece. Which I calculated using my nifty new PointsPlus (tm) calculator they sold me. It was 12 points. For one piece. My daily points allotment is 29. Yep. You do the math. Luckily, they also include 49 "extra" weekly points that you can use at any time during the week. So you don't feel deprived, they say.

Wednesday was ok. Fruit is all 0 points. So you can eat as much of it as you want, within reason. I've never downed so many pieces of fruit in my life! (well, ok, it was only like 2, but I haven't eaten 2 apples in the same day in a long time.) I had to go out yesterday and buy more just so I'd have something to eat!

Thursday, I failed. I did ok until supper time. We were having spaghetti with meatballs. While it was cooking, I looked up how many points meatballs have. Two meatballs have 10 points! (gasp!) I'm used to having 4 or 5 meatballs. All of us are! J4 even likes them! (But that's ok b/c he's a baby and needs the fat. Oh to be 1 again!) I served myself less spaghetti than I normally do, but probably not as little as I should have. Then, I got so frustrated, I caved. I had 3 meatballs, parmesan cheese, AND a roll. I had 7 points remaining for the day, I think. I went in the hole about 13 points. And that was WITHOUT dessert, people!

I'm hoping this is just my body freaking out over having lots less food to work with. These 29 points are not very many. No wonder they say that if you stick to the program you WILL lose weight! They don't let you eat anything!!!!! Hopefully my stomach will "shrink" and I'll be happy with less food. Then I'll be eating normal amounts and get back to a normal size.

But tonight we're going out to eat like we do every Friday. This is what those extra 49 weekly points are for. But I'm down to about 15 of them. And they've got to last until Tuesday!

So I'm going to chronicle my journey back to thinness, or at least away from fatness for all of you who care to read about it. I hope I don't embarrass myself with these postings. Encouraging comments are welcome! But please don't tell me to start eating sprouts or asparagus. Life is too short, you know?