So I’m back from my diet vacation. I needed a little time off, so I took it. When starting back up, I wasn’t really into it, but I was gaining weight steadily if slowly as my portion sizes crept back up, and the quality of nutrition went down. So I wanted to do something easy to stick to, easy to think about, and so I went back to the tried and true: Weightwatchers.
I had lost 30 pounds with WW before, and have actually kept most of it off. I then lost another 15 with Atkins, but that came back, so I pretty much am where I was when I ended WW, which was several years ago. Some minor fluctuations since then, but nothing to big.
I had gotten fed up with WW because I had plateaued for two years. I couldn’t lose more than five pounds without gaining it back. I still had another 20 pounds to go, but I wasn’t getting there. Knowing what I know now that I am a more educated in nutrition, I realized I must have slowed my metabolism down.
Since then I’ve learned more about nutrition and metabolism and exercise. I started fairly intense weight training about 9 months ago. I am speculating that this was the component missing when I plateaued on WW those years ago. So I decided to return to it, and see if this new way of exercising makes a difference.
The idea being that the reduced calorie nature of the WW diet can lead to muscle loss as well as fat loss, which can lead to slowing metabolism, which can lead to really annoying plateaus, that then lead to frustration, which leads to eating pints of Haagen-Daaz by the case.
So I’m hoping that my weight training will help me maintain or minimize the muscle loss, while helping me burn calories, and make me look buff. Watch out Dara Torres, I’m after your six pack abs!
I don’t have time to go to meetings, so I am doing the Weightwatchers Online thing. A friend of mine is doing it too, so we can have our own little mini meetings. I like the points tracker, not that I couldn’t do it myself on paper, but it makes it more fun. Plus there is a recipe builder that lets you enter ingredients and then figures out the points for you. That is gold.
So far it is going OK, only week two, but I’ve lost a little bit already. I signed up for the 16 week plan on WW online, so I figure that will give me a set amount of time to work this system. Not too long, and not too short. I’m hoping to be 10 pounds lighter (or more of course) at the end of it, which seems doable to me. That will put me about 17 pounds from my goal.





