Back At It: An Urban Mom’s Weight Loss Journey – Week 3

Yay! I lost 2 pounds last week!

Funny thing, though. First week back at Weight Watchers, I lost 4 pounds. Woo-freakin’-hoo! But then we had a bit of – er – slippage, and 3 of those 4 lost pounds found their way back home to my hips & thighs. Ugh.

So, it was back on the wagon for me – and such a good girl I was! I crammed so many fruits and vegetables into my maw that I had to make 2 mid-week trips to the grocery store to stock up on more lettuce, peppers, broccoli, asparagus and – yes – grapes. I knew I was capable of eating a whole 4 lb box of red grapes from Costco, but who knew that I could eat a whole head of romaine lettuce in one salad?

And the water I drank! Oh! Litres and litres of it! Every day! My body was awash with life-giving water, cleansing every organ and all my pores, bringing plump turgidity to otherwise wilty around-the-eye skin.

And I dutifully wrote it all down in my tracker, accounting for every errant calorie and gram of fat or fibre.

Sweet, sweet success!

So now that I’m almost back down below 170, I’m waiting for those old size 10s to fit like they’re supposed to again, instead being all nasty and tight right where they ought not to be. UGG-LY! And what about those hideous perma-wrinkles around the upper thighs. Yes, they are caused by sitting, and can happen even in pants that fit well, but somehow they never seem to happen to skinny people, do they?

A-NY-WAY, it feels really good to get back on track. It’s like, these last few weeks, everything in my life has been going well. The morning routine for my kids has been smooth and relatively stress/yelling-free, I’ve been feeling good about myself, and things with me and Hubster are ticking along wonderfully, too. Can it all tie back to simply eating better? Well, certainly a good diet can contribute to a better life on a number of levels, but I think a good deal of the credit has to go to my state of mind, which is what led me to get back on track with Weight Watchers (which for me is really a tool to making healthy, mindful decisions about what I eat and drink).

About a month ago the Hubster told me about a phrase he read in a book, which went something along the lines of, "there is no such thing as waiting for motivation to do something. Doing the thing is what makes you motivated." Or some such sentiment. Kinda reminded me of Nike’s ubiquitous catchphrase: JUST DO IT. Well, it’s true, isn’t it? When I joined Weight Watchers last summer at 217 pounds, I wasn’t in a go-getter mood, I was miserable. I hated how I looked (fat) and felt (tired, suffering from sciatica, older than my years). I had tried and failed over and over again to lose weight and become more healthy. I DID NOT THINK I COULD DO IT. I wasn’t motivated. But, you know what? I went anyway, and struggled through the first days and week, an was rewarded with weight loss. And THAT’S when motivation started to kick in.

It was the same 3 weeks ago. In a state of – frankly, resignation – I went back and re-joined Weight Watchers. Here I am now, 3 weeks and 3 less pounds later, having JUST DONE IT, and beginning to get motivated again.

Go figure. The human mind is a complicated thing!