Thursday, July 11, 2013

How To Reap The Benefits Of Weight Watchers Without The Monthly Fee

Okay...first let me say I am not now, nor have I ever been associated with the Weight Watchers™ Program and I strongly advise you to try the ACTUAL Weight Watchers program first. You can sign up here. I have followed the program several times. The first was back in December 2009. Literally days after Christmas pictures were posted on Facebook and I was horrified to see what I looked like. My sister-in-law was following the program and was looking amazing. It should be said that she looked beautiful prior to this but the difference was noticeable. And I had heard from others who had done it before as well all having had great results. So I signed up. I did the online program and sure enough I was losing weight. And I did really well. I had giving myself one year to reach my goal but by May I had reached it. I thought that I knew how to eat by now and decided that I didn't need to follow it anymore…well after a while I got lazy and put a few pounds back on…not anything major but I wasn't happy with myself. And then the WW Points Plus program started. And I decided to sign back up and try that one. I purchased a calculator from them to help aid me while shopping. I search online and found a few recipes on the WW website and made those…often. And I was doing well…but then I got pregnant. So, I quit WW…again. And throughout my pregnancy I gained 46 lbs! I’m a short girl and that is A LOT of weight. I felt good though and people helped me feel good about myself too…my OB however, told me immediately, early on in my pregnancy that I was only supposed to gain 15-25 lbs throughout the entire pregnancy…whoops! Anyways…after I gave birth the weight did start to come off…I was exercising regularly but then, as I shared before, I had an RA flare up in my right wrist which really brought my weight loss to a halt. In fact, I was placed on long term use Prednisone…which over 6 months I had gained 7 lbs….ugh! Which brings us to January 2013…I was determined to get this weight off but I really didn't want to pay for the online service because I didn’t think I would use it as much and because of my work schedule I wasn't going to be able to attend meetings. That’s when I decide to do it myself. I had followed the program before so I had a pretty good understanding of how it works AND I already had a calculator to help me figure out point values (and it figures out you how many points you are allowed in a day). So I thought about getting cook books. I searched on Amazon and sure enough they had some! I first purchased The New Complete Cookbook, Dining Out Companion and Complete Food Companion set. I was determined to stick with this and figured the best way would be to plan my meals in advanced, shop once a week so I had all my ingredients and I would TRY NEW THINGS (because that was really lacking before)! To figure out meals for the week, I planned to make dinner and the leftovers would be used the next day for lunch. I cook 5 days a week (M-Thurs and Saturday) and I vary my points day to day, meaning if on Monday I make a 9 point meal then Tuesday I would aim for around 6. That way on Tuesday I had my 9 WWPP meal for lunch and 6 WWPP meal for dinner—that’s 15 of my daily points right there. And I usually have about 10pts for breakfast now I’m at 25 WWPP. I also love sweets so I save some points room for those. So out of a 29 point day, I would use 25 WWPP for meals and then had 4 pts left for a dessert like ice cream! I made my own food journal…and being crafty I mean I made my own food journal…made up daily sheets and made the cover with scrapbook paper and chipboard and bound it with the Zutter bind-it-all. So now I had my calculator, my food journal, meals planned out and I started to drink lots of water. I usually drink between 64-80oz a day. By May I reached my goal weight, which was 10 pounds less than my pre-pregnancy weight. I just stuck with it. By then I had found lots of great recipes but wanted to try more so I purchased the Weight Watchers One Pot Cookbook. Then, when warm weather hit, I went out and walked with my family. I found some YouTube videos of great workouts I can do at home and I just keep doing what I’m doing. My husband told me that I should measure myself so I would know exactly how much and where I lost. I also took 2 before pictures. Here they are:




And these are my after photos. These were just taken over the 4th of July weekend. I've lost nearly 24 inches over my entire body...almost half of that was around my waist!



I hope this post helps inspire you. If you have any questions, please ask! And as always, thanks for stopping by!

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