Changing Things Up: Adding in Weight Watchers (again)

I’ve been thinking about adding Weight Watchers back into my life for a while. I am not quitting my Isagenix plan by any means—I am in love with the product and how it makes me feel. But being that I am trying to learn how to have a healthy relationship with food, I thought that adding in Weight Watchers might be a good idea.

I’ve been struggling since February, and not because Isagenix doesn’t work. I just lost my mojo—despite seeing incredible results. I’ve since discovered that it’s because I struggle with Binge Eating Disorder and despite whatever efforts I’ve ever made to lose weight (many times with success)—I always fall back into these habits whenever I have something going on in my head which triggers my disordered eating.

I am continuing therapy and have seen progress, albeit very slow, by doing so. It’s a process. I have to change the way that I think about food. I have to be mindful of every bite. I have to learn to find a new way to cope with emotions and to find comfort. That will take time. I’ve been fostering these habits for 20+ years and I can’t expect to change over night.

One thing I’ve started to do is to think about food differently. I’m trying to eliminate the “good” or “bad” food concept. It’s just food—it doesn’t have any impact on my value as a human being.

For example, while dining out recently I ordered a side salad and a small order of garlic parmesan fries. I rarely eat fries and the garlic parmesan part just sounded amazing.

It took me a long time to figure out what to order and it was because I was being very mindful. I finally settled on just ordering two items ala cart because it’s what I really wanted and was the amount of food I could eat without over indulging.

I didn’t feel stuffed afterwards. I felt satisfied. I enjoyed that meal more than any meal I’ve had in a very long time. I tried not to beat myself up for eating fries, a perceived “bad” food in my book.

For me, it’s about realizing that the 20th bite, when I’m actually well past full, never tastes as good as the 1st or 2nd bite tastes. It’s about realizing that the first 19 bites did not make me feel better, so continuing to eat to try to find comfort is not working. I seem to think that the more I eat and the faster I eat will somehow satisfy whatever emotional hunger I have. It never, ever does—and it’s realizing that which is inspiring me to change my habits.

Starting Weight Watchers will help me learn to eat the right portion sizes again and to be more mindful of the impact that the food is having on my body. It will help influence my food choices.

A lot has changed since I followed Weight Watchers last! There are no longer PointsPlus values but points are now called SmartPoints. It seems that the calculation of points includes calories, saturated fat, sugar, and protein.

I finally made the decision to add WW to my current plan when I saw that you can get 3 months for 55% off today since it’s Cinco de Mayo. You can sign up here. 3 months gives me a good amount of time to decide if my modified plan is working for me or not!