...for the rest of my life!
I made an interesting/bummer-ing discovery last night. The meal from Outback Steakhouse that I carefully chose for lunch yesterday...looking up the nutrition info on the internet over my cell phone, then figuring the points on my WW app on my iPad...was hiding a nasty little secret!
Last night when I went to journal my food for the day, I'd forgotten exactly how many points my lunch was so I got online on my big computer to look up the same information. Oh boy...I did not see the fine print on my cell phone "serves 4" on the nutrition info for the quesadillas I ordered. I only ate half the meal but that was still DOUBLE the points that I thought I was eating!
So today I was visiting with my neighbor, Shari...AWESOME neighbor!! We sit outside to visit nearly every day. She is a wonderful living example of choosing what you value and then keeping that in focus...letting nothing deter you from your goal.
Shari had gastric bypass surgery last October...not to lose weight, not to have a smaller body... but to drastically improve her health and chances of living longer without the effects of diabetes. She researched the surgery, understood the risks, accepted the changes that would be required for the rest of her life and moved forward keeping her goal front and center.
That's exactly what I'm trying to do! Every day...multiple times a day, I'm reminding myself that this is for the rest of my life. Every day is another lesson in learning what to do, how to manage eating...REAL LIFE eating...because this is it...I'm not allowing myself "summer eating", "holiday eating", "marathon-training eating" and the ups and downs in my weight that go along with that kind of eating!
So...I ate double the points that I thought I was eating. How do I handle this? And here's where the Weight Watchers system really works for me...and millions of others! I have 49 points per week that I can use however I want...plus points that I earn for activity.
Now I have a strong feeling that if I ate those 49 points every week, I would not lose weight...possibly even gain. So I generally avoid using any of those points. I feel better about eating my activity points because they represent something...calories burned.
Anyhow, I'd already earned plenty of activity points to cover the extra I ate at lunch and I didn't have much for supper because the lunch filled me up good. So I only had to use 2 activity points after all.
But the big picture is that I handled it! Well, after a few moments of freaking out...hahaha And I even ate my leftovers for lunch today, knowing exactly how many points they were but making adjustments in the rest of my eating for today.
And that FEELS GOOD! That's real life!! I handled real life eating thanks to WW teaching me that IT'S OK...I can go to parties and cook-outs and out to dinner and still maintain a healthy weight long-term.
I'm making a list of go-to foods that fill me up for the fewest amount of points...pure nutrition foods...WW calls them Simply Filling = ) If you follow the Simply Filling plan, you don't have to measure or log your food...it's so healthy you can eat to satisfaction and still maintain your weight. I'm not ready to do that yet but I want to print out a list of those foods and keep them handy in the kitchen.
So I just wanted to share my new eye-opening, confidence-boosting experience with you... and now good-night = ))
