I find the little acknowledgment of these mini-goals to really help keep me motivated. I mean, I'm thrilled with every loss obviously - right now, each pound lost is making a major difference in how I feel, so I'm celebrating them all. But having small increments to aim for, to acknowledge, to cheer over - well, it makes the whole process a lot less daunting. If I focus on the fact that I set 170lbs as my goal, meaning I want to lose 180lbs total... that's just too big, too much to conceptualize. It's like trying to wrap your mind around a vigintillion - the mind just boggles.
Let's put this into perspective. I went on a Google hunt:
This is 180lbs of food.
This is 180lbs of cocaine - lovely, huh?
And this is the very lovely model, Lizzi Miller - she weighs 180lbs. So, I have to lose one of her.
She's 5'11. I'm 5'10. So if I'm really lucky (aka if I work really hard), I'll physically be about the same size/measurements as her when I'm done. Since she is absolutely gorgeous and has a beautiful body, I can certainly live with that!
So ok, it's easy to visualize how much 180lbs is, by itself. Now imagine being me, and realizing that the weight of those cans of food, of that cocaine, of that beautiful woman - is the EXTRA I am carrying around on my body. On ONE skeleton. ONE set of muscles. ONE body. So I'm working towards there being less than half of me from when I started. I'm already 20.6lbs on my way, so 159.4 to go. Or put another way, I have to repeat what I've already done 8 more times.
I can do that.
I dropped another point this week as well - 37 points worth of food each day. I find that something to celebrate as well. I still have days where I think, "how am I going to eat all this food? I'm just not that hungry!" But I've found ways to incorporate in more of my points without adding to the quantity of food I'm consuming, and that's helping me a lot. My BMI has gone from 50, at 350lbs to 47, at 329lbs. That's an improvement as well - certainly nothing to sneeze at. My BMI at 170lbs will be 24. Another thing I had more than half to lose, and which is now LESS than half. 23 points to go. Much better than the original 26. So again, something I have to do about 8 more times.
I can do that, too.
Little milestones help with motivation, they help keep me interested, they help keep me feeling as if I'm making progress. I still worry about my ability to maintain this path I'm on. I worry that I'll allow something to interfere - internal or external. I've got the holidays coming up, but they don't worry me. It isn't so much that I'm convinced of my own superior ability to stay "on plan" during holiday meals, it's that I am not worried about going OFF plan a couple of days. If I eat too much on Thanksgiving, that doesn't derail my journey, it doesn't stop me. Whatever weight I've lost by then, I won't put it all back on from a single meal.
I'm also lucky I guess - while my stomach capacity is somewhat increased because I'm eating regularly, it's still not that big. So my ability to overeat is limited, physically, by the fact that I've spent so many years only eating once a day. There's only so much damage you can do when your stomach won't accommodate huge portions of food. Zeb and I will probably be at home for both Thanksgiving and Christmas, which means I have full control over what foods we eat those days. I'm not going to be baking big batches of cookies or making pies. And while we'll probably do turkey & trimmings for Thanksgiving, Christmas is as likely to be the herb roasted eye of round, as anything.
I worry more about the hubby being laid off again, and what that does to our grocery budget, so what I've been trying to do is to keep a budget in mind when planning my meals and such. I know I'm spending more on groceries than I used to - but then again, we're not eating out every day, or in his case, several times a day. There are things I buy right now for convenience, that I could buy more cheaply - applesauce is a good example. I know I pay more for the little cups than I would for a jar. We buy some of those 100 calorie packs, but it would be more cost effective to buy a regular bag and divide it up myself. The convenience packs and such have helped teach me that I CAN eat well and in reasonable portions, and to understand what foods I really like, what are important parts of my meal plan, what I can do without. Now I need to focus on making it all cost less - but I believe I can handle that as well.
Making it through these last 5 weeks on plan has done a lot for my confidence in general. So much more than Atkins ever did - though granted, we didn't "do" Atkins for very long. I think it might be because there's just nothing restrictive about Weight Watchers, and I'm learning that I can eat very well - even in terms of taste, or outright indulgence - and it isn't "bad." There is NOTHING about my current eating habits that I have any reason to feel guilty about. I'm making positive choices every few hours, every single day. For my headspace, this is making an enormous difference. I constantly feel like I'm accomplishing something, even if it is "just" making healthy choices.
To me, Weight Watchers is a miracle.
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