Angie All The Way my friends…

Okay bloggies I’ve been holding out on you a little bit.  I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about so many things in relation to my weight loss efforts and of course, now that I’ve seen Food Inc., my approach to eating in general (I promise I will talk more about the movie soon, lots to think about). 

I decided about 2 weeks ago to rejoin with Weight Watchers Online.  When I decided to stop following that program after having lost so much weight on it, I did so only because I felt like there was more to learn about the food I was eating other than only calories, fat and fibre.  I am really glad that I did stray to learn those things.  I have learned SOOOO much.  What I didn’t do was lose weight!  In fact, during my whole “finding myself” experience I regained some weight.  The regain occurred not when I stopped following weight watchers, but when I started “calorie counting.” 

I think most people agree that the WW system and calorie counting are essentially the same thing in the sense that they are two different approaches of restricting your daily calorie intake based on the same science of calories in v. calories out. Right?

Well something happened that I didn’t anticipate which caused me to regain some weight.  It wasn’t because I stopped counting points, but I believe it was because I started counting calories!  Huh??  Wha?? But didn’t you just say it was the same thing??

Here’s what I’m saying my little beauties: currently in my journey I am not at place that will allow me success without “counting” my daily calorie intake.  I need that structure.  But when I counted calories instead of POINTS, I didn’t feel like I had that “buffer” zone like I did with WW.  If I exceeded my daily calorie allowance, I felt guilty.  The Flex Plan (now it’s the Momentum Plan and is a bit different but the same for the purposes of what I’m saying), gives you that buffer zone in the form of the Flex Points that is a part of the plan.  This obviously makes a difference to me because I know that the buffer zone of my 35 POINTS is there so if I go over after I’ve had my POINTS for the day, it’s still in keeping with the plan and I don’t feel guilty.

Guilt is one mother lovin’ hard feeling to shake in the business of weightloss, no?  Guilt is the bad guy.  Guilt is the thing that causes people to overeat most of the time and give you that “start tomorrow” kind of behaviour.  That is the mentality I was getting into without the comfort of the buffer zone. 

I know it is ALL just a mindset I don’t need to be made aware of that, but this whole friggin thing is 90% mindset because without the mindset, you’re not likely going to be sticking with any kind of lifestyle plan that is different from what your mind wants to do naturally, right?

This doesn’t mean that I feel okay with relying on frozen dinners and processed foods, but that is something I’ve learned to not even want!  Following WW does not doom me to live on processed foods.  You choose what you want to eat.  The breath of fresh air is that the choice is mine and I now want to choose the whole foods! I can’t tell you how liberating that is.  Once upon a time I had to make sure I was ticking off the guideline to make sure I was “getting my veggies in” and now I find myself not even worried about that because it’s a given.  Big difference.  Long way baby.

So there you have it bloggies, I’m back on WW and I feel like the hiatus from it was a necessary learning experience for me and I’ll even go so far as to say that the regain of some weight made it sink in and truly resonate. After all, I chose “Angie All The Way” for a reason.  I didn’t put a time limit on my success, but promised to go “all the way” and that’s exactly what I’m doing.

I am really excited to be back and I know that I’m not the only one around here who’s decided to go back.  It goes to show you how are not alone in this and how many of us go through the exact same feelings.  I am so lucky to have found you all!