Hello, My Name Is…

True to my word, I attended my first Weight Watcher’s meeting last night and may I say that I don’t quite know what to say.  It was slightly overwhelming.  The room was small, there were more attendees than seats, and man did it get stuffy by the end!

I will say that I can see why people go.  The support alone has got to be huge.  I mean here were a bunch of people all struggling through the same thing – how to lose weight and keep it off.  For myself, I was even encouraged insomuch that in hearing that the guy sitting across the aisle from me had lost 97 pounds so far, and the woman at the other end of my row is now weighing in over 100 pounds lighter than she was when she started, what’s to keep me from losing the few I have to lose?

They also said that the meetings were not always at overflow capacity either.  The large number of attendees was partly due to the “free registration” promotion going on right now not to mention a slew of New Year’s Resolution-ers who may or may not continue to attend the meetings.  May that not be me!

One of the things that they emphasize is the importance of writing down everything you eat.  “If you bite it, write it” the addage apparently goes.  I recently read an article in Good Housekeeping which discussed the benefits of doing just that entitled The Single Best Way To Lose Weight.  According to the author, those who log their food intake each day become more conscientious about what they’re putting in their mouths.  So I’ll give it a shot.

Another thing I learned in the meeting that surprised me was that they didn’t want to touch on goal weights.  “The first order of business,” our fearless leader told us, “is to get you to your 10.”  The 10 she is referring to is the losing of 10% of your body weight from the day you join.  Naturally there are some restrictions around this because someone who only needs to lose a few pounds might look completely emancipated if they were to lose 10% of their whole body weight.  But for most people (myself included) this falls within my overall goal.  “Once you hit the 10% mark,” she continued, “then you come and talk to me and we discuss setting your goal weight.”  Apparently the way it works is that once you hit your goal weight, you become a “Lifetime Member.”  This means that you can come to a meetings for free for life if you weigh-in once a month at no more than 2 pounds over your final goal weight.  Not bad.

They also gave some guidelines that I’m not sure I’ve ever heard before.  One was to never let more than 5 hours go by between meals (so if I eat breakfast at 8, then I need to eat lunch by 1 and dinner by 6).  The other was that apparently we are not to eat LESS than our daily point allotment.  Huh.  Who knew?

My goal today is to figure out which plan I’m going to start out with (there are two to chose from) and then to plan out my meals for the rest of the week.  Today will not be planned – partly because I had no time last night after the meeting – but I will still try to be careful about what I’m eating.

Let the games begin.