So one month ago I hit my goal weight at Weightwatchers. How have things been going since then?
I am officially now a Gold member. I have a snazzy little card to prove it. (Well I have a paper copy at least, I’m still waiting for my ‘real’ card to appear in the post.)
What does this mean to you people not familiar with the language of WW?
As a Gold member I can now weigh in for free. I can go as often or as little as I like, as long as I get weighed at least 5 times a year. I have to be within 5lbs of my goal weight or else I will have to pay for that meeting.
This is where I start to have a problem.
My goal weight was not some long strived for target that I had been lusting after for years. It was not the weight I would need to be to fit into a size 10. There was no great thought process that went into my decision, instead it went something like this....
WW leader: And what would you like your goal weight to be?
Me: Erm.....12 stone?
I knew that 12 stone was just within the ‘ok’ range for my height (if you subscribe to BMI methods which I KNOW are iffy but we have nothing else to go on so I say you’ve got to suck it up and get on with it.) but wasn’t so far away from my beginning weight that I would give up before I started.
I actually ended up smashing my goal weight target on the day I reached goal. I immediately had a mad week where I ate out 4/5 times (not in celebration, just one of those busy kind of weeks) and didn't have time to go to the gym and the week after I reached goal I’d put on 3.5lbs, which I actually thought was kind of impressive.
Since then I haven’t been back to weigh in. I have been busy but also in the back of my head I’m a little bit scared to go. It seems natural to me that I will probably have put a little bit of weight back on. But the thing is, I’m fine with that. I know I haven’t stacked it on, clothes are still hanging off me and there isn’t really a difference when I look in the mirror. I’m happy at whatever weight I’m at at the moment.
It's just I have no idea what that weight is. I don’t own scales, I never have.
I could just go to a meeting and get weighed and get it over with but part of me doesn’t want to. What if I’m over 12 stone 6lbs? The fact is that if I am that’s ok with me. But technically I will have failed. I don’t want to feel like that. I especially don’t want to feel like that because of some totally random number I pulled out of thin air.
It’s a strange kind of feeling, one that I didn’t really expect. I didn’t think that I would be left feeling so conflicted about WW. I have loved it and do love it still and I can’t really fault it, it worked for me in terms of me losing weight. But I don’t want to feel permanently worried that I’ve “failed” at maintenance because of a rule that says I have to be within 5lbs of my goal weight.
I guess I’m just going to rip the plaster off and see what the scales say...
Try the scales in Boots to give you a rough idea? And sod technicalities. An arbitrary figure picked at random months ago should not be the be all and end all of things now, and it certainly shouldn't be making you feel guilty or a failure. You've done amazingly - remember that.
ReplyDeleteI'm still plodding along and getting frustrated. Haven't lost anything at all this year and I know I don't necessarily need to, but I want to.
I put on weight on weeks when I swim 3 times and don't eat a lot, I put on weight on weeks when I don't swim and eat normally. Equally, I lose 2 1/2lbs overnight sometimes - the curse of food allergies and stupid bloating. I'll get there.
When I did WW first time round, I never really had a goal weight because I had SOOOO much to lose. In the end I lost 7 st and I was VERY happy with that. However, I was nowhere near what my BMI should have been, and I knew if I tried to get to my "ideal" weight I would have been miserable and I wouldn't have liked the way I looked either.
ReplyDeleteI stopped going and for around 2 years everything was good because my new habits kept everything in check. I put on about 1/2 stone but no more than that. Then I got some new tablets and I put on 3 stone. I'm back at ww and I'm pretty sure I won't hit my official goal weight, but my personal one is to get down to what I was last time.
I never plan to be a gold member, I'll just be happy when I get to a comfortable for me size. You have to work out what is right for you.
If I were you I'd not bother weighing myself at all. Who cares. You're now slim and happy with your body and you're eating healthily and exercising. What's to be gained from weighing yourself?
ReplyDeleteI say sod WW. You used them to lose weight, you don't need to keep going back to prove you can stick to your goal. The main thing is that you're happy with your body.
ReplyDeleteI would say don't go back at all whilst you're happy with the way you look and feel. As you say, if you feel happy, what's the point in taunting yourself and making yourself feel like a failure when you're not? If you start to feel unhappy with your weight in the future, you can still go back then.
ReplyDeleteJust listen to your body and it will let you know if you need to weigh in or not.
ReplyDeleteI have to say I'm someone who needs the discipline of a weigh in to keep it off! x