Category: Money

Its already the third month of the year!  How time flies, right?  On Midnight of 12-31-11, there was a list of things that I wanted to tackle this year.  But it never fails, only two things on the list stand out.  Money and Health.  Last month I made it No Unnecessary Spending February; I could only spend money on food.   If you follow me on twitter, @djrelat7; you saw all the  #NoUnnecessarySpendingFebruary tweets.  I resisted temptation when all the end of season sales were going on and I made it through the month.   Honestly, (puts head down) I broke down one day.  It was the first week, the new Jason Wu line was hitting Target stores and Breaking Dawn Part 1 was available for Pre-Sale.  I shopped that day on target.com, adding stuff to my cart.  I even went as far as checking out.  It hit me a few seconds after that this was part of my problem.  I’ve become so accustomed to buying whatever I want whenever I want it that its not helping me pay off my debt.  Fortunate for me and my wallet, I canceled the order a few minutes later.  After returning a pair of boots that I found out were defective, my total for last month’s spending on wants was a whopping -$59.63.  Now if only I could figure out how to return all this unwanted weight.  Sigh! Sigh! Sigh!

Last March I committed myself to becoming healthier, it was on the list of resolutions.  I had taken a long snooze from going to the gym and I had let my eating habits go out the window.  All the progress I had made a few years earlier had gone down the tubes.  I avoided mirrors to hold onto the thinner me in my mind.  In 2010 I took very few pictures of myself.  Its all a mind set, that is what I kept telling myself.  However the only person I was kidding was myself.  In 2011, I took pictures for Valentine’s Day to have something to look back on and I saw it staring me in the face.  A friend of mine had started Weight Watchers Online and she made it very appealing.  I still hesitated though, until I weighed myself.  208.  I could not believe my eyes.  You never know how bad it is until you face it.  This changed my mind quickly.   Last March I made a choice.   How hard could it be to try it out.  What had I to lose?

What I value most about their online system is recognizing portion control.  It took my body a bit to get used to eating the amount of food that I was supposed to eat.  It also took a while for me to mentally change my programming; Finish EVERYTHING on your plate.  I had been raised with a certain way of eating that it made me uneasy to leave anything on my plate.  When I am at home I take a smaller portion and add to it if I’m still hungry.  When I go out to eat at restaurants, I ask for a to go container the minute the food comes out, I put half of it away before I even begin to eat.  I realized that some things were not worth eating and the foods I could not image letting go of in my life, got shrunk to the right portion size.  The Points Plus program is so flexible its hard not to win!

Since I began Weight Watchers Online, I have said good bye to 19.9 pounds.  I have also said adios to 3.5 inches on my waist, 2.5 inches on my hips, 4 inches around the bust line, .5 inches on my arms, and 1.5 inches on my thighs.  I went from a size 16 plus (at size 16 I switched from jeans to leggings) to being between a 14 and 12.  I started taking more pictures of myself.  I was feeling like me again.

I have been on and off from the gym these last four months due to sickness and an injured foot.  I’m very pleased to know that with the knowledge I’ve taken away from the program about what to eat and what to stay away from, has allowed me to keep the weight off.  Today was my first day back since my foot has been out of whack and it felt good.   Twenty minutes a day can make such a difference!  I’m no where near my weight goal but its comforting to know that I’m still on track!

Have you looked over your New Year’s Resolutions?  Are you still on track?  If not, tomorrow is a day to start anew.  How awesome is that?  Giddy Up!

Until then,

Feel free to check out the program for yourself at Weight Watchers.  The site is for both men and women YAY!