GilmoreGirl's Journal, 29 September 2010

My Crazy Dieting Adventures
all while being a paying weightwatchers.com member

When I first started Weight Watchers (WW), being "on plan" (OP) meant that I would eat enough food products to get to my daily points requirement, choosing healthy options when I wanted to, and exercise at least three times every week. That was usually enough to make my body lose a pound or so a week. If I went over my daily points and didn't exercise, I wouldn't lose. So that's how I stayed OP at first. Doing Weight Watchers this way resulted in my losing 12.4 pounds in 5 months.

Later (October 2009), I stopped counting points at all, and switched to a more "Intuitive Eating" (IE) approach to losing the weight. I was sick of the strict rules of Weight Watchers and wanted a better way out of the obesity. One that felt more natural than counting. So I continued eating mostly junk food (chips, frozen pizzas, fast food) with the occassional healthy meal or two thrown in there. I basically listened to my body's cravings and hunger signals, and threw all the "rules" out the window. This was after I read the book "Intuitive Eating" and really loved the way it made me feel. Following the IE approach to weight loss, I lost 5.6 pounds in 2 months.

Then in March 2010 I pretty much gave up on Weight Watchers and tried calorie counting for a while. I even gave my new plan a cutsie name and blogged about it here. . Basically, when I realized that IE wasn't really working, I decided to still eat all of my favorite foods, but to count calories, too. This actually worked pretty well for awhile. Counting calories helped me to lose 10.3 pounds in 2 months.

Then in April 2010, I discovered The Kind Diet by Alicia Silverstone, and fell in love with the idea of veganism and clean eating. (I also blog about this diet here ).It was another diet that didn't focus on counting, but instead focused on specific foods to avoid and to eat. I became vegan, and tried my hardest to be a clean-eating kind dieter, but it just was to strict for me.

So....

In July 2010, I recommited to Weight Watchers. I had been looking for another way out, a better, easier for me to follow program. Not necessarily a quicker way to lose, but an easier way. I have finally come full circle and am actually embracing the true Weight Watchers program this time around.

To me, OP means much more than it did when I started in May 2009. Now, instead of focusing on just points, I am more focused than ever on the 9 GHGs. I try to follow those every day, and the days that I don't, I am not OP. And the funny thing is, every diet that I tried to follow (while still being a ww.com paying member) can be observed while following WW. If I want to go back to Intuitive Eating, I can follow WW using the Simply Filling Technique. The Kind Diet embraces all the filling foods, too, WW is very easy to follow as a vegan. And calorie counting? WW covers that, too.

Since recommitting, and focusing on all the real rules that Weight Watchers endorses (DP + WPA + AP + following GHGs), I have lost 10.6 pounds in 2.5 months, or about a pound a week. And I'm finally happy with the program and feel like this can and will last a lifetime.