Before I had my first child, I was in the best shape I had been in my adult life. I had been meeting with a personal trainer for the previous year, so my body was tone and fit. I was still about 20 pounds away from my goal weight, but it was the closest to my goal weight I had ever been since I was a freshman in college.
After I had my first child, I was not as devoted to losing weight as I should have been. I went to the gym on a regular basis to workout, but I did not really establish a way to improve my eating habits. I knew that I wanted to try and lose the weight I had added during the pregnancy before I got pregnant again, but I figured it would be awhile before that event happened, so I took my time.
When the little one was nine-months-old, we found out we were expecting baby number 2. I did a better job of continuing to work out during the second pregnancy and did not add as much weight as I did with baby number 1. As is often the case, the first twenty pounds came off fairly quickly, but the last ten pounds I needed to lose to reach my pre-pregnancy weight (for baby number 2) kept sticking around.
I tried simply counting calories, and I downloaded some iPod apps to help with this process, but counting calories is a practice that I greatly disliked. I especially disliked it when I wanted to figure out the calories for the typical meals we would eat like chili or lasagna. Unless I used a specific recipe that included the calorie information, I usually had to guess. Since I did not really lose much weight, I am guessing that I often did not guess correctly.
At the end of February, I decided to look into Weight Watchers once again. I had used their program before with success. I like that instead of calories, it asks users to keep track of points and those points are based on more than just calories.
In the past, I attend the local meetings, but with my limited schedule because of the two little ones, I decided to give their online program a try. So far, I have been very pleased with the program. I especially like that I can enter my recipes into their system and it will figure out the points for me. That way, I do not have to fix separate meals for my family and myself. I can still eat the same foods, but now I know just how much I should eat.
I also like the way the program encourages users to eat more fruits and vegetables by classifying most of those items as zero points. I have become more diligent about eating more fresh fruits and vegetables since I have started the program.
To date, I have lost almost 13 pounds in five weeks. I find it amusing that when I entered my weight this morning, it mentioned that I was losing weight too fast (more than 2 pounds per week); when I used to attend meetings, it always felt like the push was for people to lose as much weight as possible in a week. I realize that the meeting was run by a person and not a computer, so the person running the meeting may not have been following company policy like she was supposed to.
I still have about thirty pounds to go before I reach my goal weight, but I only have three pounds to go before I treat myself to a pedicure!
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