Angel Food (lowfat)

Perhaps this entry’s title is a little over the top. I didn’t win anything, and nobody’s giving me a medal or putting a laurel wreath on my head. I’m celebrating, anyway, though! I survived my near exercise-less week with weight loss plans intact. I knew that my week would be nuts and exercise would be difficult to squeeze in, so I didn’t beat myself up about it. I did what I could, which turned out just to be one intensive cardio day and one yoga class. But, just doing that little amount of exercise reminded me of the commitment I have made to myself to get in better shape.

However, my biggest success last week may have been in my dieting - making realistic choices in what I eat, and staying focused on the end goal, even on days when a little too much food made its way down my gullet. Last week, I decided I was tired of failing at hitting my points targets, so I made some small adjustments to my daily points values. Usually, when I’m counting points (I do Weight Watchers flex points, with a current base of 22pts) I get desperate when my points start to run low for the day. I tend to freak out, thinking there is no way I’ll be able to deal with the hunger that is necessary for losing weight. Then, I’ll just sabotage myself - might as well just go all out at dinner since I won’t hit my points target anyway, right?

Well, last week I decided that just wasn’t good enough. I don’t mind telling you that I didn’t hit my points targets at all. Instead, I gave myself three extra points a day. In real nutrition speak, I think that’s about 150 extra calories a day. It was enough to take the edge off, fit in an additional snack or larger meal, and still lose weight. To be perfectly honest, I still went over my points, even given the extra 3 a day. No matter, though. I wound up losing 2.2 lbs, which is light years ahead of where I’ve been in my weight loss lately.

I think at the heart of this success is simply that I didn’t give up and I took it easy on myself without losing sight of my goal. It’s been ages since I’ve been this excited about making real changes in my lifestyle. I look forward to working out now. I’m trying new foods (papaya lime salad today - yum), and I’m not worrying about what the scale says every morning. Weight Watchers folks talk about “non-scale victories” - well, I had a scale victory this week, but the non-scale victories of being kinder to myself and changing my approaches to food and exercise feel even better.