Food Plans - for life or for now?
 

I love WW. I think it works and works well. But lately, I have found it very hard to stick with counting. (Translation - haven't been counting) I have always said that I wanted a plan that I could stick with for the rest of my life. Do I REALLY want to count points for the rest of my life. I am thinking now that maybe I just need to SIMPLY (HAA HAA) adopt a healthy eating LIFESTYLE. Make the better choices, skip the bread with the spaghetti, have a samller portion, add a salad. Am I coping out? I don't know. The skinny people around me don't count, they just do. Also maybe when I make a bad choice, it won't mean the whole day is blown, it'll just mean that choice was blown. Am I making any sense here?

Is your current food plan for life or for losing the weight?

Hey Sandi.. you are making perfect sense.

I like counting points because it is teaching me to eat healthy. The only good part about being 100 lbs over weight is that by the time you lose your weight counting points is in your blood - part of your life. Once you lose the weight I believe you can slow done on counting points then.

It might work for you.. for me - never! I would "forget" and begin to slip. Do a test - try for one week - ask yourself at the end if you are in control? My guess is that you will maintain.

I don't always measure now - but once in a while I will start to measure again to remind myself of what a serving really is (you know what I mean?) ;)

If you are sick of journalling.. why not try the new ww braclets? They are only for sale in some test markets but I've seen people sell them on ebay. You could even make one.

Hope I helped.

Dana

Dana -

Fill me in. Tell me about the bracelets. I have quit going to the meetings, so I am out of the loop.

actually I found out about them by surfing ebay. Basiclly they are beaded bracelets and you move a charm according to how many points you have eaten. Kind of a cool idea.

Let me see if I can find one....

here we go...
http://search.ebay.com/search/search...t&BasicSearch=

Hi Sandi,

Not sue if mine is for life or not. I count calories, and so far, I look at calories by habit. I think it's sloely becoming engrained in my head. By the time I lose all this weight, it'll be like Dana said ~ second nature. Or you get to apoint when you already know how many points/calories an item or serving is.

I guess I'll have to wait and see how things are going by then. I still have quite a ways to go (109.5 pounds to go).

Weigh in is tomorrow, so I'm crossing my fingers that it'll be less after Saturday.

Well, great topic first of all!
Second: I hope this will be for life, or atleast a modified version of what I am doing which is basically low carb (the bad carbs) and watching my calorie intake. You are right that thin people dont think about it. I guess I will always have too if I want to keep the extra pounds off.
I still have 90 pounds to go to get to my "ideal" weight so maybe I will find something else, but I dont think so.

laura:)

Hi Sandy,

I normally post on the Doin the old fashioned way thread. But I read all of the threads on here. I wanted to pop in and say that in this months WW magazine they show an advertisement for the Points bracelet. I dont know what the cost is, but I am sure it is probably more expensive then the ones on e-bay. If you get a chance take a look in the mag. It may be what you want. I was thinking of getting one. But dont know if they ship to Canada.

Also like Dana says point counting gets in your blood. I have been doing WW on and off for the last 20+ years. At one time I weighed 304 pounds. But never can get below 170-175.
But I never give up and dont you either even when I am not following the program to a "T " I still consider myself a WW as this is my way of life, but sometimes we just have backslides... we are human and that is ok!!!... You can do it Sandy. Just hang in there.

Nancy
203.5/196/???
been doing WW at home again for the last 5 weeks as the meetings have been closed for the summer and dont start up again till 9/11. So will officially join again(for the umpteeth time) and hope to get to lifetime sometime next year.

by the way you have a great group of ladies on this thread,, love to read your posts.!!!!! :)

as a former successful WW gone waaayyy bad, i think it's essential that people never stop counting. it doesn't have to be even a conscious thing, but it needs to be almost second nature. the naturally thin folks seem to have some kind of built in sense of what's appropriate and how to balance high calorie treats with the rest of their lives.

if only we could all have this ability1!!

Persoannly i think that all "diest" are not diest persay but ways to teach you ways of life. if you stop it then you will go back to eating the old ways and you will gain the weight back. no matter what the eating choice you take it must be a woe/wol or you WILL get FAT again!

they are to teach you how to make the right choices and to eyeball the size. for the rest f your life. if you stop measureing that is fine but if you start to gain or stop losing (which ever level you are at) the go back to measuring and counting and get your self back on tract. i have not been counditn my carbs nor protein for several months but i know if i am eating enough or too much i will pick a day out and estimate how much i eat. i look at my portions and think (if i am stuck) and say am i going overboard? the i have a light bulb moment and for a few days i count and be really good and find that i have gotten back OP

so this is a wol and should be for you too if you really want to remain at your lower weight. but you do not have to be so diligent all the time. learn to watch your self ( I have been doing this for 2 years) and when i slip i know it. some times it will take a few months to get back OP and if my determination is high only a few days!

Those bracelets look so cool. I think that would be a very cool way of doing it.

I am definately doing this for life!! I try to AT LEAST Track my points, even if I don't write everything down.

My leader put it into perspective for me last week when I said "I'm totally being put off because I don't want to do this every day for the rest of my life!" She said - are you going to eat every day for the rest of your life? Are you going to brush your teeth every day for the rest of your life?? Are you going to comb your hair every day for the rest of your life??

I realized that this is a habit I will get into. And then, it won't be so intmidating anymore!

I think it has to be for life. I can't lose all this weight & then think, "Whew! Now I can eat whatever I want, whenever I want" (because I've been there, done that, and here I am again!)

I don't count points or anything. I just try & make healthy choices. For me, it's more about moving my butt than "being good", although yesterday was a bad food day.

What a great topic!

My dad did SlimFast and lost a ton of weight and then, once he stopped... he gained!

For life means different things for different people. I don't do the WW plan but I was on it for a short time. It gave me a idea of how to "balance" things more. (i.e. If I know I'm having frozen yogurt today after work, then I know I'm eating light for lunch).

That's a life lesson!

What other "Life lessons" have other people learned? What rules do you plan to stick with to make this a permanent weight loss?

Excellent question, Sandi!

My "plan" is DEFINATELY for life. I don't do WW or any other formal plan, but I have done lots of research on what is healthy and what is not. I try hard not to eat foods that aren't healthy and to get enough of the foods that are.

For instance, I used to love fried food, but fried food is NOT healthy, so now I don't eat it. Salt is bad for me because my blood pressure is high and I'm sensitive to salt, so I don't eat food that is really salty. On the other hand, fruit and veggies and whole grains are good for me. I need nine serving a day of fruits and veggies and five or six of whole grains, PLUS some beans or legumes and two or three low-fat dairy products. The high fiber in all these foods makes them really filling, and when I eat what my body needs, I'm not hungry and I don't crave the garbage I used to eat.

The other day, I got upset and bought a bag of Cheetos, something I used to eat all the time. I guess my body has forgotten how to handle all the chemicals in junk food because those things made the inside of my mouth break out!

So what's my Life Lesson, Jessica? Listen to your body and give it what it needs to be healthy, and you will be, too, even without counting points.

I certainly hope that my plan is for life, not just for now. I know that doing ww is teaching me to make better choices. I am already starting to just do it by nature. The other day, I went out to dinner and had some awesome shrimp and cream cheese wontons, but I only ate half of one. I let myself eat it, but just didn't go overboard.