Hi all

I'm starting my fourth week of WW at home and I do like the program. It's all very doable and down to earth, which I really appreciate.

But obviously, there are some challenges. I was wondering if you face the same or similar challenges and how you deal with them?

Planning and Cooking:
In order for it to work, I have to plan our meals carefully, write detailed grocery lists and I have to prepare and cook all the meals. I know that this is the only way it will work out for me. However, after a long day at work it's sometimes tough to find the energy. At times, I feel like I spend all my spare time planning or cooking meals and it makes me feel stressed.

My current strategy: When I come home, I don't sit down but go to the kitchen immediately and start to prepare my lunch for the next two days. I also prepare and cut up veggies to take with me as snack to the office. After lunch is prepared, I start preparing dinner. This week I've planned all very quick dishes for dinner, like wraps or bagels and nothing that needs lots of cooking. We'll see how that works out. We don't have a dishwasher in our apartment, so the dirty pans and dishes that pile up when cooking do add considerably to my stress-level.
My partner did promise, though, to help me more with prepping and doing the dishes.

Excercise:
The woes of excercising... I hate sport. I detest gyms with a vengeance. I'm an introvert and the thought of going out with a group of people to do... whatever sport makes me start to hyperventilate. Excercise adds a stresslevel that I currently just can't handle.

My current strategy:
To not fret over Excercise and taking it one step at a time. I focus on food first and excercise later. It's not as if I don't have any activity at all. We don't own a car, so grocery shopping for example is all done on foot. We live on the fourth floor with no lift and carrying said groceries up those stairs figures as excercise in my book. Also, washing machine is in the basement, so laundry day includes a lot of walking the stairs up and down, with the weight of wet laundry when walking up.

Goal:
We have a stationary bike at home. I want to start using it regularily, but will have to find a routine where it fits in, once I have established a routine with the cooking and planning.

What really bugs me at the moment is that my whole being is centered around the topic of food and weight loss. I have a tough time taking my mind off of it and focusing on other things I love. For this, I currently don't have a strategy. I'm not sure how I can balance everything at the moment.

Hey Tanyanka! I see you’re in Switzerland, I’m in France, so we aren’t too far from one another! I signed up for the American version of WW and I do the PointsPlus program online.

It can definitely get stressful if you are constantly fretting about preparing food & cooking all the time, I totally understand! What I can suggest is come up with maybe 3-4 dishes that you really like, and eat them often. I pretty much eat the same things over and over, but I try to change it and try new recipes once in awhile. For example, for breakfast I either have oatmeal or toast with peanut butter. For lunch, I generally either have some sort of salad, sandwich or soup. For dinner, I usually make either chicken or fish, with some sort of steamed vegetable on the side, and a type of bread or pasta. For snacks, I try to eat fruits or yoghurt, which require no prep work or cooking.

Another thing I suggest is picking one day (usually the day you go grocery shopping) and when you get home, cut up EVERYTHING and put them into individual portion size bags for snacks. Then, for your meals put everything you need to make that meal into ONE bag (except for meat and things like that). That way, when you get home and you are tired, you don’t have to cut up veggies or anything like that… it’s already done waiting for you to prepare it. Also, when you make your meals, try to make a double batch, and freeze half of it, it works especially well with soup. That way, instead of coming home and cooking every night, you can just thaw something already made. Decide how many times a week you want to cook dinner, and plan your meals around that.

As far as exercise, I am in the same situation as you. I don’t own a car either, and I walk everywhere, although we do have a lift Walking is actually one of the best forms of exercise you can do. Would you be able to go for an hour walk a few times a week? Also, keep in mind, you don’t HAVE to join a gym or do anything you aren’t comfortable with. You could also buy some hand weights and do a few exercises at home. There are also some great videos called “Walk Away the Pounds” by Leslie Sanstone that you can find on youtube that are VERY easy to follow and they are kind of fun too! Anything that gets you moving is what counts.

I hope my suggestions help you! Don’t let your frustrations get you down!

Hi LunchLady
Thanks for your answer. Actually, the Swiss WW Online program is really crappy, as there are no online tools whatsoever. Not even a forum. I'm actually considering to join the German version, as this seems to be better and they have loads of online tools available. Weird, same program, different offers...

We're still in the process of finding out which meals we really like, but yes; I guess we'll probably settle on a couple of quick and easy favourites and have those during the week and try new and more elaborate things on the weekends. However, I feel I need to be really careful about my lunches as I need something more substantial there to take with me to work, or I'm no good at work and simply lack concentration. I do strive to cook for two days, so I only have to prepare lunch every other day.

If you already cut up your veggies and put them in bags; how long do they stay fresh? I imagine that they turn dry or soggy after a couple of days.

Preparing and Freezing: On my to-do list. Our freezer isn't very big, but I can definitely fit in a couple of frozen homemade soups there.

I'm definitely not able to fit in an hour walk several times a week just now. I must also be careful to not overdo it with the excercising or I'll sabotage myself because I put myself under too much pressure. We already do have the bike at home, so I'll rather use that instead of some work-out routine. I can't go from 0 to 100, besides I must be really careful because at my current weight, I just cant plow through excercising. Tiny steps is the way to go here. Like, starting with 10 minutes.
Excercising is a really touchy subject with me...

Hi Tanyanka. I'm just starting out too. It can be very overwhelming, but I'm trying not to focus on food or my weight all the time, just trying to keep busy.

You can do this, one day at a time. I read somewhere that one of the keys to weight loss success is to only focus on one day at a time. Set a small goal for yourself, like I'm not going to cheat today. When you wake up the next morning, you reached that goal. Then, you can make a new goal for that new day.

Hey Tanyanka. I don't know if they have them in your supermarkets, but you could always opt for a few days a week of microwaveable meals. Here they are in the frozen section and a brand called "Smart Ones" is WW endorsed. I don't eat them myself, but I also work from home only part time, so time isn't really an issue for me. We have a dishwasher too.

I like the preparing ahead plan! For crockpot recipes (which tend not to be quick) I'll usually prepare everything in a bag, and then freeze the bag. When you get ready, just take the bag out, let it dethaw and throw it all together in the pot. You can also freeze bags of chopped up veggies. That's what I did for past diets when I didn't have a lot of time to actually prep food. I'd take an off work day, chop up everything, divide it into ziplock bags in the portions it needed to be, label them and then leave it. The veggies take up surprisingly little space.

For exercise, I don't know if you're doing it already.. but I started by doing small things. I'd walk to the mailbox instead of drive. When I went shopping I'd purposefully park at the back of the parking lot so it's a further walk. I'd take the stairs instead of an escalator/elevator. Basically a bunch of really tiny things that were really spread out. Eventually I moved on to doing a 20 minute, and then 40 minute routine in my living room. It does sound like you have a good plan though. Finding something that'll work for you individually is always the hardest part.

Thank you all for your input.
Believe it or not - we don't own a Microwave, either. And I'm kind of reluctant to get one, because I'd only use it for popcorn.
We do have a Microwave at work, though, and I know I saw some WW meals at the store. But I also want to minimize the processed food in our diet. But it might be indeed something to consider on those days where I just can't be bothered.
I use a fair amount of frozen fruit and veggies so our freezer is well stocked with them and they are a timesaver. I also like the idea to prepare bags for crockpots etc.
Since we don't have a car, there is naturally already a fair amount of walking in my day to day life. But I will try to include small steps to make that even more.
You are right, sunarie, finding something that works individually really is the hard part.

As a WW member and long time maintainer, it is a time consuming project, if that is what you turn it into.

Yes, it does require some planning and prep, but, I bet your not WW lifestyle required the same thing.

It's all about choices.

I do spend Sunday afternoon, chopping and slopping and slicing and dicing and portions and so on. I exercise on purpose, walk and strength train, alternating, 5 days a week. It's that or be subject to diabetes, high blood pressure, osteoporisis, and all kinds of crappy health issues.

It's a choice!