Weight Watchers New PointsPlus (+) Program ~ My Story ~ Part 9

As promised I would give the highlights of the weekly booklets from last week when I was snowed in and could not attend the meeting. This past week's booklet had four headlines: "Bounce Back," "Take a Pass," "Bad Day?" and "Cookies!"

"Bounce Back" offers advice from members about what to do when the going gets tough. Marla from Florence, South Carolina, who was a pro at fad dieting and would lose weight for an event, almost reach the goal and then watch the pounds return. Wanting to no longer diet, she needed a new lifestyle. She found Weight Watchers meetings at work and she realized that losing a large amount of weight had to be accomplished slower than overnight as she expected from fad dieting.

Lauren from Chico, California, went on a Las Vegas trip with her boyfriend and hit the buffets like gangbusters. One way she found to counteract this eating binge was to walk as often as possible while on vacation. So she looked at the slip-up as a fresh start and faced the challenge head on. When the voices start telling you to give up; that is when you turn on the jets full force.

Richard from New York City finally stayed for a meeting and heard another member say how she wanted to quit. He thought it was stupid to quit, but he had mixed feelings often himself. The meeting has been a source of reaffirmation for me. Everyone at the meeting goes home to a different home, environment and lifestyle; we all have bumps in the road and can discuss them at the meeting. By hearing the stories others may have, it gives us a kinship and a feeling that we are not alone.

"Take a Pass" give us the ability to go on after a bump in the road. The booklet contained several reasons we may need a "Pass" rather than beat ourselves up over being human. The passes were: skipped a weigh-in (but attended the meeting), noshed mindlessly while watching TV last night (but I'll plan to sip tea instead tonight), went over my daily PointsPlus target (but I'll pre-track tomorrow's meals), overdid it at the after-work happy hour (but used my weekly PointsPlus allowance), bailed out of my walk today (but I realized how much better I feel when I exercise.) All of these and several more give us the reason to go on. We did not get to Weight Watchers because we goofed up once or twice and we need to forgive ourselves when we do have a slip up. So give yourself a "Pass" and go on!

"Bad Day?" advice from Leslie Fink, MS, RD, Recipe Editor for Weight Watchers.com has the same dealings that we all do. Here is what she does when she finds herself in a cycle of mindless sweets eating to halt the process. On night 1: instead of cookies, switch to peanut butter on whole wheat crackers (still satisfied; not deprived.) Night 2: choose apple slices with peanut butter (getting easier; getting healthier.) Night 3: simply eat an apple (you are on your way.) Night 4: sip a cup of licorice root tea or herbal tea of your choice (habit kicked, and you took control healthfully!)

Cookies!: only 1 PointsPlus Value per cookie! Check out the recipe here and enjoy!

See you the end of this week for my next report!