Saturday, January 9, 2010

To EAT or NOT to eat!

The eternal question, OK, not eternal but age old, "Should we eat our activity POINTS?"  I get the question every week.  No one ever likes my answer, and you probably wont either :(  Yes, I do eat my activity points.  I pretty much always have.  I ate them 100% of the time my whole first year, plus some.  Now this is where we get into the whole, "Everybody is different," thing.  Not only is everybody different, but the way people calculate activity and food points vary too.  Let's just say that everyone calculates and figures activity and food points EXACTLY the same way, with the same accuracy, the answer will still be different for each member as to how many or IF they can eat their activity points.  The GOOD news is that you can find out for yourself EXACTLY how many activity points you can eat each week.  (Here comes the part that NOBODY likes).... drum roll please, YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE TO TRACK!  One of the greatest thing about the Weight Watchers Points Food System is that is is as close as most of us will ever get to the super high tech lab equipment to tell us how much we eat and burn.  If we track, we can see, in paper form, exactly what has gone in our mouth & how much we have moved and then the scale can tell us if it is a good balance.  Each week we can get onto the scale and get the feedback we are looking for.  Remember the scale is not failure, only feedback.  If we don't like the feedback, we can adjust our WPA, our level of activity and how many, if any, of the activity points we eat.  Over time, we will see patters and trends, BUT ONLY IF WE TRACK.
I hope that all of us will take this opportunity we call a "New Year" to really USE the tar out of tracking.  It is an amazing tool, a gift really.  Remember the quote from the meeting, "Tracking creates awareness, and AWARENESS is POWER!"



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3 comments:

Alice said...

Marion-I LOVE your blog. I check it every day...I am another one of your "stalkers" but you probably know that because you "stalk" us all back by your use of a counter! :) It is awesome to have a leader who has taken on the challenge of keeping at the program and who is not perfect at it 100% of the time. That is something that I need as I start the program. I am feeling great already and it has been less than a week at it! Keep the motivational posts a coming!

Marion said...

Hi Alice!
I'm so glad that the blog is helping you :) Wouldn't it be cool if we could be perfect all the time??? ;D

Lynne's Somewhat Invented Life said...

I had a friend who lost a lot of weight and kept track of what she ate. She kept the weight off for years and wrote down evey bite of food she put in her mouth. Once she stopped writing it down she started to gain weight. When she went back to keeping track she lost. She was a believer.