About five weeks ago, I restarted Weight Watchers. I joined a 30 Day Spring Weight Loss Challenge on FB hosted by Sarah at The Holy Mess. The challenge lasted the entire month of April. The accountability piece is what I wanted needed and accountability is what I got! We were expected to track everything we ate using the method of our choice and share a picture of our daily food log with the FB group (some 200+ participants BTW). We had weekly live coaching sessions with Sarah, filled out trackers and shared our reflections on our progress over the month. We will have monthly follow-up sessions in May and June.
Monthly progress: Lost 5 pounds. Non-scale victory – a favorite pair of jeans fits once again!
Best part? How much better I feel after a month of healthier eating.
Focus for May? More water, walking and veggies. Continued daily tracking of what I eat in the WW app. If I bite it, I write it!
Like some of the other participants, I am a little apprehensive about the challenge ending, but I certainly now have the tools to keep going! I’ll delve more into features in the WW app and my health insurer’s online wellness incentive programs to help with accountability.
Five things I learned in April:
Weight loss is a heck of a lot harder and slower this time around.
Weight loss is a nonlinear process.
Life happens. Do the best you can in any given situation. Give yourself some grace if you fall off the wagon. The critical thing you must do is get back on track at the next meal.
Learning to make peace with “treats” and “trigger” foods is also part of the process.
Discovering WW recipe hacks and healthier substitutions is a lot of fun!
WW is a useful tool for tracking, but I don’t always agree with the daily/weekly point values allotted and some of the point values assigned to certain foods. On Week 3, half of my weekly points disappeared for some reason. Point values in the app are sometimes all over the place for the same food. I choose the middle value or use a rule of thumb of 1 point per 50 calories and track it that way. I’m going to hunt for my WW Freestyle (blue version) program notes and compare them to the current version. The two programs are supposedly very similar; yet I remember having more daily points and fewer points being assigned to certain favorite foods.
Summary: I’m back on track and will keep building on the progress I’ve made over the past month!
Come Stitch With Me, LLC 
I’ve done WW a few times in the past. The last time I stopped was right before covid
As I recall, your points values will change as your weight changes but it’s odd that it happened mid-week for you (unless that was your weigh-in day). I’d love to hear more about the FB group…is this part of WW or something anyone could join?
omgosh, hit send before saying: Congrats on the 5 pound loss! That’s amazing!!!
Sara B. runs a site at http://www.theholymess.com. It’s independent of WW, but she is a lifetime WW member sustaining a 100+ plus loss for about 20 years. Anyone can join her quarterly challenges or monthly weight loss group. They are done via private FB groups or on teachable.com. I joined the Spring Challenge. It was well worth the $79 fee. Be sure to sign up for her emails.
Thanks! It was a challenging month, but I’ve learned I can do hard things. Definitely motivated to keep going.