Sensible Eatin IN........Extreme dieting OUT!

A long time ago, at a Weight Watchers meeting, my lecturer said something very groundbreaking in my mind that I will never forget. She said, "At Weight Watchers, we don't teach you to diet, we teach you to live!" Simple as that. And even though I sometimes veer off the path and try my own route, I always end up back on the path that leads me to that one very simple sentence and wonder why I ever deviated from it.

To me, what that means is, as a person with the potential to be heavy, I need to learn to eat, not learn to diet. So, what is the difference you ask? There is actually a very big different, but let's start with Merriam-Websters definition of the word Diet;

1. To eat sparingly or according to prescribed rules
2. A regime of eating and drinking sparingly so as to reduce one's weight

Usually when people "diet", they are doing it to achieve an end goal, and when they acheive that goal, there is the understanding that the "diet" will cease. So, basically, a diet is a temporary event we engage in short term to achieve a specific weight goal. Once we achieve that goal, the assumption is, we go back to eating how we use to. A diet is a temporary state where we deprive ourselves of certain foods we like to eat, swapping them out for lower quantities of lower calorie, less appetizing and less satisfying foods to decrease our fat mass. For most people, this is an unpleasant experience, that they moan and groan through, until either lose the weight or they get tired of the deprivation, lose their will-power, but either way it has the same result. They return to their original way of eating and most often gain back whatever weight they have lost, only to return to the ritual at a later date down the road, to re-live the same experience with the same or similar outcome and the cycle continues. Welcome to the world of yo-yo dieting. We all know what it is, we have all been there!

So, let's return to my lecturer's quote: "At Weight Watchers, we don't teach you to diet, we teach you to live!" 

Weight Watchers doesn't believe in dieting. They don't feel that their program is a temporary solution, like so many other dieting plans are. I know this sounds like a Weight Watchers commercial, but I promise, it is not. I am not a spokesperson, and I am not being paid to say these things, it's just that in my 37 years experience of dieting, I keep coming back to all the lessons I have learned from WW.

What I have learned is a diet, which is a temporary solution to a permanent problem, never works. It never has for me. So, I look back to the times in my life when I have been most successful losing weight, and it is the times when I felt most fulfilled, when I was using all the tools and techniques provided by Weight Watchers. Because that is what they provide. They don't give you a diet to follow, they give you tools and guidelines to healthy eating using all the foods available to you, not only in the grocery store, but in restaurants as well. They want you to LIVE they don't want you to do DIET! Diet is a dirty word and the results of a diet is failure. As the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines it, a diet means to eat sparingly or to prescribed rules. And we all know that rules were made to be broken. But what about guidelines? Guidelines are just that....They are sets of advice to help you safely maneuver successfully through a particular action, in this case, the action is to decrease body fat and get healthy. And I stress GET HEALTHY! I think we  have to remember that it's not just about losing weight, but it's about being healthy and that is never a temporary thing.

Weight Watchers has taught me about what foods are healthy, what portions to eat them in, what to cut down on, what to eat more of and what to eliminate completely. The good news is, Weight Watchers doesn't believe in deprivation. They understand that you need at least a little bit of everything, especially things you enjoy. The biggest reason people fail on diets is because they feel deprived. I am so successful when I implement into my life all the tools, tips and guidelines that WW has taught me over the years. When I stop following those guidelines and become extreme in any direction, it results in me gaining weight.

So, where am I going with this? I guess I better make my point soon because this blog is already too long. But my point is this.......I know what works, I know what doesn't. I have tried so many "diets" and I always fail, I don't last long on them. But when I am focusing on eating healthy, in sensible portions, allowing myself to have a few "treats" here and there in moderation, I feel more satisfied and I succeed.  When I have a healthy balance in my life of eating right, exercise mixed with allowing myself to eat out from time to time and have a tasty treat here and there, I feel great, my body feels great!

So, I know this. I have tried it, it works. But I still fail, which has more to do with me mentally and emotionally than anything else, and I am dealing with this, trying to find a fix to that side of myself. But my problem isn't that I don't know what is right or wrong, and it's not about feeling deprived.

So, can someone tell me why I gave this up to try Herbalife? Now, I am not going to put herbalife down because there have been a lot of people who have been successful on this plan. I think the most important lesson here is knowing yourself. And what I know about me, liquid diets just don't work. I guess there are those out there who don't mind drinking their meals, but after a straight week of doing it, I am done. There is no way I would ever be successful long term. For me, it's just not realistic. I have no doubt they are really healthy for you, but in order for me to be successful losing weight, is to find something that is sensible and easy to do for the long term. Something that doesn't require that you follow a strict regime. I can totally get that some people need a strict regime to succeed.

But for instance, next weekend I am going to the beach for the day. I will most likely get up and have a shake for breakfast. I do enjoy it at that time. But in the afternoon, what am I going to do for lunch? Am I going to bring my skim milk and ice in a cooler, bring my blender to plug into the cigarette lighter and blend up a shake right there in the parking lot? No, absolutely not. So, now, technically, I am "off my diet". Now I face a situation where I am not realistically able to follow my plan and I fail for that day, because most likely I will be eating out for dinner too and now I will have the guilt of "messing" up twice for the day, then I feel like I failure and I have all these guilty feelings. It's not good. But by abiding by Weight Watchers guidelines for healthy eating, I know that I could always get a salad with some light dressing or oil and vinegar on the side, or I could get subway or some other healthy option, there are a lot out there, and thanks to Weight Watchers, I know how to find them and what to look for. I feel satisfied because I had the experience and joy of getting to eat out, but I also feel victorious because I made good, healthy choices that don't leave me feeling guilty and bad about myself and I feel full and satisfied. Then for dinner, maybe I can allow myself to splurge, or choose to find a healthy menu option for dinner as well. Then maybe for desert to treat myself, I allow myself to have some frozen yogart, or GASP.........a small candy bar.

I think when we are looking to decrease the amount of fat we carry around on our bodies and want to become healthier, we have to become more realistic about our intake and our lives. We have to find tools and techniques that work best for us and fit best into our lives.

So, after a week of doing Herbalife and feeling unsatisfied, hungry and deprived after wok, feeling ravenous when I get home, and having a hard time sticking a good, healthy dinner, I came out of the week with a 3 lb weight gain. So, today, I decided to go back to old reliable. This week, I am still having a shake for breakfast because I do like the shakes and it satisfies me for breakfast, but I need to have solids for lunch and dinner. Today I ate a banana as a mid morning snack, then I ate about 4 - 5 ounces of chicken breast (I didn't measure it, I have just learned from weight watchers what an appropriate portion of chicken breast looks like) with some BBQ sauce for flavor and about a half of cup of watermelon. I also had a green salad with low calorie, low fat, low sugar dressing. It was about a tablespoons worth of dressing. I don't know if it's psychological, but I feel satisfied after eating my lunch. I feel a lot different after lunch than I did last week.

This is more realistic for me and I don't know why I gave up on it. For me, I don't do well with a strict regime and boundaries, where I do realize others need that. I appreciate a little more freedom and with many of the things I have learned, I know how to make meals yummy and enjoyable. I have learned to use spices and seasonings to make my foods yummy and I have found delicious options that keep me satisfied. I have proved to myself that lowering your caloric intake to lose weight doesn't have to be synonymous with bland food and deprivation. When I am eating healthy, I have some of the yummiest meals and the only reason I stray from this is because I get lazy about preparation. That is the one area I continuously fall short on. I need to work on that, but I am not giving  up. I will never give up until I succeed!!!