#1851 WW Wednesday: walking the tiger

My big take-away from the Weight Watchers meeting this week didn't have anything to do with the topic of the week. Our semi-permanent leader Fabulous Gina started out with a story someone in another one of her meetings told her. A WW member has a friend who has a drug addiction. WW guy asks drug guy what having an addiction like that feels like. Drug guy tells him that it's like having a tiger within him that he struggles to keep caged. WW guy thinks about it and says, "I get that, and I have to walk my tiger about three times a day."

I've often thought that WW is a support group for over-eaters. We meet, we talk about our struggles, we get some motivation and then we have to face our tigers every meal time. We are constantly surrounded by food and my tiger likes to eat, especially sweet treats and bread and pasta and snacks. One of the comments in the meeting that someone made this week is that at some point you realize that this is how you are going to live your life, constantly thinking about the food that you eat. Probably skinny people just naturally think that way, but this chubby girl's mind does not naturally think that way. When I just eat without thinking, I tend to snack a lot more and generally make unhealthy choices, which is how I got to WW in the first place.

All the planning and thinking and tracking comes easy sometimes and not easy at all other times. I know, though, I KNOW, that if I put in the effort to think about what I'm eating and to plan my meals and to write it down, I am way more successful at dropping pounds than if I just follow my natural tendencies.

I totally lived the above paragraph last week. I hadn't been to the grocery store for a couple of weeks. I had picked up bread and milk and cereal, but the cupboards were bare. I ate out for lunch every day and there wasn't a treat that I said no to, either. I tried to keep a bit of control, but it was a tough week. I gained a pound and I'm frankly surprised it wasn't a bigger gain.

This week I have been much more careful. I went to the grocery store and got some fruits and veggies and protein.  I have taken a few minutes every night to plan out what I will eat the next day and I put it in my WW app to make sure that I don't go over my daily points allowance or if I do, is it worth it? I hope that my efforts pay off with a loss on the scale this weekend, but even if they don't, I feel better about my choices. I feel like I am mostly in control of my tiger so far this week.