The Dieting Life

I am nearing the end of my second week following the Weight Watchers' diet. I've done WW a few times before. Each time I left "the program," I did so on the assumption that I could continue to lose weight on my own. I was wrong.

I went back this time because I realized I needed help and that a structured format probably works best for me. A structured format, that is, with some flexibility. I am determined to succeed so in addition to counting all those holy points, I'm journaling on my laptop and, now, blogging as well.

The first week I lost 3.6 pounds. The first week I had no problems sticking to the regimen, weighing my food when necessary, tracking my points using the online tools, drinking the kool-aid, I mean water, and generally being a pretty good little dieter. Second week, I got annoyed and depressed. At first, I realized, it was just hormonal. Then I had some kind of virus that resulted in a sustained headache for days, along with two days of intestinal distress. Diets are hard under the best conditions, but they're almost impossible if you have the least little thing going on in your life that even slightly resembles stress. Worse, they're extremely hard to resume once you've fallen off the wagon.

So I fell off. Too many meals out, too many glasses of wine, and too little exercise, for about four days. Part of that time I also spent helping my former live-in boyfriend relocate to a new apartment. During his move, I relocated the rest of my belongings from the house we had shared, and which he was leaving, to my new house. Breaking up is never harder to do than when you don't really know if you're broken up. Yes, we no longer live together, but, no, we don't know if we are still in a relationship. That's not exactly correct. We're in some kind of relationship. We just don't know what it is or how to describe it. My brothers and son helped me help former LIBF move, which just reinforced everyone's confusion. I can't very well answer their questions about our relationship when I don't know the answers myself.

This is important because it causes the afore-mentioned stress, which affects the dieting efforts. So, in conclusion for today, I took a day of vacation from my job this week to 1) make up for the time I spent moving everybody's stuff this weekend (i.e., to catch up on laundry and grocery shopping), and 2) re-assess and reinvigorate the dieting efforts. After a good breakfast and an on-target lunch, I chopped up some grape tomatoes, which I LOVE, added salt and pepper (the southern way), and ate them along with my afternoon coffee. Yes, I'm weird, but also yes, I am back in the swing. It's Monday. I weigh in on Wednesday. My goal for the week is to simply not gain back anything I lost the first week and to accept that the diet, the no-longer-live-in BF status, and my attitude, are all a work in progress.

Update on Thursday, 10/15/09: Yesterday's weigh-in revealed an additional 2.2 pound loss, for a total of 5.8 pounds. Yay for me.