Day 923 - Weigh In

How's this for a wake-up call? I had to go back through my blog postings to find the format for my "Weigh-In" day entries. The last one I wrote was in October of '07. YIKES!

Let's see if I remember how to do this. Went to my first WW meeting today in four months. I didn't know what I would feel like. There's a natural tendency to feel embarrassed for "falling off the wagon," if you will. Or I thought maybe I'd be ambivalent about sitting there, thinking that I already know how this works, why do I need to be taught again? But I didn't feel any of that. Walking into that meeting felt like coming home. Despite the fact that many of the faces were new and many of the faces that I remember are long gone, I felt like I was where I belonged.

So here are the hard numbers: I weighed in at 187.4, which is down 26 lbs. from when I started. That part I was expecting. Yes it's disappointing to think that I had been down 50 lbs. at one point. But the part I wasn't expecting was learning that since my last weigh in on September 6, 2008, I'm only up about five pounds. This essentially means that I've been "maintaining" as we say at WW. In plain words, the lifestyle changes that I originally made when I joined have stuck with me. Though I've allowed myself to indulge in lots of sweets and more snacks over the past six months, I'm still making healthy food choices for meals. We're still keeping healthier foods in the house. I'm still not eating anything like I was for years before starting WW. That was a pleasantly surprising realization.

I have not started back into an exercise routine yet, but I will. I'm kinda viewing this as starting all over, getting my body used to the good foods again. We were at Costco over the weekend and saw an amazing deal on a 24 hour Fitness membership. Not amazing enough that we can afford it right now, but amazing nonetheless. It makes me happy that something like that...opportunities to exercise...is something I look forward to. Heck, the mere fact that I excitedly stopped the cart to read the deal is a miracle. That's something I never would have done pre-WW.

It sure is good to be back.