Trying to lose weight on your own can be one of the most frustrating experiences for anyone. After many unsuccessful attempts at losing weight and keeping it off, my husband and I decided to try Weight Watchers and have been pleased with both the results we have seen and the program itself. After our first few weeks in the program, though, we have come up with some useful tips for the Weight Watchers newbie:
1. Try and sign up with a partner
Everything is better if you can share it with someone, right? So having a partner to complain to, get encouragement from and celebrate success with will certainly make this journey all the more bearable.
2. The Monthly Pass is the way to go
To get the most bang for your buck, I’d recommend the Monthly Pass and watch for deals where registration is free to save a little more. The Monthly Pass gives you unlimited monthly meetings as well as E-Tools access, which is a very extensive website with tracking tools as well as recipes, restaurant guides and tons of other helpful information.
3. Go to the meetings
We were a little skeptical about the meetings to begin with as neither one of us really knew what to expect. You do get weighed in just before the meetings start and no, it isn’t in a private room. But your weight is only seen by the staff member behind the desk and then recorded in their computer, so it’s really not that bad. Meetings only last half an hour and have a topic to discuss designed to help you learn to make better eating and activity choices. And you won’t get put on the spot to talk if you don’t want to!
4. Don’t get overwhelmed with how much time you’re spending shopping, prepping, measuring and counting
The first week or two I felt like I had a new full time job! I spent a great deal of time shopping for better food choices, coming home and preparing the food (chopping and measuring), and figuring out how many points everything was worth. It takes a solid 4 to 6 weeks to really get the hang of what to shop for, how to quickly prepare things, what portion sizes look like. It does take a fair amount of commitment to begin with, but remember, you’re changing your eating lifestyle and it’s not going to happen overnight!
5. Write the serving size and points value on containers
To begin with, I went through the food we already had and wrote down the points value for a serving right on the containers. This way I could quickly figure out how many points I was using without constantly having to look it up.
6. Make a spreadsheet
We were given a tip to make a spreadsheet of all the items we routinely used that included serving size and points value for each serving. So one rainy afternoon, we took a couple of hours and went through the entire kitchen and did just that. The result was a very handy spreadsheet that hangs on the frig were we can quickly find the points value of all the things we regularly stock in our kitchen.
7. Have some food measured, counted and ready to grab quickly
After a long day, the last thing you want to do is come home and measure and figure points for a snack. Take some time and have a few things packaged by serving and with the points value already figured out.
8. Tell people what you’re doing
The more I tell people I’m following the program, the more people I’m finding that are in, or have been in, the program as well. Each person has not only lost weight, but also given me their own personal tips as well as the encouragement to continue. And believe me, every encouraging word goes a lot further than you’d think!
Losing weight is hard no matter what program you follow. Hopefully the tips I’ve offered here will come in handy for those of you just starting in the Weight Watchers program or perhaps answer some questions for anyone trying to decide to join. Here’s to a healthier you!