What WW and Mindful Eating Have in Common

I have had a love hate relationship with weight watchers over the years. When I was 18 years old, I joined Weight Watchers for the first time to lose the 30 pounds I had gained during my first semester at college. I was successful at losing weight, I even became a lifetime member. Becoming ‘lifetime’ means that you reached your weight loss goal and maintained that weight for at least six weeks.

I was 19 years old by this time, but I did not understand that once you lose weight, you needed to continue to eat the same foods that resulted in my weight loss. I was training to audition for the Laker girls and other professional dance teams at the time, so I had been extremely active throughout my weight loss journey and was able to maintain my weight for the rest of the school year.

Fast forward to when I was 22 and had just become a new mom, I was young and conflicted about the 65 pounds I had gained during my pregnancy. I only lost 11 pounds after delivery and about 20 more that first month from breast feeding. I wanted to go back to working but I needed to lose all the weight I had gained in order to fit back into my costume, I was a professional dancer at this point in my life.

This began my second journey with weight watchers, this time I only utilized their online program and decided to forgo the weekly meetings. I was fairly successful, losing about 25 pounds, and getting back to my dancing job. But I still did not understand the maintenance aspect of weight loss.

From 23 to now at 28 I spent those five years gaining and losing weight, trying crash diets and developing an unhealthy relationship with food. I knew what was healthy and what was not healthy, but I just could not figure out how to lose weight on my own, until I discovered mindful eating and the abundance paradox. I completed an assignment on mindfulness in a previous nutrition course and it truly opened my mind to the reason I was not successful at my previous weight loss attempts and ended gaining weight instead of losing. It helped me realize why I had started so many diets and immediately failed every single time. My mindset surrounding the way that I felt towards food was extremely flawed and inhibiting to my progress, or lack thereof.

I had a misunderstanding about what mindful eating was, I thought that mindful eating and intuitive eating were the same concept. I was under the impression that mindful eating simply meant, eat when you are hungry and stop eating when you are full. I struggled with binge eating so I was not sure how I would do that since I did not know how to honor my body’s hunger and satiety cues. Mindful eating means being aware of the food you are putting into your body, checking in with yourself and decide what the best choice would be for me to feel my best inside and out. I was able to acknowledge why I eat, when I eat and the reasoning behind it. I realized that I was capable of changing my mindset after evaluating my eating habits and patterns and decided to use myself as an experiment.

Last November I decided to stop weighing myself everyday and try losing weight by being mindful in my choices and eating habits. I did my best to honor my hunger cues and honor my cravings, and I did not restrict myself from anything that I wanted. The weight loss was slow but, I managed to lose 15 pounds during that experiment of unintentional weight loss. Once I was able to successfully lose weight by being mindful, I decided it was time to join weight watchers, now WW, for a final time.

I knew that losing weight this time was going to be a long journey, but I do not want to spend the rest of my life yo-yo dieting. I started doing some research on the new WW program and I realized that doing WW properly encourages mindful eating with structure for overeaters. WW works using a points system and you are now matched with one of three programs to best match your eating habits and food preferences. I was matched on the purple plan which includes over 300 zero-point foods.

Zero-point foods are foods that have a substantial nutrition profile and are less likely to be overeaten. Foods with a point value are determined based on protein, sugar, saturated fat and calories, protein lowers the point value and sugar and saturated fat increase it.

The point value is better for food tracking because not all calories are created equal, and the points help encourage members to choose zero-point foods which equate to healthier choices. This program is different than other weight loss programs because nothing is restricted, and because of that there are no cheat meals and you cannot be off program. This new weight loss program has improved from the previous weight watchers plan in so many ways, it is also more flexible because we do not all eat the same way and each of the three customized programs have been tailored to fit any dietary preferences.

I chose to go through the mindful eating experiment in order to make sure I was mentally prepared to follow a weight loss program. During the experiment I realized that adapting a lifestyle change first starts with the mind, which is a very powerful thing.

I will continue to document my journey on my Instagram account and on YouTube. Documenting my journey is to hold myself accountable, in order to commit to a change and be successful, it helps to commit to someone as well. I am also going to commit to myself by continuing to attend my weekly workshops and checking in with myself daily.

If you have ever been struggling with weight in a similar way to me, I would recommend doing some research on mindful eating, to see if it might help you reconnect with your body.