Three Week Progress Report

Over the past few weeks I’ve returned to my Weight Watchers meeting for the 948,534 time since Allison was born. I have received a lot of support from friends and family. Without that I wouldn’t be able to say that as of today I have lost 10.8 pounds! I can’t tell you how proud I am of that accomplishment.

I am especially proud of has been my new ways of handling stress. There were major points of stress brewing in my life when I went back to Weight Watchers and I know that food has been my way of masking my feelings. A stressor would happen, I would eat and then, instead of dealing with the emotions involved with the initial stressor, I turn on myself with a vengeance. It’s not a pretty cycle. I knew that if I didn’t get a handle on my reactions to stress that I would just be setting myself up for failure. However many pounds down the road there would just be return number 948,535 to Weight Watchers. During that first meeting we discussed Weight Watcher’s storyboarding tool. My goal was weight loss, but the steps involved with getting there were finding other ways of handling and coping with stress. I have carried that through each week since. I have not once eaten because of stress in three weeks! Okay… a bag or two of popcorn I originally planned on eating at 3 might have been eaten sooner, but it was still a planned snack prior to the stress event. In my book, that doesn’t count. In place of eating, I’ve used music, talking with friends, walking, cross stitching and blogging to distract myself or to release steam. I feel much healthier and actually lighter because of it. It’s amazing how holding stress inside added to the heaviness I have felt about myself.

Since I am making this change and feel all the better for it, I know that I can continue this behavior down the road. My first impulse will always be to eat – and eat a lot – when major stress inducing incidences occur. But that’s all it is – an impulse. Impulses only have the power over you that you allow them. You can train yourself to turn in another direction over time with practice. I can’t promise that I’ll never again eat to alleviate stress. I can say that I will identify it for what it is, forgive myself and move on. For me, that’s coming a long way.