wanting to change - 170.6

One of the things I really liked about Weight Watchers was the whole "you can still eat what you love and lose weight!" part of it. This is still part of their program today. But you realize as you get further down the road that you can't eat that stuff all the time. And maybe some of it, you can't ever eat because it's the "gateway" food that just has you eating whatever you want after you eat it.

Earlier in my weight loss, this looming change was crippling and some days, it still is. I don't want to live in a world where I can't eat pizza or tacos every day! Does Weight Watchers let you eat those things every day? Yes. Will you be successful if you do that? Yes... but you will also be hungry. And weight loss will feel really, really hard because you are planning around these things that suck up all your points/calories for the day. Your pizza and tacos habit becomes a headache. You want them, but you don't want to be hungry or do the tracking gymnastics to get everything to line up in a way you'll still lose weight.

So you have three choices:
1) Give up and eat the pizza and tacos and don't worry about it, but also don't lose weight.
2) Go on as you have been doing and figure out how to work it in, but stay a little bit hangry every day you try to have these things. You'll still succeed at losing fat, but it will feel like hard work.
3) Change your approach and have more success losing fat.

For the past ten years, I lived in the land of option 2. I would eat Mexican once a week and pizza at least every other day. I was able to lose weight like this, I fit it in and I worked my plan. But. My losses were slow or stagnant. And I was hungry a lot because I was trying to fit those things in - it was really hard to do. But cutting them out (or back) was not an option I was willing to consider.

And then one day I was talking to a man at my gym about my pizza habit, and he was like "you eat pizza all the time? So unfair!" and I realized that while I did manage my portions, maybe if I backed off on the number of times I ate it, I'd be a little happier overall. And I could still have pizza... would it be so bad if I didn't have it as often? And so just like that I decided to try to I give up the frequency of eating pizza. At first it was kind of hard to do. But then I realized I really liked everything else I was eating - maybe not as much as pizza, but it was still really really good. And then I saw the nutritionist, and I was pretty happy about what I was *already doing* and she confirmed I was making good choices. And so I just kept on going without the daily pizza. I changed!

I still eat pizza once a week - tonight is actually pizza night. As I was planning out exactly the amount of pizza I want to have, I started getting stressed about the rest of the day. And then I realized... I can have less pizza and be less hungry all day and still hit my macros and my calories with no problem. So chill out, already! (And that's another change!) Change doesn't happen overnight and it is a little tough to manage at first, but you figure it out and it's really not so bad. As for Mexican, I now have that a lot more rarely - I really am not very good at controlling myself with the chips. Or any of it (why is it so so sooooo tasty?!?!?) But I don't exactly miss it. And if I really, really want it, I will plan out how to work it in. But again, the frequency is a lot lower - hey lookie there, once again, I CHANGED.

To get different results, we can't just wish it so... we have to do something about it. We have to do what we can to change the things we don't like. I don't like being a heavy bicyclist. I don't like looking like the biggest person in the room, or in the pictures. I also don't like a world without tacos and pizza... but I can change how often I have them. So I did. And when you are ready, you will, too. :)