Weight Watchers...Again!

I joined Weight Watchers a little over a week ago.  This is my second time being on the program; I went on it for the first time about a year ago when I was finally ready to buckle down and lose the rest of my baby weight from my pregnancy with Ellie.  My goal (last time) was to lose 10 pounds (which would put me at my pre-pregnancy weight).  I stayed on the program for 3 months and ended up losing 21 pounds, bringing me back down to what I weighed when Billy and I got married (which was my goal when I realized that the program actually works!).  And just a couple of weeks after I met my final goal weight, I found out I was pregnant again =).  So I took a hiatus from Weight Watchers while I was pregnant with Piper, and now I'm back on it!

I'm pretty excited.  Today was my first weigh-in since starting again, and I've lost 3 pounds.  It doesn't sound like a lot, but I can really feel a difference already.  I have more energy during the day, and I'm learning to have more self control again.  Being pregnant really messes with my ability to make wise food choices...even though I didn't gain as much weight with Piper as I did with Ellie, I still ate *a lot* and probably over-did it with chocolate...and banana bread...and cookies...and chocolate. =)

Anyway, I'm so excited because Billy is doing it with me this time!  He's been wanting to lose weight for a while now, and they're doing a "biggest loser" contest at work this summer, so he's pretty motivated to go for it haha.  It really helps hold me accountable when we're tracking our points together.  Also, I'm buying the healthy stuff for both of us instead of just me, so there's less temptation to eat the usual snacky stuff that I would get for Billy.  I was curious to see how going on Weight Watchers would affect our grocery budget, since we would be buying a lot more produce than usual.  Billy looked at my list for this week and said, "There's no way we're going to stay under $50!"  But I worked my magic (haha) and spent $48, and bought a ton of fruit, veggies, some low-point healthy snacks, and all of the ingredients needed for meals.  It also helps that I'm trying to cook from the pantry, meaning that I'm really trying to make meals based on what we already have here at home instead of buying more stuff from the store.  Fortunately I've stockpiled quite a bit and already had some meat in the freezer to use for meals this week.  Yes, we are having pancakes for dinner one night this week, but hey, I'm saving money, using ingredients we already have, and who doesn't like breakfast for dinner?!

I definitely have WAY more points in my daily allotment this time around since I'm nursing.  Last time, I had 29 points to use each day, and this time they're giving me 40.  Which may mean that my weight loss will be a little slower this time, but as long as I'm losing I'm happy!  I remember last time I lost 10 pounds in the first two weeks on the program because it was such a shock to my system...I was eating really, really bad before I started haha.  Then it slowed down to 1-2 pounds per week, which is my goal this time.  I'm setting short-term goals along the way...right now, my goal is to lose 5% of my body weight.  My starting weight is 158, and so my first goal is to get to 150.  My long-term goal is to get back to my pre-pregnancy weight of 138...so I need to lose 20 pounds total.  Three down, only 17 more to go!

I find that I'm slightly embarrassed to post my actual weight on here, but I know that it holds me accountable when other people know where I am with my weight.  Even if they don't care, just knowing that someone else knows about my weight makes me more motivated to work hard.  Which reminds me....I really need to get on the ball about working out.  I feel like I'm pretty good at watching what I eat and tracking my points, but I have very little motivation to actually exercise.  Last time I did Weight Watchers, I ended up walking a lot since I'm not real big on cardio exercise.  I really hate getting all sweaty and out of breath lol.  Anyway, I walked a lot with my friend Laura at the park, and we put our babies in strollers and it worked great.  Now that I have two kiddos, I feel a bit more intimidated about it.  I have a double stroller, but my excuse in my head is that Piper cries a lot when she's tired and doesn't seem to fall asleep easily when we're out...but honestly, it's not an excuse.  If it came down to it, I could put her in the sling and wear her against me when walking, because she does sleep when in the sling.  In a perfect world, I would have a gym membership and go to some kind of exercise class 3 days a week...that would be my ideal workout scenario.  I'm such a student at heart...if I'm in a class working out, I work SO much harder because I want to be the best, and I don't care about being sweaty or out of breath because I'm so extrinsically motivated to do better than everyone else.  When I spell it out like that it sounds terrible and self-centered, but I'm just a perfectionist at heart haha.  Great example: last summer while I was on Weight Watchers, I tried out a Bikram yoga class.  You know, the "hot" yoga...where you sit in a room at 105 degrees and 40% humidity and do all these crazy contortionist poses.  One of the most challenging things I've ever done physically...but I enjoyed it because I was with a bunch of other people. They even told me the first time I went there to not bother trying to do the poses, but to just breathe and stay in the room (since the heat is really overwhelming and your natural instinct is to run out of that room haha).  I attempted every pose, even at my first class, because I'm motivated by being around other people.

Anyway, so I need to figure out a workout routine that would work for me.  If anyone has any ideas, I'd love the hear them!  Also, my other goal right now is to increase how much water I'm drinking.  I'm really bad about drinking enough fluids anyway, and on top of that I'm nursing so I *really* need to guzzle water as much as possible.  My goal right now is to drink three full Camelbak bottles each day, which is about 75 ounces of water.  Gotta stay motivated! =)