The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.

   We often hear my title on sports programs describing how when one sports team wins the game the other team has to lose. It works the same in the Weight Watchers program. Every single meeting, someone wins and someone loses.As a matter of fact, most of the time someone loses because that is the aim in WW. At the meeting last Tuesday my friend  made it to her goal weight. For her this was no easy feat. She struggled for years with learning about her body, finding out what works and what does not work, changing her lifestyle for the purpose of controling her battle with weight. The fact that she hit this goal hit her with an overwhelming punch. She is a weight that she had not been since childhood. She made it to the finish line and she is still standing. That's a testimony to everyone out there trying to make this thing work.
    And now for the defeat. I gained 1.8lbs this week at my weight in on Tuesday. Now that is not a lot of weight to gain. After two weeks in a row of big losses of 3+lbs, I knew that there was a chance I would gain. Sometimes that is just the way it is. Just like my friend, I am still learning about my body. So even though I was defeated by the scale, look what I did accomplish the week leading up to Tuesday;
-Monday through Friday I still walked the two miles to work in the morning.
-Monday, Wednesday ,Thursday & Friday, I rode my bike for four miles after work.
-Saturday and Sunnday I did my walk/jog combination and surprised myself by jogging almost 3 miles straight.
      That is a lot for someone like me who would not even think about the importance of exercise. There was a time when I thought I did not have the time to exercise. Now, I find ways to squeeze it in when I can.So maybe I got spanked by the scale this week but I am going to keep on trying no matter how long it takes to get to my finish line to feel the thrill of victory.
         This weeks meeting topic was snacks. I would like to say that I am a champion of snacks. Let us take a look at the definition of snack a small portion of food or drink, or a light meal, especially one eaten between meals. I almost could not type that with a straight face. A snack to to me was more than a meal.I could eat a large bag of chips, a quart of ice cream, bags of candy and the motherlode, a whole package of cookies.  I found out the hard way that those were not snacks. For me, they were drugs. A way of soothing myself from being angry, sad or just plain bored. Now I do try to approach snacks with a different attitude. For starters, I try to keep an extra piece of fruit in my desk drawer at work just in case I need a little snack. Fruit is your friend because ;
1) it has a sweetness that you are craving
2) it takes a litlle longer to eat...chew chew chew, that's what we like to do
3)it provides the fiber you need in your system
4) it provides natural vitamins and minerals that your body uses
   The fruit is not my only snack. I still crave candy and chips from time to time. As much as I desire the usual suspects, I use some WW products . This does not mean that you cannot read the label on your regular snacks and counts out the precise serving size. Just keep in mind that THERE IS A SERVING SIZE. I use to think that the serving size was I eat until I am done. It did not work very well for me.Once and a while I will have a brownie that I baked for the boys or  a cupcake. I even succumbed to a blueberry pie craving . But I make sure to write it down.