Nuts and Bolts - Building a Health Community

I am always grateful for my health community and the support it has provided me along my way.  It is many-faceted and that is one of the most important parts of how it functions in my life.  Building a community to support a life change is not as straight forward as picking a program to structure the change.  We all build our communities differently because we need them for different forms of support. This is what mine looks like:

My Partner:
Mike and I feel extremely blessed to have each other as weight loss partners.  We have helped each other stay motivated and frequently remind each other why the end result will be much better than giving in to a moment of weakness.  I often hear his voice in the back of my mind when I am considering making a choice that I probably wouldn't if we were together.

Coffee Shop Employee: "And would you like a pastry with your latte?"
Our Lady of Second Helpings, Internal Dialogue: Hmm... those Rice Crispy Bars are the lowest PointTM treat in the case.  Oh wait I forgot that the new mini treats are under 300 calories.  I wonder how many PointsTM they are? I could look it up...  I did take a walk earlier... I could play some Wii Fit when I get home...  Mike's Voice: "Why don't you get a banana?  The latte will be sweet and if you are still hungry a banana is filling."
Our Lady of Second Helpings: (with a small sigh of renewed resolve) "No thanks just the latte." - I don't really like bananas. If I'm not hungry enough to eat a banana I'm certainly not hungry enough for a pastry.

I haven't asked Mike if his brain works this way. I would guess not.  Men seem to have far less chaos in their brains, luckies. (Mike's editorial note: We do actually have this level of chaos in common.)

Within our household community I feel a great responsibility to feed my family the healthiest way possible.  Even on days that I am worn out and would love to just serve ice cream for dinner, I want to respect Mike's desire to put healthy food in his body.  It is not fair to make a meal that does not honor our goal of proper nutrition.

My Support Group:
My health community is much wider than our family unit.  Our Weight Watcher's meeting provides us with a fantastic community as long as we keep showing up.  We don't always see the same people and in the three and a half years we have been members our Monday night has seen many faces come, go, and come back again.  I enjoy the bonds we are able to build with the other regulars and I also enjoy meeting new people.  We all have stories and ideas to share.  The meeting room is a safe place to get feedback when things haven't gone well or we are stuck in a rut.  The meeting room is also a great place to remember that food issues affect anyone and our common desire to heal can transcend age, income, relationship status, and all the other things that keep us from sharing our stories in the "real world."  Our weekly meeting community has been the source of many great food tips, words of inspiration, and pats on the back for all the small successes we have had along the way.

In the past year we have had a few fun outings and activities with our Weight Watchers meeting friends.  I posted previously about our recipe exchange and how fun it was to trade cooking ideas.  We have also had a few walking events.  Most recently we joined some friends for a New Years Day stroll.    It was a relaxing and energizing way to start the year off on the right foot!

Media:
In a broader sense I tend to consider any person or resource that provides me with positive inspirations and tips a part of my health community.  On-line I look for articles by other people who are striving for the same goals I am.  There are many health and wellness magazines on newsstands that I thumb through from time to time.  In my down time I enjoy television shows like NBC's Biggest Loser or cooking shows that teach healthy recipes.  Not all of the things I read or watch relate directly to my own life but I have found them to be great motivational and inspirational resources.

Extended Social Network:
My friends and family play a role in my health community but in a more nuanced way.  I want everyone to feel as good in their skin as I do but I have had to learn that people need to find their own way, like I did.  Not all of the people in my life are part of my health community just like not all of them were school mates or members of my faith community.  We all love each other where we are at in the moment.

I have found it very important to have a broad community.  Not everyone can be supportive all the time, people and resources come and go.  With so many sources to go to for motivation I always have somewhere to turn when I need a boost or an idea.

Nuts and Bolts - Pick a Program

Author's Note: I've been having trouble getting this simple series off the ground. My entire motivation for writing a blog is to share how I managed to lose weight.  I keep falling into a trap of framing my thoughts in much grander terms than I am qualified.  I am here to be a cheerleader for anyone looking to make a change for the better in their own life.  In this Nuts and Bolts series I will give some of the specific changes and tools that I believe have helped me get to where I am now and that I continue to use in my daily life.  I am not the originator of most of the ideas I will share but I hope that my repeating good ideas will help to crowd out the less helpful ones.  Take what may work for you and leave the rest, we are all on our own path and have our own needs.

To Begin - Pick a Program

Once I knew that it was time for a change I picked a program, Weight Watchers.  I have been trying to speak in broad terms as often as possible when I talk about my approach to eating but the bottom line is I learned how to a healthy way to feed myself when I joined Weight Watchers and I stayed because, just like their marketing slogan says, "it works."  The program allowed me to make my own choices about what I put into my mouth on a daily basis while providing healthy guidelines and parameters to help me make those choices.

I focused only on the calories I was consuming.  I don't think I could have built the kind of sustainability I have achieved if I had tried to change more than one lifestyle component at a time.  Changing my approach to food was a huge change all by itself because I had to completely relearn how to eat.  Weight Watchers provided me with my daily PointsTM target.  Everyday when I woke up I had a new budget of PointsTM to spend before bed.  I really enjoyed the game of planing how to use my daily PointsTM.  At first there was a lot of trial and error but taking each day as its own puzzle helped me have fun and quickly move past the frustrations that come with learning a new skill.  Best of all because the program stair stepped my PointsTM total down as my weight loss continued I didn't go through a huge change in food volume all at once and I wasn't hungry all the time in the early days (or ever).

I think anyone looking to begin a transition to different way of eating should work with some established program.  The choices are vast and it can be a stumbling block just to begin.  I obviously recommend Weight Watchers because it has worked so well for our family.  There are some on-line that help you track your eating and encourage a balanced approach and increasing activity.  I think a really great place to begin is a reference from a health care professional that knows a bit about your specific situation.

Personally I would hesitate to start any program that focuses on creating a diet where entire food groups are eliminated or severely restricted, unless it is medically supervised.  In my program no food is specifically off limits, I just weigh the PointsTM total against my daily budget and decide if it is worth the deduction before I put it in my mouth.  I think this exercise of determining a food's value has helped me become a more creative and adventurous cook.  I find myself seeking out ingredients with bold flavors and unique textures but low or no PointsTM value and combining them in ways I haven't tried before.  Weight Watchers also has daily Healthy Checks and participants are encouraged to mark off items like dairy, water, and vitamins as they are consumed.

My final recommendation when beginning a new program would be, give it a trial period of no less than 4-6 weeks.  Breaking and learning new habits takes time and many changes have a rocky and uncomfortable start.  Ask a lot of questions in the early days and make sure you understand not only what to do but why.  Having a solid understanding of the basics helps ensure a sustainable future and sets you up to add more components as you are ready.  If the first program you try doesn't fit your life try another one.  Everyone is different not all programs are going to work for all people it is not a reflection on the program or its participants and it certainly isn't personal.

Encouragement From My Past Self

This week I am working on putting together my Nuts and Bolts series.  Part of my process has been to think back to the early days of weight loss and the tools I found most useful.  I rediscovered a few posts I wrote for a blog that didn't get off the ground a few years ago.  Those posts, from January 2009, are a great reminder of what I was feeling a few months into the journey.  Below is one of those posts. I hope you enjoy this little trip in the, not so, Way Back Machine.

Unexpected Motivation

So my husband and I have been losing weight together on Weight Watchers since the end of August and as I was telling someone last night our names would be in literature with a * after them. *Results Not Typical. Losing weight has been a wonderful gift to give myself everyday since we started. I feel like I have reached a point where I can finally see results in myself. People have been telling me that I look different for awhile but I can finally see it for myself when I look in the mirror. We have been mastering eating within our points and exploring how to make the foods we love healthy and delicious. I cook he cleans and we get better every day! 

For Christmas we "exchanged" pedometers and I think it was just the thing I needed to catapult me to the next level. I find myself keeping close tabs on the numbers of steps I have taken throughout the day. Last weekend we were out and about on Sunday and I got up to over 9300 steps. I was so excited because it had been a busy day but I hadn't built in any specific exercise. At home I have figured out that due to the rectangular layout of our house I can go from one end to the other five or six times and get 300 steps in just a few minutes - during a commercial break no less. The more I find ways to build steps into my day the more I am motivated to look for even more. 

I have been working in the same building for two and a half years and for the first time it occurred to me that while we only occupy the ground floor there are 5 flights of stairs that I have easy access to when ever I want. So Monday I was having a rough time focusing and decided to go get a little exercise in to help my brain. Up those stairs I trot! I was breathing heavily by the time I got to the top but it wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be. On the way down I stopped on the parking garage level and did a lap around the small garage. Back at my desk I felt pretty pleased. The next day I popped my lean cuisine into the microwave and rather than standing there for 4 and a half minutes watching it spin around slowly I popped out to the stairs again. This time I went up and did a couple of laps in the parking lot and was back before the microwave finished. How cool is that? Well I think it is cool. 

Today I saw that it wasn't raining so I grabbed my iPod and scooted out the door. I was so excited to be getting out to walk around the neighborhood (we have recently been snow bound so I think I am still recovering from cabin fever). It was cold and damp but I kept a comfortable brisk pace and due to a misjudgment in my route I covered just over a mile! I was sad to have to go back even though it had begun raining again. I have this energy bursting out of me and it feels incredible. 

For the past couple of years I have had to deal with minor to moderate SAD in the winter so it is such a relief to be motivated to do anything let alone go charging up and down 5 flights of stairs on a whim. I do think my pedometer is helping because it is a concrete gauge that I am getting up and moving more. The more I move the more I move it is a wondrous feeling that I never thought I would have. I just pray that this is the beginning of something I will get to experience for a long time to come.

If you would like the read the other posts there are a few more at http://roseslittleblog.blogspot.com/

He Made it to Goal! A Guest Post by "Mr. Second Helpings"

Dear Readers, I have often mentioned my husband and our mutual weight loss success.  On Monday he weighed in at his Weight Watchers goal weight.  Here is his story, in his own words...

Reflections on my Journey

On Monday (December 26th) I gave myself a great late Christmas present. At our weekly Weight Watcher’s meeting, the scale read 199.6 pounds; I had reached my WW goal! Rose had asked me some time ago if I would write a guest post when I got here. I’m not a blogger, so I’m definitely feeling out of my element writing this.  Here goes...

Regular readers of Our Lady will already know much of our story. Three and a half years ago, Rose and I were both extremely overweight. We didn’t have a healthy lifestyle. Much of our food came from restaurants where we would clean our plates. Snacks would usually be sugary sweets. We didn’t - couldn’t - do much of anything that required physical exertion.

June 2008

Rose had brought up dieting several times, but I was reticent to do anything about it. It’s kind of difficult at this point to understand why. I think the biggest part was low self-esteem; I just wasn’t worth working hard for myself. I had in the past dieted, and even lost significant weight, but I hadn’t kept it off. It seemed like my body just wanted to be fat.

At the same time, we were talking seriously about starting our family. I wanted to have children, but the thought of chasing after a toddler or just playing on the floor was frightening to me.

“Change will only happen when the pain to stay the same is greater than the pain to change.”

I might modify the saying to include “the perceived pain to change.” Occasionally we commit to doing something, discover that it is harder than we thought, and persevere to reach a sense of accomplishment. Frequently we avoid something because we fear it to be more difficult than the reality, and ultimately regret not doing it earlier.

Rose finally said that she was going to join Weight Watchers. She pleaded for me to join her, but would do it without me. I could see that Rose really wanted to do something about her weight and mine. She was in pain, and she needed my support.

I knew that if we did have children, they would need me to be active in their lives.

Finally, I needed to do something, and I didn’t have any better ideas.

It was difficult for me to say yes, but at that point, it would have been even more difficult to say no.

Losing weight was not as difficult as I thought it would be.

Not to say that losing weight was easy. But once I had committed, I discovered that many of the tools I needed were readily available. Also, I didn’t have to change everything all at once.

At about the same time, I had a reassignment to a work location with terrible parking. After I rode the company-provided shuttle bus on the first day, I chose instead to walk the 15-to-20 minutes from my car to my desk in the morning, and again in the afternoon. I didn’t enjoy the walking, but I knew I needed to do it and now that I am back in an office with great parking, I miss it!

July 2009, enjoying an afternoon of hiking and playing outside.

Rose has been an amazing partner along the way. I’m not much of a cook, so I have depended very much on her to plan and prepare healthy meals. I love that she has been adventurous, and have discovered many foods that I would have avoided previously. (Tofu, anyone?) I hope she inspires you to try new things!

As we have progressed, we have needed to up the game to keep going. We have done a handful of 30-day challenges. For example, we both enjoy lattes. We would drink them on a near daily basis, which cost us additional calories and cash. We challenged ourselves to no lattes for 30 days. I made up for it by making a fresh pot of drip before leaving the house. After the month was up, we both broke the habit, and a latte is now an occasional treat - which is even more enjoyable.

A lifetime of healthy living!

Our big secret is that the changes we have made over the past few years are sustainable. They have become new habits, and have redefined “normal” for us. We make a conscious selection of healthy, balanced meals. When we make our own food, we don’t put more on our plate than we need; if we are dining out, we don’t have a compulsion to clean the plate. Physical activities are part of most every day.

Keeping up with our toddler!

Reaching my Weight Watchers goal, this last week in particular, put an underline on the importance of these good habits. In the four days prior to weigh-in, I had been to four different parties. I ate delicious foods, drank beer and wine, and enjoyed a variety of treats! Meanwhile, I was keeping an awareness of eating balanced meals, and stopping when I was full. (Well, maybe one more cookie...) Simply not gaining weight would have been an achievement! Losing weight in such a week is incredible, especially to myself.

Birthday Celebration!

Rose was very puzzled by my subdued reaction to the weigh-in. While this milestone has been met, I do not feel like I am “done”. I still want to lose 20 more pounds for my personal target, and be more muscular as well. I want to keep learning and keep healthy every day for the rest of my life. I want to do this with Rose by my side!

December 2011, down 167 pounds and feeling more confident than ever!

Time to Celebrate

Saturday at midnight we will be ringing in a brand new year but our family is already celebrating.

I am a bit late with this announcement - On Monday my husband weighed in at our Weight Watchers meeting at his goal weight!  Yes, for those playing along at home that was the very next day after Christmas!  It was also three days after his 40th birthday and a long weekend of birthday and holiday parties.  On Monday we also rocked the scale (in a good way) by reaching a collective 302 pounds shed since August of 2008.  These successes on their own are fantastic and together make a monumental way to round out the current year and move into the next with more possibilities than ever!

A few months ago I asked my husband to write a reflection on his weight loss journey once he reached his goal weight.  He is working on collecting his thoughts and I hope to be able to share his post by the end of the week.

It's not too late to check off a few health goals in 2011.  Eat mindfully, find a fun way to work in some activity, and give yourself a pat on the back.  The new year looks bright and we can all hit the ground running!

Recipe Exchange and Potluck

I have discovered one of the most frustrating things about blogging is - time.  There are so many ideas popping around in my head but finding the time to turn them into printed words can be challenging.  This post is a month later than I hoped it would be but still tasty!


Last month my husband and I extended an invitation to all of our fellow Weight Watchers' to join us in our home for a recipe exchange.  I had participated in one before and it was so much fun I thought it would translate well to our group.  The theme, of course, was recipes that would be easy to make and low in points.


Our group was about a dozen people, a perfect fit for our kitchen.  I couldn't have designed a better menu for our lunch together.  I made the, now famous, Triple Chocolate Brownies and a simple vegetarian chili. Between the rest of the gang we had several main dishes, some sides, a few desserts, and even a breakfast casserole.  Everyone went around serving up tastes of the various dishes.  Over our meal we traded tips, cook books titles, other quick meal ideas, and shared more of our own stories.


After participating in the same Weight Watchers meeting for over three years it was really fun to see everyone away from our meeting room.  I think we can feel a little obligated to share things that are exclusive to the company when we are at our weekly meeting.  This private event allowed us to get excited about all the other tools we utilize to help us become healthier people.


The day was crisp and sunny and our kitchen was bright and cozy.  After a few hours everyone packed up happy to have tried so many new foods but I don't think anyone left stuffed.  We were all so good about having little tastes and staying on track, there were more leftovers from this potluck than any I had been to before.  Even the desserts were throughly enjoyed but only about half eaten!

In the week following I organized all the recipes so our leader could email them to everyone, even those who were unable to attend.  Community is so important to achieving success in our weight goals and this was a really fun and easy way to share an experience with our weight loss community.  I highly recommend hosting a recipe exchange to get some new ideas, build friendships, and break out of the ordinary.


I am going to post several of the recipes from our potluck on the Our Lady of Second Helpings Facebook page.  Head on over there and click on the "notes" link to browse through these and other recipes I have posted.

The Potluck Gang - Happy, Healthy, and Full of Life!

I Made it to GOAL!

On Monday night, August 18th 2008, my husband and I attended our very first Weight Watchers meeting.  My starting weight was 276.6 pounds.  Last night, November 7th 2011, 3 years, 2 months and 19 days later, I reached my goal weight.  I am now 46% smaller than I was on that first day. I have been trying to think about all the pithy little things I could fill this post with but now that I am writing I really just want to take a moment and let it all sink in.  

When I was a teenager I used to curl up in my bed and pray as hard as I could, with hot tears streaming down my face, that somehow someway I would wake up with a new body.  My brain would begin to tell me what to eat and when so that I would not be fat anymore.  I desperately daydreamed about unzipping my skin or out running my fat, anything to release myself from the prison of obesity.  Some prayers just take a very long time to be answered.

Over the last 3 years I feel like I have lived an entire lifetime and the person I was before has become a distant stranger.  I am smaller now than I was in 5th grade.  My weight loss stalled when I approached that number, I started to ache for the little girl I was and the many things I missed out on because of my feelings of self consciousness.  There are so many things that I had to forgive myself in order to keep moving forward but I did.  One of the things that helped me was to look in the mirror and marvel at how far I had already come.  To see thousands of small choices adding up to my own amazing transformation kept me focused and looking ahead when looking back became too painful.

And I never quit.  I decided early on in this process that there was only one way that I could fail and that was to quit.  I took that option off the table and worked on just putting one foot in front of the other.  There were days that I faltered and made choices that I regretted but I knew it was better to move forward than to go back. 

Those days were the ones when it was most important to have my community to lean on.  The gleaming pillar of that community is my husband.  I don't know if I could have made it this far without him.  He will call me out if I am venturing down a path of questionable choices and help me get my head back on straight.  We encourage each other to get up and move, order lighter choices at restaurants, and just stop it when we get into a funk.

I also need to sing the praises of my Weight Watchers leader.  Pam, you are a one in a million and it is no accident that we landed in your Monday night class.  Your straight talk and dry wit are always what I need to hear.  Knowing that once a week I will be walking into a room of people who are all working toward a common goal keeps me motivated to be successful even in the face of temptation or melancholy.  I have met some really terrific people in our Monday night meeting and I have never once left a meeting feeling like my time would have been better spent elsewhere.  Through the program I have not learned how to diet, I have learned how to simply live.

This is not the end, not by a long shot.  I still have a ways to go on my personal goals but they will all be accomplished in time as long as I just keep going.

Now for a visual: I am sure when I posed for these pictures I didn't intend to publish them so please excuse my pajamas. The first set of pictures was taken in August of 2008 a week after we began Weight Watchers.  I had lost a few pounds and felt like it would be a good idea to take some pictures, just in case it actually worked.  I am wearing either a XX or XXXL shirt and at the time my pants were probably a size 24.

These pictures I took this morning.  My t-shirt is a medium and my pants are an 8.  I still can't get over wearing single digits.  I get all fluttery when I think about it.

Approaching a Milestone

I am within 8 pounds of my Weight Watchers goal weight - 8 POUNDS!!  This is a milestone that three years ago I couldn't even let myself think about.  If I thought too much about what life was going to be like when I lost over 100 pounds I would have frozen up.  Along the way I have just looked to the next smaller goal in order to keep my momentum up.  Now my small goal has merged into one of my great big over arching major goals and, whew! This is going to take some real mind over matter work.  I don't want to get this close and come up short, no I am in this to win it!


When I hit this goal a few really cool things will happen.  The first is I will begin the six week clock toward not paying Weight Watchers anymore.  I am very much looking forward to seeing that line item on my bank statement once a month.  I have zero regrets about joining, this program may have saved my life BUT it has been three years and I am ready to graduate.  The second cool thing will be taking my wedding and engagement rings to be resized.  Not long into our weight loss both my husband and I became unable to wear our rings.  We decided to wait to have them resized so that we only did it once.  This is partly to reduce the stress on the metal and mostly because we wanted to have something really special to mark the completion of our journey together.  I was able to wear my rings for the end of my pregnancy (thank you water retention) but I am very much looking forward to having them back on my finger permanently.


So here is what I am doing to help me stay the course and hit this one out of the park.  I have committed to - wait for it - actually following the Weight Watcher's plan for the entire month of August.  If it goes in my mouth I am logging it.  By committing to logging my food I am also breaking everyday down into a measurable opportunity to succeed.  Knowing that I am most likely to overeat when I am bored or tired I am keeping a list of activities to engage in during down time and giving myself permission to rest while my son is napping.  I have a sign on the fridge to remind myself of how close I am to my next milestone to help me stay on track.  Finally I am going to make an extra effort to move this month, my house may wind up cleaner than it has been in a long time!


Watch this space for updates.  It would be so sweet to accomplish this goal by the end of the month in time for the three year anniversary of beginning this journey.

A Bit About The Author

I never was a dieter; maybe I should have been.  I held on to the teaching that dieting was ultimately bad for you and having yo-yoing weight was not a healthy way to live.  I tried the odd diet here and there but mostly used the message as permission to remain obese.  Psychologically, I don't know what buried issues caused me to gain weight or to maintain an unhealthy lifestyle.  I was probably around seven years old when I began edging beyond the curve for my age and height.  Obesity became a part of my identity, first as a fat kid and ultimately a fat person.  

It wasn't until the summer of 2008, that I had enough and I announced to my husband that I was going to join Weight Watchers.  He asked if it was going to become one of those things that we paid for but never used.  Since I didn't know the answer to his question (and really, how could I?), I dropped it for a couple of weeks to let the idea roll around in my head a bit longer.

Finally, I decided that it didn't matter what might happen—I had to do something.  I was sitting there clinically obese, 60 pounds heavier than the day we met 3 1/2 years before.  I was 26 pounds above the weight, 8 years before, I swore I would never be again.  Most importantly I was incredibly uncomfortable in my skin.  When I announced my intention again he said something that proved to be the greatest gift he could give to both of us: "I'll do it with you."

We found the nearest Weight Watchers meeting place and the most convenient time.  The following Monday after work we walked in, with no expectations, to see what the program was all about.  I don't remember the topic of that first meeting.  My nerves turned it all into a rush of white noise.  Afterward we heard the introductory information with all the nuts and bolts.  There was a lot to take in but it seemed straight forward enough.  On the way home we stopped and had a couple of baby-sized burritos and tortilla chips at a local taco place, BUT the next morning we woke up and began following the points program, tracking everything that we ate.

Our lives changed after that.  The weight began falling off as we emerged from our fat coma.  Monday night has become sacred in our house and going to the weekly meeting is now a family event as our toddler goes with us.  To date we have collectively shed over 260 pounds and continue to move toward our goal weights.

I didn't know I had begun a journey until others pointed it out to me.  All I know is that with each small step, life has become vibrant in a way it never was before.  Sometimes I just sit and marvel over all of the small changes, things I never expected when I dreamed about being a healthier person.  Now I can sit on the floor and play with my son without loosing feeling in my legs within the first few minutes, I am able to tie my shoes without feeling like I might pass out, and I can try on clothes off the rack in most stores.  It is such a rush to take an arm load of clothes into a department store dressing room and choose to buy the items I like best not just the couple that fit.  One of my favorite changes is hugging my husband.  When we were at our highest weight we couldn't reach our arms around each other.  Now just to be able to stop and give each other a proper hug is magical.

As this blog continues, I plan to include more of my story, particularly things that happened during the first six months of our new life.  My humble wish is that through sharing how I took things slowly, made mistakes, and learned about myself and food, others will find some hope that change is possible.  It is not about suddenly turning your life upside down and instantly becoming a whole new person.  I have learned how to make different choices one at a time, moment by moment.