So often we find ourselves surrounded by a myriad of diet programs. I think I have seen the Weight Watchers commercial a million times and I am sick of seeing it. However, a small caveat is that I am not about to bash Weight Watchers. I have read a ton of blogs that talk about how awful Weight Watchers is and how they give people a complex about their weight. I will not bash a program like that. I see some friends are eating Paleo, which is not just a diet, I think more a lifestyle change. Some have gone all organic, you get the picture I’m sure. How do you decide what is healthy when there are so many programs and techniques that are screaming at the top of their lungs that they are the right way. You stop, breath and go back to basics.
Common sense taught us many things, we learned that certain foods as yummy as they may be are not as healthy for us as other and should be eaten in moderation. I love chocolate and ice cream, does that mean I eat a gallon of chocolate ice cream everyday? No! I would be sick if I tried that. We grew up always being taught that fruits and vegetables are good for us. That is a good place to start. So maybe part of being healthy is to eat fruits and vegetables more. Most diet plans will agree that these are important so we can start there. We also grew up being told we needed to drink water. We know that we need to drink more water, so this also seems to be a good place to start. We all know that candy and sweets are not good for you. We remember being told growing up that we couldn’t eat all the candy we wanted or if we ate a bunch of candy we learned that this was not always smart based on the stomach ache we had afterwords. So maybe if we want to eat healthy we need to cut back on some of those things. If we really wanted to just be healthier, no focus on losing weight we could go back to basics and we know what we should and shouldn’t eat.
Now for myself, I am trying to lose weight. I know that there are people out there that will say its ok to be big and it doesn’t matter your size. However, I know that things like diabetes and high blood pressure run in my family and I really don’t want those things to affect me. Also I need to be healthier and I am not healthy where I am. I am one of those crazy people that go to Weight Watchers. I will explain to some that do not like this program why I think that it works for me.
I currently use the simply filling technique with weight watchers, what does this mean? It means there is a list of food that I can eat and not count points for those foods. I count points for things that are not on the list. I switched to this after doing tracking because I changed my eating habits and most of what I eat falls in the simply filling foods. This technique also helps teach you healthy eating habits. Its not all about teh points. Its about eating things that are healthier for you. Non-Fat yogurts and milk are on the list, fruits and vegetables are on the list, brown rice, beans, lite breads, lean proteins. You still get the 49 weekly points for things not on the list (Starbucks Peppermint Mocha) and you choose when to use the points. Also for people like me, I need accountability, I need to go into a meeting and weigh myself to keep myself in check. I need to see my progress on a weekly basis. Others may not need this and they may find another path works great for them. I know that this path for working towards eating healthy is working well for me. I would love thoughts about what people say is working for them.
Fitness and Faith 