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All in!


I'm especially good at finding lost or missing objects - a skill I attributed to my "ULD" (uterine locating device).

This includes my previously lost pounds always inevitably finding their way back to me. Damn them!

In an attempt to keep those pounds permanently lost, this time, I had approached my Weight Watchers experience as a lifestyle change instead of a diet. So this time instead of working hard to lose the weight, reaching goal, doing a happy dance, buying new clothes and celebrating the weight loss success by promptly going back to living and eating as I had before the diet and then wondering why the new clothes were getting tighter ( blaming the damn dryer, or cheap fabrics, or temporary water weight gain) - I decided instead to look at Weight Watchers as my own 12-step program. While I'm not a food addict, I don't always make good choices about food- I prefer asiago cheese bread and bagels to Tumaro wraps, and I prefer cheese on just about anything and being Irish I love spuds (they're a vegetable!), and who doesn't like alfredo or pesto sauce ... you get the picture. I've learned I can still love these things but just not as frequently or in the quantity I had been accustomed.

That decision had already been made when about three months ago, I was asked to think about working for Weight Watchers. Initially, I laughed. I mean I'm not a very good role model with my asiago cheese and spuds addiction and my inclination to lassitude over exercise and the fact that I've lost (and Found!) the same 35 pounds in my life and the fact that I'm mostly in a wheelchair ... and then it hit me - that's exactly why I should work with Weight Watchers! I mean who would you rather journey with through weight loss - someone who hasn't struggled and cannot relate or a real failure like me??? 

I have so many strikes against me for a weight loss home run. The number of times I've tried and tried and tried. The fact that I have M.S. and the limitations it can impose (fatigue, heat sensitivity, inability to walk without falling to name a few). The reality (I still try to deny) of my wheelchair. That I have a preference for cheese, spuds, bread, wine, pasta, chips, crackers,cheese, popcorn with lots o butter, cheesy popcorn, fried rice and of course cheese.

 So, I started with Weight Watchers as a meeting receptionist about a six weeks ago and in January I will begin training as a leader. I love it! I get to spend time with people (and I love people more than cheese!). I get to encourage and cheer-on (may not have been the high school cheerleader just the mascot but I get to cheer now!) people. I am surrounded by an infectious positivity and energy. And, this is the biggest bonus, I remain focused on making positive food and lifestyle choices. 

Did I mention, that I love it!

Weight Watchers - if I can, you can!

Comments

It's not a popularity contest, but ...

When an ass is so much more

  Body image. Body positivity.  Or about coming to an appreciation for a previously much maligned back end.  In junior high (that's middle school for all of you non boomers), I was given the nickname "big butt Bowen". It was a nickname that stung because I did indeed have a large ass. I tried to mask it, a difficult endeavor since the current fashion (and remember this is junior high when fitting in was paramount) was wearing hip hugger jeans with midriff tops and my disguise of choice were peasant blouses or dresses. That style choice earned an additional nickname, Mama Cass. For those of you that don't know who Mama Cass was, she was part of the Mamas and Papas and known for her beautiful voice but also for her large body.  All about Mama Cass I was cruelly nicknamed at a time when nicknames can really mess with a girl's psyche. And I spent a lifetime as that girl with the messed up psyche. I'm sure there are more than one of you out there that can relate. B

Peter Pan no more

                          It's time. Peter Pan had to grow up.  For nearly 18 months of his life, Matthew dressed in this costume. In this picture it's new, just out of the box. He picked the costume out of a catalog and when it arrived, two weeks prior to Halloween, he asked daily if today was the day he could finally wear his Peter Pan costume. He didn't like the hat and only wore it on Halloween, but the rest of the costume he wore daily! You read that correctly - DAILY. He wore it to Meijer (for those of you unfamiliar with Meijer, it's a cleaner, friendlier, more 'upscale' version of WalMart), to church, to play dates and preschool ... Heck, he was three and adorable and it worked for him!  (Yes you read that correctly, he even wore it to church on one or two occasions when it seemed arguing with a three year old about not wearing a costume to church was not a battle worth waging. He once mentioned the priests wore dresses . . . I don't think Joh

Cabin fever made me do it!

Like nearly ever person in West Michigan, I have a serious case of cabin fever.  I won't waste your time however, complaining about the two-hundred feet of snow that's fallen in the last two hours. I won't share about the twenty or thirty times I've had to shovel my walk today as gusts blew it right back in my face. And I certainly will not lament about the temperatures that hover around negative double digits making your nostrils freeze together within moments of stepping outside. To bore you with tales of how we have to shovel areas in our yard so that our large dog and can do his 'duty' because the snow is deeper than he is tall and dogs for whatever reason cannot poop in the same place twice, is not what I will share. You will not hear about how when I open the slider to let aforementioned dog outside, gusts of wind blow drifts of snow inside and require a shovel to once again close the door.  Nor will I share how some roads around here are drifted shut be