Weight Watchers has provided us with a fantastic plan but we have to be the ones to follow through. We still have to do the right things and do them often in order to be successful. Our basis of success is our 4 Way Approach, or the skills we need to learn to lose weight and keep it off! Know the 4 skills and learn to manage yourself so that you can do your best and adhere to them. Doing so only creates success for you!
1) ATTEND WEEKLY MEETINGS
Wow! I have been incredibly impressed with the number of you still making it a priority to attend during this season. I certainly hope you are getting the information and resources you need to continue being successful! The holidays can pose all kinds of situations: no time to cook, stress leading you to eat, shopping at the food filled mall, free samples, weather to cold to walk, food pushers, etc etc and ETC!! Coming to your meetings gives you an opportunity to ask 20+ of your closest friends, “What would YOU do?! What suggestions do you have for ME?!” Remember, at WW, we know the struggles because we are right there with you. We will tell you what works, what doesn’t, and give you plenty of suggestions for you to find one that will work for you. You can’t get that anywhere else!! Why would you miss it?! Remember, “Members who attend weekly meetings lose 3x more weight that those who go it alone.” WHY? Because the support makes all the difference!!
2) MOVE MORE!
Activity has all kinds of benefits: stress relief, quiet me time, increased metabolism, and WEIGHT LOSS to name a few! The problem can be sometimes, exercise is as fun as playing with a box of rocks. Remember, any activity that increases your heartrate is activity enough! This time of the year we could be shoveling snow, ice skating, dancing at a party, and holiday shopping (remember, everyone gets cast iron skillets – the heavier the shopping bags the better)! We want to get 30 minutes a day per our guidelines and 3-10 minute bouts are just as effective as a 30 minute session. Activity can also help you during the holidays in that earning activity POINTS can allow you to eat more, or eat higher calorie foods and still stay on track. What?! I can eat those evil little peanut butter balls and still lose weight?! YUP!! Now, get out there and move it!!
3) EAT SMARTER!
We have no problem eating, I think that is a general consensus. Our issues lie in what we eat and how much we eat so the idea here is to make smarter choices! It’s also not just the physical aspect of eating, but the behavioral! We eat because we’re bored, stressed, angry, sad, happy, nervous, and any other feeling you can come up with. Heck, I eat because I’m sad I just finished a fantastic dinner and there is none left! (Just checking to see if you are reading) Our 3rd week booklet of Momentum focuses on STAYING AHEAD OF HUNGER. What does this mean? It means not letting the physical feelings of eating get away from you so that you cannot and do not make the smartest choices! We can feel 5 ways; 1) starving, 2) hungry, 3) satisfied, 4) full, 5) stuffed. If you allow yourself to feel #1 or #5, you have physically let hunger get the best of you, and behaviorally you face challenges as well. If we focus on remaining between #2 and #4, then physically we will not be under or over feeding ourselves, and behaviorally we will be in a sound state of mind (well…) and able to make sound decisions.
We must remember to EAT SMARTER during the holidays in order to be successful. An example: Member A and Member B both have holiday dinner parties tonight. Member A chose a smart breakfast and lunch, and also had a filling snack of fruits and veggies before the dinner party. Member B decided to “save” all her POINTS and ate nothing all day so she’d have all of them leftover to use at the dinner party. Member A was successful because she did not let herself get starving before the party. Member B was so hungry not only did she eat the tray of hors d’oeuvres, she ate the little doilies they came on, too (extra fiber)! Keep hunger and fullness in the safe zones and you know you will not be eating but for the purpose of eating, nourishing our bodies and not our minds. And remember to use your hunger scale and rate your hunger during the day!
4) BUILD HELPFUL HABITS!
Raise your hand if weight loss is fun! Raise your hand if you are loving losing weight! Raise your hand if you can’t wait to get to goal! Raise your hand if you want to gain all your weight back and start all over! Hmmm…sudden drop in the show of hands. Reason? No one wants to do it all again! We want to lose weight but we want to keep it off! How do we do that? Sure we physically change our actions, but we must also mentally change our beliefs and our behaviors! If we don’t, then ultimately we risk reverting back to old eating habits and our old body weight. No one wants that. How do you keep from doing it? Making sure you are also working on changing your mind. Changing your beliefs. Changing your identity. Believe you are worth it, believe you need to take care of yourself. Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it or change your environment in which you live and work in to support a healthier life – your family will benefit as well. Easier said than done, I know. But if we work on it as we go, we are developing the habits and soon they will become second nature. Being successful over the holidays (and any other time) this year and in many years to come requires us to change our habits to more successful ones. Simply saying “it’s a special time” or “this only happens once” isn’t learning how to make a lifestyle change and change our habits and behaviors, which we need to be successful for life.
To help you even further manage your holiday season successfuly, here is a 4 step strategy for mentally making it through the holidays:
Thinking Through Holiday Challenges (or any others!)
1) Customize your tools – Tools for Living? Weight Watchers Products? Food Companions? Scales? Measuring Spoons? Friend? What do you NEED to help you be successful? Once you’ve identified it, now you can focus on getting it!
2) Focus on outcomes – What do you want to have happen in the end? Ok, now what do you need to do between now and then to get there? What do you want to say about your holiday (or any challenge) when all is said and done?
3) Stop lapses in their tracks – So you ate a donut for breakfast. Does that mean you have to blow your lunch and dinner, too? And because you totally blew the day today, you might as well blow it tomorrow. And since you now have blown 2 days, why not the whole week? Too often we find ourselves in an “all or nothing” mindset. I’m either “on” or “off.” Remember there is no on and off switch. You are always on! So you ate a donut for breakfast. Big deal! Can you still manage and salvage the rest of the day?! You bet you can! Do not let a tiny lapse become a relapse. Stop it before it completely derails you. Do you want to look back next year and say, “…all because I had a donut for breakfast.” Didn’t think so!
4) Celebrate your success – We do it for you in the meetings, but do you do it for yourself?! Celebrate your achievement! Never follow up a great week with a “yeah, but…” Acknowledge your success and reward yourself! Your reward is your own choosing and it can be at whatever milestone, but you have earned some respect and admiration and you should give it to yourself. Did great at a holiday party? REWARD YOURSELF! Didn’t give in to samples at the mall? REWARD YOURSELF! Passed up a treat you normally would have locked yourself in a closet with? REWARD YOURSELF! Ok, you get the idea. Preferably not with food. 
There’s no doubt this can be a tricky time of year. A simple plan using our 4 Way Approach and using the skills for weight loss and weight maintenance (Eat Smarter, Attend Weekly Meetings, Move More, Build Helpful Habits) can lead to the success you want. The beauty of the 4 Way Approach? It works in every other scenario, too. Use it, and use it wisely. You will not be disappointed.
Have a wonderful and happy holiday season!