Words of Wisdom
I just wanted to add a final note about my Weight Watchers experience. I hope that those of you who are just beginning your journey, or experiencing a rollercoaster ride right now, will be able to look back at my journey and learn from it.
As with every journey, you will need to pack your luggage before you can begin. The most important piece of luggage you will need is a good attitude. You have to go into this knowing that once you take that first step, there is no going back. Every aspect of your life is about to change. You have to be ready for and embrace those changes. They will come slowly, one at time, which is good because you will need time to adjust to your new life. But just know that in the end all those changes will feel right and good.
The next bag we need to pack is our work ethic. Once you have decided to make this change, you have to be ready to work for it. You can not assume that it will just happen. The results will not just come to you; they will not be given to you as a gift. You have to earn it. I earned mine by never missing a Weight Watchers meeting, by making changes when I needed to, by making sacrifices when I needed to, and by setting goals for myself and never giving up on those goals. Once I started this journey, there was no way I was settling for anything less than complete success and quitting was never an option.
There were bumps in my road. I did not have a smooth trip. But I made adjustments as I needed to. I increased my level of exercise. I made adjustments in how I used my points allowance. I treated my body as a science experiment and changed the ingredients as necessary to come up with a formula that my body would react to.
For the past year and three months, molding myself into the new person I wanted to be has been my top priority. Nothing was more important to me. Anything that might interfere with accomplishment of my goals had to be avoided. And I definitely had to work hard at it. I had to constantly think about the consequences of everything I even thought about doing. Yes, it was exhausting and frustrating at times but in the end the feeling of accomplishment and victory makes all the hard work worth it. I am a completely different person than I was prior to February 12, 2005. And I love the new me!