Vanity, pure and simple

So I went to my monthly Weight Watcher's Meeting yesterday morning (I have to go once a month to keep my Lifetime Membership active), and I'm back to only .2 pounds over my goal weight. Whoo-hoo! All the point recording and cutting back on alcohol has paid off. (Last meeting I was almost 2 pounds over my goal weight, which is the cut-off for Lifetime Membership.) The topic was motivation. Once again my leader used some weird metaphor that she took way too far, (in this case boiling water, I never quite understood how it was related to the topic), and eventually asked us what was our internal motivation that kept us going on Weight Watcher's. The first girl answered "Amy's Ice Cream", which was like, "huh?" so our leader asked her to elaborate and she said that she had promised herself not to have Amy's Ice Cream until she reached her goal. Well those of us who have been doing this a while were like, "hold up girl!" See, WW is not about deprivation and she was just setting herself up for failure by depriving herself of something she wanted. She needed to eat the Amy's and move on with her life. By setting it up as a "goal food" she had set herself up that if she "messed up" and ate Amy's before she reached goal, she would then feel like she failed and would probably completely give up on her weight loss. I think it's fine to have a celebration in mind when you reach goal, but it shouldn't be about food. (Although I went out and had chicken fried steak at Hill's when I reached goal. But it hadn't been my goal throughout the process or anything. I was just like, "dang it, I haven't had chicken fried steak in 6 months, I'm going to get me some!" But the truth is I could have had it all along, of course, I would have just needed to allot the points for it.)

Wow, that was sort of a tangent. But you guys know my belief in the church of Weight Watcher's! So other people said their motivation was being healthy or being in shape and I raised my hand and was like, "I'm vain. I like the way I look 30 pounds lighter!" Everyone laughed and my leader was like, "that's fine of course, but at least a little of it isn't for that little girl down there?" (Stella was playing at my feet.) And I said, yes I do want to model good eating habits for Stella. Honestly, though, when I was thirty pounds heavier I wasn't really in bad shape. I exercised more than I do now and I wasn't at risk of dropping dead from a heart attack or anything (at least due to my weight). I just didn't like the way I looked. I'm 5'10", 30 pounds is not sending me to the obesity column. In fact, it was at the top of my healthy BMI range. But I did not like the way I looked. I didn't realized how much I disliked the way I looked until now, when I look back at photos and I'm just like, "you know what, I don't want to look like that again!" So it's really vanity that keeps me "on program". And I see NOTHING wrong with that. The women who were sitting in front of me said that vanity is what motivated them too:)

Oh, I had a point in all this! If you would like to join Weight Watchers, we can both get a free cooler! Let me know, we don't even have to go to the same meetings or even location. I have a little card that I fill out with my info and I can send to you and then you take it in to your first meeting. You get a free meeting (try before you buy) and a cooler! So let me know if you want to take the plunge, I really can't recommend it enough.

Ubiquitous before and after shots, which I've actually never done before:

Before (size 16):

After (size 10, sometimes even 8!):