You know that feeling when you see yourself in a picture and you realise that it’s not the angle that it was taken, but in fact, you’ve put on weight? That was me a couple of weeks ago, as I looked at our family pics from the festive season.
Like many others at the beginning of a new year, I looked around at diet options and what I should do to lose weight.
I knew what the problem was – I didn’t eat enough for breakfast, I would forget to eat a proper lunch, by the time it came to making my children’s dinner I was starving, I would eat theirs, as well as my own later once the kids had gone to bed. I was also partial to a few wines during the week that would start off as one and then soon enough become a few more – adding to my calorie intake.
Friends had suggested a range of diets including 5:2 and Dukan.
“You must try Dukan. I lost 10 kilos in just a few weeks,” said one.
“5:2 is great. You just don’t eat dinner a couple of times a week and the weight just falls off,” said another.
So these kinds of claims sounded tempting, but how sustainable can skipping meals be and how practical is a high protein diet? Moreover, how healthy are they?
In my case, I want to eat well most of the time, drink less and get back into a consistent exercise routine. I needed a change to my lifestyle.
Following the birth of my two children, I did go to Weight Watchers, which saw me lose around 8 kilos each time. This time, I can’t really attribute my weight gain to children.
It’s actually just me not really paying enough attention to what went in my mouth. And exercise was also the first thing to go from my diary when work and family life got busy.
So after a bit of research, I signed back up to Weight Watchers, but this time online instead of attending weekly meetings. Getting out of the house at nighttime and coordinating the meetings with work commitments was just too hard.
With Weight Watchers each food is assigned a number of points. Foods that fill you up have fewer points than foods that are just empty calories.
Signing up was easy. I was impressed by the questions asked and what my goals were. I am 68 kilos and around 176 cm tall. I had originally set the goal of losing 8 kilos and the system told me to adjust it to 4 kilos, as it was all about sustained weight loss.
The whole sign-up process was efficient and painless. The navigation of Weight Watchers online is easy and available on your smart phone.
You can also follow the entire diet online entirely on your own: track food and exercise, chart progress, and find recipes and workouts.
You can easily check the point value of food and plan shopping ahead, and communicate with others if you want going through the same program as yourself, so you’re not on your own.
Does it work? Well, it’s early days for me with the diet, but after a week I’ve lost one kilo. I feel better about myself and I would recommend it to anyone else wanting to lose weight.
I will check back in on the progress of my Weight Watchers diet, but so far I would give it 4 stars.
At the moment you can join Weight Watchers for just $1. For more information, visit Weight Watchers.
Have you tried Weight Watchers? Share your experience.
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