It’s Saturday again, and that’s Weigh-In Day at Weight Watchers for me.  This morning it was under 30 degrees in New Jersey, and that’s just toooo cold to brave the weather and ride my bike to the meeting.  So it looks like biking might be over until spring 🙁    My Saturday morning ritual is to pack my fruit and make my coffee to take with me, so I have a snack after weigh-in.  Today I packed an apple and made myself a nice, hot cup of Pumpkin Spice coffee — just perfect for the season  The drive to the East Brunswick center is quick enough.  After visiting the lady’s room,  I waited in line for scale #1.  Only scale #1.  There are 3 scales in our center,   but I’m attached by psychosis to scale #1…..

Oh yea, it’s another form of sickness in the weekly ritual of weighing in at weight watchers.  Don’t laugh, because I’m not alone in this.  There are dozens of women and men who will swear to you that they weigh less on a certain scale.  You could get into a fight about it if you don’t keep your humor about you!    I’ve tried going to the “next open scale” and it happened during that time in my weight loss journey when I was bouncing up and down on a weekly basis.  lose a pound, gain a pound, lose a pound, gain a pound.  An emotional-eaters ping-pong.    So I broke the streak by a few weeks on scale #1, and that’s all it took. Bing!  It’s  Love!  Me and scale #1   — we’re “a thing”.

So now I wait in line, with my French Vanilla smoothies for purchase, and I wait, and wait however long it takes for scale #1 to open up.  I got on the scale this morning and the results were…{drum roll please}……down -2.6 pounds!  HOOORAY!!!  Remember I’m on a mission to lose 11.2 pounds by New Years Day (if possible) and so far this amounts to -3.6 pounds lost.  Those post-it notes on my fridge and pantry doors are working!  Awesome!  It’s progress, and I like progress.  So I have 7.6 pounds to lose by Jan 1st, and that’s completely do-able IF I DON”T SABOTAGE MYSELF.  I’m going to use this thought as an anchor this week.  Reminding myself that my longer term goals mean MORE to me than a biscuit and stuffing on Thursday is going to be REALLY important this week.  Working overtime on reinforcing this, is part of the plan this week.

The meeting today was familiar.  It’s Paper Plate Planning Day!  What?  You look confused.   You don’t know what Paper Plate Planning Day is?  Ahhh, you are new here,  I see.  {LOL, just kidding}.  Last year, I was new too, and I saw Denise do it for the very first time.  She handed out a paper plate and a pen/pencil to everyone, which created confused looks on the newbie faces, and generated a synchronized Ahhhh from the regulars in the room.  This year, everybody arrived with their own pens, and the room was packed full of people ready to plan their attack against Thanksgiving.  Denise passed around a stack of lists and we each took one.  The lists contained alllllll of our Thanksgiving Day Feast Favorites!   Oh no….I started to sweat a little..…” er – this Weight Watchers thing isn’t going to wreck my Thanksgiving Day Feast, is it?????”   DENIAL is a very warm, soft cushion….feels a lot like a couch!

Yup – Paper Plate Planning Day is an exercise where you Visualize and Plan your Thanksgiving Day Feast AND you marry your meal with Weight Watchers Points Plus Values to ……{Math again….punching buttons on the calculator and hit the equals button}  create Accountability!!  Ouch, DENIAL felt that!    In all seriousness, it’s a really powerful exercise.  It’s a simple planning-a-meal process.  The hard part is when you realize that Thanksgiving ain’t no ordinary meal.  Because the Thanksgiving Feast is a meal loaded with a food-addicts worst ingredients.  Emotions and Memories.

Yup, yup.  Damn emotions and memories.  I’m still carrying you around on my hips.  But this is an important baby step in the journey.  We have to learn how to have a meal, AND have all those warm delicious emotions and memories that come with a family gathering like Thanksgiving, and still create Accountability.  DENIAL, just took his last breath.   Accountability boils down to process that helps you differentiate amongst a list of all these  medium to high points plus values foods —  to determine which of them you want the most.  When I came to terms with the fact that if I wanted to stay on my journey to lose weight over the holidays, that I had to differentiate and choose not to eat it all – DENIAL died!

So I learned to play the Thanksgiving Barter.  I’ll trade you sweet potatoes with marshmallows and pecans for stuffing and a biscuit, because I love them more.  I learned that making grilled string beans and carrots instead of mashed potatoes with butter, would help me pay for a piece of pumpkin pie.  I also decided that as soon as I got home today, Saturday, that I would pre-load all these foods from my Thanksgiving Plan into my Weight Watchers Points Plus Tracker online for Thanksgiving Thursday.  I also figured out my breakfast and lunch for that day too.  I’m hoping this would help me “save” my weekly points for Thursday.  In a normal week,  I tend to eat them all by Thursday, so this is something new I am trying, to set myself up for success!

Now I just have to EXECUTE the Plan.  Which is hard too.  But, Hmmm, I think according to Merriam Webster, executing the plan means, “Just do it, Diane”.  Ok, I understand those words.  I know how to do that.

Ciao for now, and Happy Thanksgiving Feast Planning!   Just do it!  Just try!..….you might surprise yourself.  And what a Gift that would be to YOU………..Diane