First meeting

Well, I have rejoined WW and went to my first meeting yesterday. It's a city lunchtime meeting, so was pretty busy. Not enough talking in the discussion for my liking - I'll have to stir things up a bit! Rather like the leader, though. An Englishwoman with a nicely understated sense of humour and obviously well-read - was I the only person in the room who got the Katherine Mansfield reference? I'm such a snob!

I have decided to give No Count a go to see how it works for me. The basic premise works like this:
You have three meals a day, at which you can eat 'freely' from a restricted list of foods. 'Freely' really means in moderation, not to the point of feeling like a puffer fish.
Outside those three meals, you can snack on fruit and vegetables only.
In addition, you can use 21 points a week for foods outside the list - e.g. that white bread you can't live without, your chocolate treat on a Friday night.

I think this can work for me because:
Portion sizes are so automatic after almost a year of counting points I think there is little risk of me making my meals too big.
I like the fact the list of foods is basically whole foods and no processed foods, and therefore my overall diet should become even healthier.
There are essentially no 'treat' foods - the way I am at the moment I think I'm best to keep right away from those things, rather than try and stop after 'just a little bit'.
The 21 points gives me enough leeway to eat out a couple of times a week, or have a few drinks at some stage.
If I know I've got a really busy week coming up I can switch back to tracking points for a week if I like.

So, I'm going to try it for 4 weeks - long enough to get through the first couple of weeks of losing just because it is something new, and to form a habit if I want to keep going with it.

Interestingly, though, no other women at the meeting are following No Count. A few had tried it and didn't find it worked for them. The leader did say the uptake had been lower than they expected. I feel it would be quite difficult to do it as your first experience of WW - the control of portion sizes and learning to stop eating when you are full seem a bit difficult to learn quickly. After all, the lack of those controls is the reason why many of us are overweight.

My WW weight yesterday was 87.8kg. I'd weighed at 86.9kg at home in the morning, so I imagine our scales are fairly close. I am going to continue using my home scales to track my weight in the sidebar, but will report my 'official' weight each week when I let you know how I'm going on the new programme.

Another new experience...