My Weight Watchers journal

Self image

We learn about self image very early in life. Before we even get to school there are other children that will find something different about you and tease you. This moves onto bullying in later years. I was teased from a very young age about my weight, and because I was poor. I was the third of six children, my Mother took good care of us and did the best she could, but we stood out in our neighbourhood. It was hard not looking like everyone else. But, if it wasn’t for my weight, or social status they would have found something else to pick on. This sticks with you for the rest of your life. You go through life thinking that you are fat and this came from the opinions of people you went to school who were not that perfect themselves. When I look at the weight that I gained since I had my children I can honestly look back at my old photos and say �Hey I wasn�t that big!�. I spent way too much time comparing myself to my friends. Several years ago I looked up a few friends from school using Classmates.com. It was fun to talk to people I had not seen since my teenage years. We talked about how we felt about ourselves back then, but the general consensus was that we still found a partner, got married, had children and we were happy. I think we just put too much emphasis on our looks, but it comes from what we are shown from an early age. Skinny models in magazines, skinny actresses, guys falling over themselves when they see girls in bikini�s. It is interesting to see that in September of 2006 that skinny models were banned from the catwalks. I grew up in the Twiggy era, you can imagine how hard that was for the average teenager.

Pick up any magazine

and you will see stories of all the famous people who have fought with bullemia and anorexia. Not only do they have to deal with these diseases, they are in the public eye and judged even harder. I could not even imagine how hard that must be. The latest person has been Kelly Clarkson who has talked about her battle with bullemia. Too many of us have a very skewed idea of what is fat and what is thin.

I have come to the realization (again) that learning to lose weight is a life long journey. I have always turned to Weight Watchers. I would stop when I had a baby and join soon after. Now I am middle aged and I am looking to Weight Watchers again to help me become a healthier person. I know what those extra pounds will do to my health, it is not about self image anymore. I hate when people say they are going on a diet. Diets to me are fads, and mean temporary. Losing weight properly is a lifestyle change. I read a book about habits, and how long it takes to make a good or new habit.

So this week I am going back to Weight Watchers.

My goal is to lose 20 pounds by Christmas as I am going back to England to visit my husband�s family. My husband and I went to Boston a couple of weeks ago and enjoyed a great weekend with his sister and brother in law who were visiting Boston and the surrounding area for a couple of weeks. We had a great time, but I found that our main topic of conversation was our weight and how fast it had crept up on us. At the end of the holiday my sister in law and I made a promise. That when we got back home that we would work on becoming healthier.

This blog is about my journey to wellness, and I hope that I will hear from others who are going through their Weight Watchers journey too. I would like to post photos of before and after, a journal of how I am doing, my successes and failures because hey not all of us are perfect.

I will keep you posted on my progress and hope to hear about yours

MMMomma