Thank God for Weight Watchers

I was talking with an old high school friend a few days ago.  While I was on the phone with him I realized something.  I think being in Weight Watchers has actually helped me through the initial parts of this process.

What do I mean by that?  Well I started to think about it and realized that because I was in the program already I'd learned to recognize the difference between when I physically need to eat and when I emotionally need to eat.  I know without a doubt I'm an emotional eater.

Dealing with this kind of loss without Weight Watchers would have sent me into an emotional eating binge I'm sure.  And the guilt of that would have in turn fed into the emotions.  Plus being in the program gave me something else to focus on.  When I felt I needed to eat I'd focus on what I could eat that would not rack up the points.  I'd tell myself that I had to stick to the program as best I could.  I had to get back to the good habits I established before the loss.  That helped more than I initially realized.

It impacted another aspect of my life as well.  I know that I'm also an emotional spender.  The process of researching and buying something gives me a small amount of joy that lasts until I get the new product home.  It's very likely I would have gone out and spend more money that I needed to (but not necessarily more money than I could afford to because whenever I buy something I always put some thought into if it can be afforded and how long it will take to pay off).  Dealing with the emotional buying is just like dealing with the emotional eating.

So it's become quite apparent to me that had I not started Weight Watchers at the beginning of the year I would be in a much worse position now.  I'm confident the inspiration to start the program when I did was a gentle nudge intended to provide me with the skills I needed to help deal with the emotions the loss has produced.