WW (Weight Watchers) Chat #267: How to Actually Achieve Your Goals!

Comments are Disabled In the spirit of transparency, I do receive commission from mentioning some of the products in this post. Any commission I earn comes at no additional cost to you and I’ll never recommend products that I don’t use, love and believe in.

WW News and Reviews March 2022

  • Product Review: Beyond Burger (Rainforest Cafe Orlando) – Last week while we were in Disney I thought I would try out the new Beyond Burger at the Rainforest Cafe in Animal Kingdom. It was so juicy I couldn’t get a picture after I took my first bite! A delicious alternative when dressed as a burger, it absorbed the other flavors it was paired with nicely. I highly recommend it!
  • Not much other news this week… I was in vacay mode 🙂

The month’s theme is “Build Momentum” and we will spend the entire month talking about how to keep the excitement you felt starting a new year not only going, but build on that momentum for the rest of the year!

 

Last week during Chat #266: Find An Eating Pattern That Will Stick!, we agreed that a large part of success on this new Personal Points plan (or any plan!) is figuring out ways to make it work for YOU. I love the 7 questions WW asks on this week’s weekly so I’m going to use them here (please refer back to your Weekly and WW International for more information by visiting www.weightwatchers.com) Give each one of their statements a thumbs up, or a thumbs down.

  1. I eat things that I like
  2. Everything can be on the menu
  3. I am able to eat my favorite foods
  4. I am able to stick to my wellness and weight loss goals
  5. I can be social and attend any events
  6. I am able to eat the same foods as my family, friends and co-workers
  7. I can easily find what I need to eat at my local store

If you are mostly thumbs up 

Awesome! That means you are really working this plan and understand how to make it work for YOU. Is there one NO that you would like to turn into a YES this week?

If you are mostly thumbs down 

That’s still ok! Now that we have identified some NO’s we can talk about what to do to turn into a YES.

Making NO a YES 

It’s not as hard as it sounds if you start with one NO at a time. Do not try to bite off more than you can chew (pun intended). For example if you answered NO to “I can be social and attend any events” write down why you feel like you can’t attend. Maybe it’s things like:

  • The menu makes me nervous
  • I’m afraid I’ll go over my points
  • What if they don’t have anything I can eat on plan?

Ways to tackle that and make a YES might be:

  • Ask or call ahead and see if you can get the menu
  • Fill up on zero point foods before you go and pretrack the next two to three meals to make sure you get right back on plan
  • If it’s an event where you can bring a dish, take something on plan. If not make sure you are at the end of the serving line or carry around a zero/low point beverage until you decide what to have 

 

Your homework for last week was #NoMeansYes. Find one of the 7 statements from your Weekly that you had to answer NO to. Write down 3 reasons you think it’s a NO and then 3 things you can do to make it a YES this week! ….and then type it, snap it, share it however you like, and then tag me for your next cool badge!

Let’s see how you did!

  • Julie was all yes when she took this little quiz and you know why? She has invested a lot of time surrounding herself with people who support her, writing herself notes to remind what was planned, and checking menus before she ever arrives!
  • Orlando Debbi and I turned a half thumb to a thumb’s up on Sunday by finding a restaurant we could get into without a reservation, looking over the menu before we made any decisions, and ordering two delicious side salads with our meals that we could share and try both!
  • John gets an honorable mention this week for agreeing to only eat one big meal out per day at Disney, eating at the campsite while we chillaxed at least once per day, and taking me to Publix after driving 10 hours to make sure I had what I needed!

Bravo, you did it!

 

This Week’s Topic: How To Actually Achieve Your Goals

If you’ve never heard of the Goal-Gradient Effect look it up. It’s a real thing and many of our decisions are based on how close we are to the goal! The basic definition of goal-gradient effect is “the closer we get to a goal, the harder we will try to achieve it”.

 

Last week’s drive to Disney was a perfect example of how getting closer to our goal makes us work harder to get there. For the first 5 hours of the trip all I could think was “this is going to take 10 hours or more…that’s forever” and took every opportunity to get out of the truck at every stop. After John made “the last stop for fuel before we get there” I unconsciously didn’t need to get out and stretch, didn’t have the urge to pee, we were getting close…I could smell pixie dust and that last hour literally flew by because we were so close to our goal!

Weight loss and wellness goals are no different. A goal of 70,000 steps a week sounds absolutely crazy right? No wonder fitness devices reward us at the end of each 10,000 step day…I’m much more likely to push to get that last 500 steps in one day!

Don’t know how to start? Here are 3 ways to break it all down:

 

Move your marbles 

Seriously, move ‘em. Instead of ticking off each pound, why not designate a higher number to a marble. Each time you reach that number you move one over into another jar. So instead of 100 marbles, maybe designate 10 pounds to 10 marbles. Moving 10 marbles sounds a lot less intimidating than 100, and when you get to marble 9 and 10 I bet your goal-gradient moves in for the win!

 

Post It Pin Up 

When I have an overwhelming list of things to do, goals to reach, etc I find a very calming and rewarding method of completing them is by using post it notes pinned to a corkboard (or small pieces of paper taped to the fridge or a door). If the completed post represents something specific (like last week for Disney I did little Mickey heads) I even draw a simple reminder of why I’m doing the tasks in the upper corner. As I complete each one I stack them on top of each other so that a) I’m clearing the space and b) I can see my accomplishments literally stacking up. Once I get to that last couple the tasks just suddenly jump up on that tack!

 

Compartmentalize it 

If you are working on something that can be measured (remind me to tell you my least favorite but true “quantify” story sometime…) don’t measure it all out at one time. Much like the overwhelming 70,000 steps a week, something like looking at 3 cups of vegetables or 60 ounces of water can be daunting. Try putting the 3 cups of vegetables into 6 each ½ cup containers so you can work in a little at each meal or snack, see the empty containers as you move towards your goal, and by the end of the day your goal-gradient may just have you adding a whole cup to your last meal to #bulkitup and wrap up your day!

 

This Week’s Homework: #GoalGetter

Your homework for this week is #GoalGetter. Find one goal that you can go get by using one of my methods above (or one of your own!) ….and then type it, snap it, share it however you like, and then tag me for your next cool badge!

Don’t forget to do your homework #GoalGetter and tag me when you share on social media!

 

Extra Credit: Disney Detox and a CopyCat Recipe!

We are officially back from Disney! I had someone in Sunday School this morning ask if we were glad to be back…without even looking at each other, John and I simultaneously answered “no” hahaha. Honestly, if Casey and Allan had been willing or able to just ship us the girls down we would have gladly stayed another week 🙂

 

But here we are, back on terra firma and feeling the weight of our trip. Literally.  

In years past we came back miserable, tummies messed up, and staring at quite a few pounds to take care of. As many of you plan and prepare for spring and summer trips of your own, I’m going to share what went well, what could have gone differently, the plan for now that we are back home, AND a special bonus copycat recipe from the trip!

Collateral damage:

  1. 3 pounds for John, a little over 2 for me
  2. My feet were stiff and swollen on the trip back
  3. No tummy trouble for either of us (whoop!)

What went well:

  1. We planned and prepped food for the trip down and stuck with it. No impromptu fast food, Peanut M&Ms, or wild side trips
  2. The selections we made at Publix for keeping at the camper were reasonable and pretty close to what I had planned (yogurt, hard boiled eggs, light lunch meat, slider size buns, fruit, fat free milk, etc…)
  3. We took time to rest each day and still averaged 12,000 to 16,000 steps
  4. John packed our bikes and other than sore bottoms we did get in quite a few miles on them rather than riding the bus or renting a golf cart

What could have gone better: 

  1. I bought a bag of snack mix from Aldi before the trip…it was deemed evil a few days in 🙂
  2. I bought 4 ripe bananas and 4 very green bananas. The very green bananas are still pretty green so we didn’t get to eat them during the trip. I also accidentally left two of the ripe bananas on the table outside the camper…did you know squirrels can peel bananas?
  3. Even trying to cut back on food without the kids / grandkids there I still bought too much and we had to get creative to consume the perishables the last two meals

Where we could still make improvements:

  1. Sodium. My feet were so tight and swollen on the trip home it was uncomfortable.  
  2. Tracking. I didn’t, at all. I had planned to even on the “two on, one off” but I didn’t track anything but exercise through my Apple Watch.
  3. Drinking more water. We realized a couple of days in we were both more than a quart low. We had purchased enough water to finish them on the last day…we had way too many left.

Getting back on track:

  1. Lots of water!
  2. Grapefruit and overnight oats for the next three mornings to start the day
  3. NO ADDED SODIUM for the next three days
  4. Walking with Karen today and tomorrow morning
  5. Pre-tracking my next six meals

 

Bonus: Copycat The Polite Pig Seasonal Asparagus and Blueberry Salad!

When we met Orlando Debbi for dinner right before the chat on Sunday night she suggested a walk up restaurant called The Polite Pig.  We had failed to believe the new reservation system actually applied to us and had not made any reservations prior to arrival. Debbi saved the day by suggesting somewhere we could walk up, that had tables and would have some selections that wouldn’t completely derail the day. Two suggestions she made were side salads that were unusual, fantastic, but sadly one of them seasonal. I enjoyed it so much I decided to copy it at home and share it with you!

View the full recipe here: http://www.ifyouhaveanegg.com/seasonal-asparagus-and-blueberry-salad/

 

Quick Links:


Don’t forget to celebrate your Bravos with our downloadable stickers!

Need to know where to get something I mentioned? Check out the recommendations section to get all my favorite goodies.

 

Tags

Comments are closed.