Weight Watchers Chat #347: “How to Set Goals That Work for You!”

News and Reviews

Welp, sorry I went AWOL…we have the flu over Christmas and mine developed into bronchitis. There is alot already going on this year including app changes, un changes and rechanges. I’ll try to stay under control for the cough long enough to do tonight’s chat and then hopefully we can dig into all this next week!
Julie in our IYHAE Facebook Group is hosting some great challenges starting this week. Here are details and you can get more by joining / reading in our group

Here’s the Challenge rotation:
VEGETABLE CHALLENGE
TRACK IT CHALLENGE
WORKOUT CHALLENGE
WATER CHALLENGE
LEAN PROTEIN CHALLENGE
SWAP FOR LESS POINTS CHALLENGE
It’ll repeat every 6 weeks to keep us motivated, starting over, or trying something new. If you have another idea I’ll be glad to add it into the rotation.

Review Last Week: Last week was Chat #346 “Speed Up Meal Planning!!”

Speed up meal planning? It’s 8 days until Christmas, 13 days until Casey’s 30th bday, 14 days until Alyssa’s 6th birthday, Casey and Allan’s anniversary AND New Year’s Eve. Speed up my meal planning…I need someone to DO my meal planning!

Who’s list for the next couple of weeks sounds similar?

3 fast meal planning ideas from WW

Short on time?

Leaning on pre cooked, low prep, or even frozen meals can help! Things like:

Rotisserie Chicken (debone and use for quick meals throughout the week)
Pre washed & chopped veggies and fruits
Even frozen dinners with an added can of peas or corn to #bulkitup

Missing or limited ingredients?

If you go to make something and realize you are missing an ingredient:

Send out an SOS in your favorite WW group or on Connect for suggestions on what to use as a substitute
Switch gears if you can and make something with what you DO have

All Recipes.com has a list of over 70 common kitchen ingredients and their best substitution on their website here! This chart is courtesy of www.allrecipes.com

Just not in the mood?

It’s ok! Baking and making doesn’t bring joy to everyone and actually stresses out many of us. Try one of these ideas:

Setting aside one day to make a recipe ahead and that can be used multiple meals like chili, soup, baking multiple potatoes, or something you can divide and freeze
Enlist family or friends. Casey and I like batch making my cream cheese sausage balls, have found a new breakfast casserole that can be frozen courtesy of our friend Lilly, and spent this weekend collecting some easy to throw together things like sandwiches and already cut up fruit
Make it a double! This time of year I usually make two batches of whatever it is I’m taking the time to make and then freeze the second one. It only take a little extra time and saves so much headache when it’s time to take the second batch out of the freezer!

Your homework was #MakeItADouble. What is something you are making in the next couple of weeks that you could easily double up?

Let’s see how you did:

Madison made a double batch of individual peanut butter cheesecakes for only 3 points each. They looked delicious!
Deanna always doubles soup and uses the extra for lunches!
Julie made homemade split pea soup with lots of veggies for 2 points accompanied with a slice of crusty bread for 4 pts. 6 pts for dinner and MediterraneanDiet friendly! (The rest she will freeze for when she goes back to work)

Bravo, you did it!

This Week’s Topic: “How to Set Goals That Work For You!”

Over the years we have chatted and chatted and chatted about STAR goals. This was once was of my least favorite topics with WW and now that I fully understand and embrace the “do” instead of the “don’t” it’s one of my favorites!

Here’s how they break it down!

4 Steps to a Perfect for YOU STAR Goal:

Specific

Goals don’t have to be big, they don’t even have to be fancy. But they do need to be very specific. If you can’t measure the results you’ll never know how you did. An old “friend” that I had a love/hate work relationship with called that quantifiable. If you can’t quantify your results you don’t have any results.

Instead of “workout more” try being specific like “workout 20 minutes a day, 3 days this week”

Truly Doable

Whatever the goal is, it needs to be truly doable in one week’s time.

A goal of meal prepping 7 days this week when you work doubles 5 of those days isn’t going to happen. Instead how about “I will meal prep with my daughter on Sunday this week so we both have meals ready for this busy week coming up”

Actionable

This is the “do” instead of “not do” I mentioned earlier. Not only can you not measure (quantify) what you have NOT done, the negativity that surrounds those thoughts sometimes kills it before you start.

Rather than set a goal to “not” eat snacks after dinner, try something like “this week I will drink a sugar free hot cocoa or read that book I’ve been meaning to start when I feel like an after dinner snack”

Relevant

This is YOUR goal, not mine or hers or his…YOURS. Just because your neighbor’s twin sister’s cousin thinks you should check out her extreme low carb, high intensity workout routine it doesn’t mean that goal aligns with yours. Make it relevant, make it yours.

This Week’s Homework: #ShootForTheSTAR

Your homework for this week is #ShootForTheSTAR. This week I want ALL OF YOU because you have not had homework in two weeks to choose one goal that you can make Specific, Truly Doable, Is Actionable, and Relevant to your journey. Now DO YOUR HOMEWORK because I promise there is someone who needs the idea you have already rattling around in your head. Whatever it is let us know, I promise your decision to participate this week will help you AND someone else! 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 #ShootForTheSTAR and tag me when you share on social media!

Tag @ifyouhaveanegg on Instagram
Tag @ifyouhaveanegg on our Facebook Page
Tag @Kelly Green Milligan in our Facebook Group
Tag @ifyouhaveanegg on WW Connect

Extra Credit: Carbs & Cough Drops

Christmas Eve our oldest granddaughter Alyssa started this random hacky cough but she didn’t seem sick so we kept forging ahead with holiday plans. Christmas Day the fevers started erupting for her, her little sister Beau and my daughter’s mother in law. By the day after we were all laid up in the bed, on the couch, anywhere we could stay warm and be tended to by an amazing husband, dad and Papaw. Bless his heart he tried to make us well, but for days we all lived on nothing but carbs and cough drops. We all ended up having the flu but mine has settled in my chest as bronchitis.

I doubt I’ll make it the entire 30 minutes this second half so here is my quick take on how to deal with carbs, cough drops, and just the general crud while not losing your WW mind.

Rest, your exercise plan will be there when you get back

I am not happy about the super low number of steps or in general any activity during this illness. But I also know that not resting like I should earned me the secondary bronchitis I’m dealing with now. Rest, your exercise plan will be waiting for you.

Even if you don’t track, at least recognize what’s going in your mouth

This met with HEAVY debate when I posted the results earlier this week. I knew I had a 2.8 pound weight gain to wrap my head around and needed to have some record of this two week’s events to put a name on it. Sometimes just naming the situation can allow you to put it to the side and not start a downward spiral. Here were my options on what to remind myself really happened and how I could move forward:

Option 1 – too much holiday food caused the weight gain: not really true, it would have been easy to blame but we barely ate and I certainly didn’t enjoy much of what went in my mouth!

Option 2 – WW kept fiddling with the app and it made me gain weight: welllll yeah they were fiddling but I’ve been doing this long enough that a few glitches wouldn’t derail me 2.8 pounds

Option 3 – calculating the “non food” things that were going in my mouth: this option was almost volatile when I posted it. Seems no one (including me) wants to know or much less record how many points a week’s worth of cough drops, Ibuprofen, sports drinks, honey and basically no activity add up to. It’s a lot. But what I can say is that writing it down, saying it out loud, took the power away from 2.8 pounds of a temporary situation!

Make a STAR Goal based on what you need

This nagging bronchitis still has me tired, prone to uncontrollable coughing fits and winded very easily so I made a STAR goal for ME that hits the mark this week. And when the prednisone is done, I’ll set another one for next week and the next and we’ll see how fast I can kick the 2.8 pounds of carbs and cough drops to the curb!

Specific: I haven’t had any veggies to speak of the last two weeks so I joined Julie’s veggie challenge in our Facebook Group. I will #BulkItUp one meal a day with veggies for the next 7 days

Truly Doable: I took a slow stroll around the store today (very slow, can’t believe how winded I still am!) and stocked up on fresh, canned and frozen veggies plus some plant based frozen meals and bagged salads to make it easy

Actionable: I will be bulking up my veggies not “not” eating carbs or cough drops

Relevant: I know my body, it craves vegetables and I know I will heal faster if I get these in. The veggie challenge might not be what you need to focus on this week but it’s right for me!

What’s your STAR Goal for this week? Comment below!