In June, I had my annual exam and wanted to address my weight frustrations with my doctor. I’ve been asking my PCP for years why I can’t lose weight and she never offers any advice or blood work; she just shrugs and says it’s not a big deal. Maybe to her, it’s not a big deal, but for me, it feels like I am constantly working hard to be healthy and my weight stays the same. I want to be within the normal amounts on the BMI and not just slightly above, so it is important to me to be able to lose a little weight to get there.

When the new year started, I went back to yoga and was eating healthier. I felt like I wanted to put the healthiest of foods into my system and while I saw a change in how my clothes fit and noticed that my strength was increasing and 5k times were decreasing, I did not see any movement on the scale. How frustrating! I know that non-scale victories are important and I am typically all about them but when you’re trying to drop 15 pounds to hit a goal, they don’t seem as important.

At my annual, my doctor told me to try WW. She’d done it the previous summer when she wanted to lose 10 pounds. Apparently, she’d gone to a conference with a nutritionist who recommended it due to the nature of the glycemic index of the foods. Okay, I figured this seemed good enough and I gave it a go. I ordered the app and started using it.

The app is easy enough and the setup with the zero point foods works well for me. I learned that most of the foods I naturally eat are zero point foods and it seems that where I lose my healthy eating is when I miss lunch and then start to snack at about 2PM and that lasts until dinner where I continue to eat and eat and eat. This is a trend that I noticed pretty quickly (and was aware of it to some extent before this). I used the app from June-August with minimal deliberate exercise (walking the dog and at the beach, mostly) and lost just under 10 pounds. This was good enough for me.

I think that there is value to the program but I can also see how it could feel restrictive or too tightly wound. I am considering canceling this month and using my instincts in September. When we did Whole30, I was able to largely cut out snacking unless I’m actually hungry, which is good and with this, I need to keep in mind that even if I’m not super hungry at lunch, I need to eat. I am thinking that being armed with these pieces of information can help me devise my own plan that mixes pieces of what I want and need.

While I can appreciate the approach, and I see that it definitely works, I think that I need something a bit more fluid. I don’t want to be tracking calories or points or anything else with any regularity. I think that I need to find the balance I once had where I could eat anything but I can’t eat everything; that is the mindset that works best for me.

My goal for September is going to be to eat more salads and raw vegetables with the Greek yogurt ranch for lunches. Dinners are typically loaded with vegetables anyway, but I’d like to get more during the day. I also want to try and keep the frozen foods I like more for weekend treats. We love to do Sunday Funday Football foods — wings; wontons; dips… I want to keep the rest of the week simple: stews, soups, meat & potatoes, etc all with vegetables. I’m looking forward to getting back to the cookbooks in the fall and finding meals that work for us all while lacing an occasional Sunday brunch at home in there (complete with sparking juice and fanc-i-fied meals).

So, while I think WW has been a good summer experiment and I think it’s a good way to start and evaluate what and how I eat, it is likely not something I’ll want to continue long term.