Whew! My month of crazy travel has finally come to a close. In the past four weeks, I’ve been to Florida (bachelorette party), North Carolina (sister’s graduation), Virginia (friend’s wedding), and yesterday, I got back from Fire Island, NY (a pre-celebration for Sonny’s birthday, which is today!). These trips have been a lot of fun in their own way, but I’m ready to chill out for a few weeks (especially since I’m wrapping up a few projects at my job, taking some time off, and then starting a new job in mid-July!).
I also had the pleasure of enjoying some fresh juice with Status Quoman yesterday (she’s in town for a few days—woo hoo!). After awhile, our conversation turned to ww. I told her that I’ve decided to stop going to meetings. There are a few reasons for this:
- In the course of the last few months, I’ve realized that my goal is not compatible with the goals of the other people in my meeting. I want to have a healthy attitude about food, and most of the people in my meeting are —not surprisingly—pretty fixated on weight loss.
- This blog (and all of you!) have become my support system in that quest.
- I am at a healthy weight for my height.
- My new job is pretty far from my old meeting, and I won’t be able to get to it on time after work.
- I’ve internalized ww’s system for counting calories, and use it on a daily basis without really thinking about it now as a way of keeping portion sizes in check.
- I’d rather spend the $ on yoga!! Especially since I found out about Yoga to the People’s hot yoga classes!!!
But most of all, I want to stay true to the original intent of this blog, and leaving ww is a way of freeing myself of the pressure to lose weight. I already eat healthy food, and I love to exercise, so if I continue practicing intuitive eating and cooking most of my meals, I know I’ll find my “happy weight” eventually. WW puts unnecessary pressure on me to speed up the process.
Obviously, I owe a lot to ww, and I don’t want to shortchange them on this post. I’ve found a LOT of inspiration at meetings, and their program has helped me look at food objectively and learned to be more consistent in how much I feed myself. But I know that it’s time to move on.
WHEW!! It feels good to get that out! I absolutely love the feeling of eliminating unnecessary stressors/expenditures from my life
.
Have you gotten rid of any stress lately?
June 2, 2009 at 8:40 pm
you’ve been everywhere!
and good job for making that decision for YOU and for the reasons you did
we have more in common than you think! (more to come about that later).
I have a lot of the same feelings for ww that you do, so I definitely appreciate and understand this post.
Yay for getting rid of stress!
June 2, 2009 at 9:08 pm
happy birthday to sonny! and i’m SO excited about the ww news (and that you finally can take a break from the whirlwind traveling!). it was wonderful while i did it and i learned a TON, but ultimately i stopped because i didn’t want to be as fixated on the loss as on the overall health and finding a way to hold MYSELF accountable for ME. so glad YOU feel free and happy about the decision! how much are the yttp classes?
June 2, 2009 at 10:44 pm
YAY for being back in Brooklyn and relaxing
Happy bday to Sonny! I’d love to hear about your new job…perhaps over dinner? On the 12th?
June 2, 2009 at 11:12 pm
Yoga to the People! I was just talking to some people about going to that… I’m going to a different hot yoga studio tonight but I’m excited. Good luck with your new job! And hooray for your new healthy attitude towards weight loss
June 3, 2009 at 1:25 am
congrats!
you know YTTP has free podcasts online right? I’ve done a few. they’re decent.
trying to stop being so hard on myself is letting go of some stress
June 3, 2009 at 2:54 am
Congratulations!
I am so proud of you and that you’re happy with where you are! WW is a great foundation and once you learn some of the principles it is easy to step back and figure out how to use it in your individual world.
I’m sure you know about this but Lululemon offers free classes ach week and Melissa had a post this week about other free NYC yoga offerings around the city. There is one on LIC each week too!’
June 3, 2009 at 12:17 pm
Wow, what a lot of traveling – sounds fun though!
I think it’s wonderful that you are making decisions to do what’s best for you, and I also think it’s great that you’ve found such a good support system through the blogging community! A lot of people talk about intuitive eating, but really to have a healthy lifestyle you need to be intuitive about your whole life, including decisions of when it’s best for you to move on from a ww program – way to go!
June 5, 2009 at 9:50 am
hi vani…..
you have been having lots of fun………..came here after a long time n this ( n the next one too) post of your;s played like a wake up call for me………….
i have to get back to my exercise …….i need it the most .now.