Are You There Vegan? It's me, Slacker.

I have not lost grasp of my goal, to be healthier for myself, my family, and for my patients. I don't want to be on medication unnecessarily and I don't want to spend thousands of dollars at a chiropractor. But I am not perfect and like most humans, I fail from time to time ( No comments, please). I have remained mostly vegetarian and even mostly vegan. I have been making better health choices and have increased my activity. What I have failed to do was pay attention to what I was eating and how much, especially between Christmas and New Years. No surprise there. Which means that if I mostly have been making vegetarian or vegan meal choices, I have had to fall back in one area or another and those areas were portion control, wine consumption, and  and the occasional Christmas treat.

You know that a patient is going to be with you for a while when the family brings in the Christmas tree and this year, as usual, we had such that patient. She is a sweet lady and so is her family. Unfortunately, her daughter can bake a killer chocolate bunt cake. It was by far the best cake that I have ever tasted. I ate three pieces of cake that day, justifying that they were small pieces.......Really? How small were they, you ask? I'm not really sure if they were that small, but that's what I told myself as I ate the third piece. I'm sure that it was a busy day and it was just easier to grab the sweets in the kitchen than to go and get something from the locker room, but after the first piece, I have no excuses.

I was doing so well in late October and November. I lost 6 lbs and was increasing my "jalking" distance and was feeling good. I enjoyed a family wedding in Florida over Thanksgiving and managed to stick to my vegan diet (except for a bite of turkey) and went for a jalk most days that we were there. Unfortunately, December did not share November's motivation. In the month of December I gained back the 6lbs, plus 1 for good measure. I had to do something because I didn't want to go down this road of failure attempts again. My goals are still the same, but obviously something was missing and that something was portion control and accountability, so on December 26th, the day after Christmas, I gave myself a present and  I joined Weight Watchers.

I joined weight watchers and believe that it will be the best thing that I have ever done for myself. I have the whole package, the meetings and the e-tools (remember my obsession with food?) and I am having so much fun. I weigh everything I eat and I plan on what I am going to eat. Weight Watchers has given me the tools that I was missing, portion control and accountability. The motivation was already there, I just needed something more. Today was my second meeting and I weighed in 5lbs less than last week, which was surprising because I din't feel that I deprived myself of anything. I just wrote it down, made healthy food choices and got moving again. This morning I went to a yoga class and this evening I went back to the Y with my son and jalked 2miles. I am feeling gooood!

Have you seen Jennifer Hudson lately?