Weight Watchers: The First Meeting

So, I just joined weight watchers. First time doing weight watchers and I'm rather excited. The meeting had a sense of high energy and everyone was rather welcoming. The website said to get there a half hour early so I did. In the spirit of starting fresh I decided to walk there. Google estimated a 22 min walk so I planned for 30 mins and left with an extra ten mins ahead of it.

When I arrived I had that startled deer look to me apparently but everyone was really nice and welcoming. I felt at ease in no time and filled out a clip board, opted for the pay as you go option and was directed to the back room to weigh in. I was a tad bit excited as when I last weighed myself I was under the 200 mark and at a size 18. Well I moved down to a size 16 so I was hoping to see myself under 175 but... to my dismay I was sad to see that I was now at 215 lbs.

They printed out a sticker and one of the booklets they give you is called  Point Plus Weight record and it has a spot for the stickers they print out that tell you how much you weigh your first target goal second target goal and what your daily points are for the week to follow as well as your enrollment and how much you paid. For the starting meeting it's by itself on the back of the front cover and then across from it starting with week one  there's the spot for the stickers and a little note section for next to the sticker.

Also you get the points plus Pocket guide and in the back of the pocket guide, that is your little cheat sheet on what's what in point value, is a little folder flap for you to put your record booklet in. It's also just big enough for a polaroid picture as well which i happened to have a picture from when I was in the navy that is a motivation of what I can get back down to. I think I should see if I can't get someone to take a picture of me facing them and then to the side and email it to me so I can do a photo journal as well. Put the photos on my photobucket and link them here as I go.

During the meeting they talk about any successes people had since the last week and whatever directive they have for their members this week. Like this one is to try 5 new foods so to not get caught up in the monotomy of your food and overeat. The entire time it was rather motivational and some of the stories people shared were just hysterical. It was rather lively and fun.

After the meeting for those of us that were new, myself and a mother/daughter pair, we sat down with the meeting leader and she explained the program to us. Their kits, cook book, and what weight watchers were about. She made it clear that you didn't have to buy anything they sold and that we got everything we needed but that what they did sell were tools to help make things easier should we choose. She also explained etools which is an added feature you get when you do the monthly meetings rate instead of paying as you go weekly. I opted for pay as you go as I was utilizing money the Easter bunny left in eggs to go. Incidently the weekly rate is 13 dollars. To simply pay by the Month it's something like 40 bucks a month. My stepdad might be helping me with this if I'm lucky since I'm not drawing in much of an income at the moment.

They have a Essentials kit and a deluxe kit for 30 and 45 ish if i'm remembering correctly but what I saw as what would be good was:

The Weight Watchers Weekly Portfolio which is basically a rectangular blue expanding folder that has velcro spots to hold down the flap with a cute bit of pictures on there and is rather aesthetically pleasing actually.

The Ultimate 3 Month Tracker for monitoring your daily and weekly progress. The first page has a spot for weeks 1 through 12 for your weight, loss/gain, and Total loss gain to be caculated as well as above that chart your starting weight, and a box for two goals and what your ultimate wight loss goal is.


The last thing, but certainly not the least, would be the weight watchers Point Plus Calculator.

All three of them came to a total of just under 18 bucks. If you do the etools a good 98% of the recipes (if not the same they're similar i'm told) that are in the cookbooks in the kits are in the etools. Still I am eventually going to attempt to get the Deluxe kit if only to have all of the cookbooks in print (I like cookbooks you can't ever have enough) and another 3 Month tracker. Plus a secondary calculator. It's always good to have a back up. Incidently the tracker, pocket guide, and the calculator have already gone straight into my purse.

Oh and did I mention they have an app for smart phones for the point stuff? So it just makes it easier. They also gave me a two week free trial to the etools. Etools is free with a subscription to the Monthly Pass for the meetings.

Watch this spot for soon I will update it with my starting picture and my motivational picture once I remember to scan the polaroid in.