Update -- what seems to be working

At the end of November, I entered my second year on Weight Watchers.  Since I have an anxiety issue with weighing, I don't know exactly how much I've lost.  But it's around 60 pounds.  The two-year thing is notable to me because I have never stayed on an eating plan for more than a year.  I feel so relieved/excited/peaceful that I am not growing weary of this style of eating.  Naturally, I have not done everything perfectly.  But I have overall made great improvements in:  1) limiting the food volume of an overeating episode,  and 2) getting back on plan quickly.

I am also coming to a new acceptance of the fact that when I have to go out to eat, I can't account for points exactly.  I have come to believe that the eating-out occasion isn't going to mess me up unless I decide to let it throw me off even after the meal is over.  I normally make the best choices I can at a restaurant, I do not go crazy-off-plan just because I can't be perfect.

In addition to Weight Watchers, I have also been, for the last six months or so, abstaining from wheat.  Not surprisingly, that was after having read Wheat Belly.  My crazy mind tells me I also shouldn't have other starches, and I can't seem to shut that message off completely, so I don't have brown rice or potatoes too often. I don't know what  I will do when I am at goal with respect to starches -- can't wait to find out!

Oh, and I also avoid many/most packaged foods.  I DO use canned black beans and tomatoes and cheese and milk and a few other things.  But I don't use packaged meals or bars or dry cereal.  For me,  those foods are too hard to stop eating.  I make my own greek yogurt because it is way cheaper than buying it, and I use it every day.

I do think it is true that my constant hunger has gone away since I gave up wheat and packaged foods.  And when I'm not constantly hungry, then WILLPOWER no longer has to be such a big part of the equation.

The week before Christmas, I told my husband I was taking quite a number of bags to Value Village -- with all the clothes that had become too large.  He replied, "so you're willing to spend all the money to re-buy those clothes then?"  Well, I'll admit, his comment did keep me from going to Value Village that day.  He awakened that little fear deep inside that maybe one day I WILL lose my resolve and then I will be kicking myself when I have to spend more good money to buy fat clothes that I could still have had available.  I decided it would be dangerous to have to start worrying about what I'll wear if I lose my resolve.  Right now, I don't worry about that at all, and I don't want to start.  One day I really will be ready to get rid of that stuff.  I am not upset with my husband for his comment.  What should his reaction be after 35 years of my efforts?

There were times when I said I would never go back to Weight Watchers, even though it had worked for me in the past.  First, I had heard absolutely all the pep talks that were available anywhere on the planet.  Hearing them again was depressing, a reminder of my failures.  I tried points a couple times, and I did not mesh with those plans -- I had done better with the exchange plans.  Somehow I never seemed to have enough points, and the worst part was the anxiety this caused.  But when I happened to look at the site just around Thanksgiving 2010, and saw the PointsPlus was starting that week, I gave it a try and here I am!  I am doing it online, because I am still susceptible to getting depressed hearing all the happy talk at meetings that I failed to heed in the past.  I also have developed a fear of going to meetings now that I am "old."  I remember sort of discounting people like myself when I went to meetings as a younger person.  I know, shame on me.  It hurts terribly to feel disregarded by others.

But I have learned the lesson:  never stop searching for the answer.